[Board] acknowledging both sponsors vs participants

Sat Nov 21 16:10:42 PST 2015

If you would like to take this one on Cameron it would be great. As
indicated earlier it is worth grounding out our service providers page to
acknowledge those who participate and take on roles of responsibility.

I do not mind about the low/high capital discussion - I expect the
foundation to act within its available budget (money) and good will
(influence with participants). Money is "just" a force multiplier for our
volunteers and I do not want to see it act as too much of a distraction
from all the good work we have ahead of us. Reaching out to sponsors should
focus on this aspect of our organization and enable us all to do more.
On Sat, Nov 21, 2015 at 12:19 PM Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
wrote:

> <expanding this conversation to the OSGeo Discuss list>
>
> Hi Jody,
> You make valid points about different levels of contribution.
> They are equally valid for the OSGeo-Advocate page too.
> My key point is that we should use consistent taxonomy (terms) between
> different lists, so that it is easy for people to mix and match information
> between different sources. If need be, we potentially should be updating
> the terms used on the OSGeo-Advocate list to match terms used for OSGeo
> Sponsorship.
>
> I think that your struggle identifying sponsorship levels is probably
> systematic of something we have not fully acknowledged.
>
> *Namely, we within Open Source communities such as OSGeo value people's
> time more than we value money.*
>
> OSGeo people and companies contribute huge amounts of time into OSGeo
> projects, which is significantly more valuable to us than financial
> sponsorship. This time is usually given freely by individuals, from their
> spare time, or given freely by companies, who have worked out a way to give
> code back to open source code bases as part of paid work.
>
> A typical OSGeo volunteer developer gives ~ $50,000 worth of their time
> per year to OSGeo.
> (10 hrs/wk) * (50 wks/yr )* ($100/hr) = $50,000 p.a.
>
> I'd extend this further to suggest that we are a meritocracy, and we trade
> on reputation. Reputation is earned through a contribution of both time and
> the value of the advice given.
>
> What we are really looking for when discussing sponsorship levels is a way
> to describe the reputation of our members to those external to OSGeo.
>
> It doesn't feel quite right that a company can buy reputation (through
> sponsorship), and in particular, get greater acknowledgement and
> opportunities than someone who has worked hard and built a personal
> reputation based on merit within the community.
>
> With brings us back to the question of:
> Do we want to be a low capital or high capital organisation?
>
> Low capital = we trade on time and reputation, without much money changing
> hands. For the most part, finances are handled externally to OSGeo. I think
> this aligns with our natural DNA.
>
> High capital = first we chase sponsorship, then we hire people into paid
> positions. It means we need to spend quite a bit of time selling instead of
> developing, but it means we could pay for things like travel of key staff.
> It is a commercial business model, more closely aligned with how
> LocationTech has been set up.
>
> Both work. Both have advantages, but you can't have the best of both no
> downsides.
>
>
> On 22/11/2015 4:03 am, Jody Garnett wrote:
>
> Thanks for the archive link, does not quite capture the level of project
> commitment I was trying to capture. There is a vast difference between a
> contributor and committer. There is an equally vast difference between a
> committer and a maintainer (who has made an ongoing time commitment).
>
> For recognizing organizations we are focused o those who are providing an
> ongoing commitment. Perhaps it would be best not to have levels for this
> one and just list organizations who have made such a statement.
>
> If anyone has other ideas here it would be great, we are trying to figure
> out a way to acknowledge participating organizations based on time (rather
> than just sponsorship which relies on money - and can be an unjust
> measurement around the world ).
>
>
>
> On 21/11/2015 7:59 pm, Cameron Shorter wrote:
>
> Hi Jody,
> Yes, I've raised a ticket with the OSGeo SAC to look into it.
> Seems the page is too big, or there is something about the syntax on the
> page which doesn't work with the upgraded osgeo wiki.
> In the meantime, try the archive page here:
>
> https://web.archive.org/web/20150302070905/http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Advocate#Understanding_OSGeo_roles
>
> On 21/11/2015 6:43 pm, Jody Garnett wrote:
>
> The link you provided does respond? Is it correct ..
>
> --
> Jody Garnett
>
> On 20 November 2015 at 02:16, Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 20/11/2015 1:58 am, Jody Garnett wrote:
>>
>>> - Leadership - project steering committee or similar responsible for
>>> decision making
>>> - Maintainer - module maintainer, responsible for code reviews, release,
>>> build server or some other aspect of project health and happiness.
>>> - Committer - obtained commit permission on a project
>>> - Contributor - submitted functionality or fix that passed code review
>>> and was included in a release
>>>
>>
>> Hi Jody,
>> When selecting roles, I suggest aligning with the terms used by the OSGeo
>> Advocate page:
>>
>> https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Advocate#Understanding_OSGeo_roles
>>
>> --
>> Cameron Shorter,
>> Software and Data Solutions Manager
>> LISAsoft
>> Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
>> 26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
>>
>> P +61 2 9009 5000,  W www.lisasoft.com,  F +61 2 9009 5099
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Board mailing list
>> Board at lists.osgeo.org
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board
>
>
>
> --
> Cameron Shorter,
> Software and Data Solutions Manager
> LISAsoft
> Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
> 26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
>
> P +61 2 9009 5000,  W www.lisasoft.com,  F +61 2 9009 5099
>
>
> --
> Cameron Shorter,
> Software and Data Solutions Manager
> LISAsoft
> Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
> 26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
>
> P +61 2 9009 5000,  W www.lisasoft.com,  F +61 2 9009 5099
>
> --
--
Jody Garnett
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