[Board] FOSS4G rotation

[Cameron Shorter]

In the last board meeting, the question was raised about global FOSS4G 
rotation.

we currently have a 3 way rotation policy: Europe 2013 / North America 
2014 / Rest of world 2015

It has been suggested that we should revisit this rotation policy, and 
consider:

Europe / North America / Europe / North America

Reasons:
* Previous global FOSS4G events have attracted more people and been more 
lucrative in Europe / North America
* Europe/North America could be argued to be less financially risky. Our 
one cancelled FOSS4G was in China in 2012.
* FOSS4G (global and regional) events traditionally draw half their 
attendance from the local region. Europe and North America both have 
large populations with established OSGeo communities.

I'm in favour of continuing our current 3 way rotation, on the proviso 
that there are proven OSGeo communities outside of NA/Europe. By proven, 
I'd suggest that we would consider regions which have already 
successfully staged a FOSS4G regional event (or similar) and who can put 
together a compelling justification that they can attract comparable 
attendees and sponsors to Europe/North America.

Looking at: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_History
I see that there have previously been regional FOSS4G events in:
Argentina
India
Korea
Malaysia
Japan

So for 2015, I'd suggest that our FOSS4G pre qualification should invite 
responses from "rest of the world" and Europe, but we should give a 
preference to "rest of world" assuming they can provide a compelling 
proposal which is likely to attract similar success to past European and 
North American conferences.

Generalising the rule. Our rotation policy should be:

* We give a strong preference to a region which hasn't had FOSS4G for 2 
years
* We next consider the region which had FOSS4G 2 years ago
* Only as a last resort would we consider a region which had FOSS4G last 
year

Regions are considered as: Europe / North America / Other locations

-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

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