[Board] [OSGeo-Conf] FOSS4G rotation

Mon Apr 15 05:10:54 PDT 2013

I agree with Barend on 1 & 2 and would probably agree about 3 but I don't know enough of the detail about what went wrong with the Beijing LOC

Steven Feldman
http://twitter.com/stevenfeldman
07958 924 101

On 15 Apr 2013, at 15:04, <b.j.kobben at utwente.nl> wrote:

> 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
> 
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