[Board] [OSGeo-Conf] FOSS4G rotation

Mon Apr 15 02:34:59 PDT 2013

Hia ll,

I am not a board member nor a conference committee member, but I feel an
urgent need to give my opinion here.

I grow uncomfortable by some of the trends that seem to "logically follow"
(note the quotes, and yes I am exaggerating on purpose) from this
discussion:
1)- FOSS4G events are there to make money
2)- non NA/Europe events don't make (enough) money
3)- non NA/Europe events get badly organized (see Beijng)

Proposition 1 already makes me feel itchy. How can you 'charge' FOSS4G
main event organizers with being a cash cow ("expecting a $50K profit") if
at the same time encouraging (allowing?) other events to be organised that
almost certainly will cannabilise the main event (Foss4G-NA, FOSS4g CEE)
on which events you put no obligation to make money? I think we need a
two-year cycle: one year the main conference and other years regional ones
(i.e. ones actively supported by OSGEO "central", what the regional
chapters do on their own is their own responsibility).

Proposition 2 is touching a nerve because I work at an institute that is
about capacity building for lesser developed countries. I think part of
OSGEO is promoting the use of FOSS, and bringing knowledge and experience
and enthousiasm about that to the places in the world that would profit
most from it is a good cause that is worth doing even if it brings you
less or no money. By all means subsidize the LDC meetings with profits
from the Europe/NA ones. Call me a specialist, but I prefer some
solidarity in this...

Proposition 3 is plain not true. The South Africa FOSS4G was excellent in
my opinion, the Beijng one failed because of insufficient control
mechanisms (either in place or just not followed up on) to check on a
local organisation that chooses to do its own thing completely independent
of 'OSGEO central'. Could have happened with self-centered stubborn Dutch
organizers just as well, and certainly at least part of the blame should
be on the 'OSGEO central' shoulders...

Yours truly,

--
Barend Köbben 
Senior Lecturer, ITC - University of Twente,
Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation
PO Box 217, 7500AE Enschede (The Netherlands)

On 13-04-13 14:30, "Cameron Shorter" <cameron.shorter at gmail.com> wrote:

>Frank,
>I agree that a compelling proposal should include meeting foss4g
>financial expectations.
>
>For the record, the last board meeting discussed changing guidelines for
>foss4g budgets from expecting a $20K profit under conservative estimates,
>to a $50K profit. (This would typically result in a $100K+ profit under
>expected conditions).
>
>David Bitner, pointed out that a $100K profit spread across 1000
>attendees equates to $100 extra per delegate, which is a good point, but
>should be tempered against the variability of FOSS4G attendees, and the
>high impact on profits this has. Looking back at
> an old foss4g budget, I extrapolated some profit figures:
>
>Attendees: Profit
>1000: $58K
>900: $35K
>800: $11K
>700: -$11K
>600: -$35K
>500: -$58K
>
>While I made some gross generalisations in my extrapolation, the take
>home message is that fixed costs of a large conference such as FOSS4G are
>very high, and consequently, a small percentage increase or decrease in
>attendance has high impact on profitability.
>So if we want to ensure a worst case scenario of 500 delegates will break
>even, then we should expect to make a $110K profit for an expected
>attendance of 1000.
>
>On 13/04/13 08:10, Frank Warmerdam wrote:
>
>
>Cameron,
>
>
>I feel this question ties into the expected revenue to some degree.  I'm
>personally fine with your suggestion with the caveat that we should
>expect a "compelling proposal" to meet our revenue generation guidelines
>which is (IMHO) going to be hard
> to do if aim for $50K revenue in the conservative case.
>
>
>I'm also fairly flexible on this who issue, but I *feel* like every time
>we have a revenue discussion we come up with one set of conclusions, but
>somehow we fail to actually apply those conclusion when setting
>requirements for the conference.
>
>
>Best regards,
>Frank
>
>
>
>
>
>On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 2:24 PM, Cameron Shorter
><cameron.shorter at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>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
><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 <tel:%2B61%20%280%292%208570%205050>
>Mob: 
>+61 (0)419 142 254 <tel:%2B61%20%280%29419%20142%20254>
>
>Think Globally, Fix Locally
>Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
>http://www.lisasoft.com
>
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>
>
>
>
>-- 
>---------------------------------------+----------------------------------
>----
>I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam,
>warmerdam at pobox.com <mailto:warmerdam at pobox.com>
>light and sound - activate the windows |
>http://pobox.com/~warmerdam <http://pobox.com/%7Ewarmerdam>
>and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Software Developer
>
>
>
>
>
>-- 
>Cameron Shorter
>Geospatial Solutions Manager
>Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
>Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
>
>Think Globally, Fix Locally
>Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
>http://www.lisasoft.com