[Board] Board task: finalize liability agreement with FOSS4G 2016 committee

Tue Oct 6 01:54:19 PDT 2015

Dear all,

I am just an ordinary OSGeo member (not a Board member), and had been following these discussions on this over some weeks. I understand that lot of our experienced volunteers in the conference committee have put their  time and efforts going through the agreement for Bonn .As it is  approved by the whole OSGeo Conference Committee, we should have full confidence in the decision. My humble request to all is let us all think of how we can support the Bonn LOC so that we can ensure a successful FOSS4G conference in 2016. Esp. with time critical decisions , i request the Board to work as a team and make this possible. Thank you all for the amazing work you all do for OSGeo Board.

Best wishes,

Suchith

________________________________
From: board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] on behalf of Jeff McKenna [jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com]
Sent: Monday, October 05, 2015 9:57 PM
To: Massimiliano Cannata
Cc: osgeo-board List
Subject: Re: [Board] Board task: finalize liability agreement with FOSS4G 2016 committee

Hi Maxi, all of your answers are in the original document link I provided.  If no objections I will call a vote for this on Thursday.  If you have objections, please meet with me on Thursday, I will work around your schedule.   We need to get this in place for the 2016 committee.

As for 2017 and beyond, we will use the same document as a start, but each year brings new players to the table.

-Jeff

On Oct 5, 2015 5:44 PM, Massimiliano Cannata <massimiliano.cannata at supsi.ch> wrote:

Hi Jeff
I'm not blocking anything.
I just want that a discussion in the board happen. Did you call a vote? Maybe i've missed it. You ask for a comment and i did it. I just want a discussion and to understand what is the point of view of people.. not just +1 or -1. I have motivated several time my view of things but not many comment was raised.

I talked with Till in Seoul and i'm not blocking him and Bonn.

So what is the decison? Are we going to give 100k euro for all the  coming events with 100K max liability? What is the % of revenue thay go back to osgeo? What are the obligations for organizers? Hosting the osgeo community meeting in the middle of the event with no other presentations or things going on? There is a maximum fee? Shall the conference pay for president flight and allowance?

The document addressed this? This are to me the rules we need... and not just passing a motion and then the next year find out to be in the same situation....

Just my 1 cent of swiss franc ;-)

maxi

Il 05/Ott/2015 22:12, "Jeff McKenna" <jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com<mailto:jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com>> ha scritto:
Hi Maxi,

What do you mean by "rule", can you give an example?  The document that was created by the OSGeo Conference Committee, the Bon LOC, and some board members (including myself) will be used for each upcoming FOSS4G event (that we have such a document now is a great thing).  I am just wondering what you are missing, what is wrong with that document? Related to what I was saying about the issue with timing before the Seoul event, have your past concerns now been addressed?  If yes, then maybe we can move forward (+1) with that document, and then the Board can create a "rule" in the next 10 months or so.  I think many of us worked very hard behind the scenes to get that document in place, and I see no need to delay the 2016 planning because the board needs to make a rule.  Because of this delay, the 2016 committee is looking at other options, which include less profit returned to us, for own own event, so please let us not delay.  Please explain yourself.

-jeff

On 2015-10-05 3:56 PM, Massimiliano Cannata wrote:
Dear all
What i would like is that the board defines a rule that is valid for
Bonn but also for the next meetings.
I think we cannot handle case by case without a defined rule that is
impartial and guarantee transparence in decision making.

What do you board members think about?

Maxi

Il 05/Ott/2015 19:24, "Jeff McKenna" <jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com<mailto:jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com>
<mailto:jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com<mailto:jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com>>> ha scritto:

    Hello Board members,

    This will be the first public task of the new Board, and may be the
    most important one we deal with all year.  And yes, it is extremely
    time sensitive.

    Some background (instead of pointing to 5 different threads spanning
    as many different mailing lists):

    The FOSS4G Bonn local committee needs OSGeo to financially guarantee
    the event.  The OSGeo Conference Committee worked very hard on
    producing an agreement, that passed many keen experienced eyes, both
    on the OSGeo side as well as on the Bonn committee side. This
    agreement was approved by the entire OSGeo Conference Committee and
    the Bonn local committee, and 8 of the 9 OSGeo Board members.  One
    OSGeo Board member voted -1. The original agreement exists at:
    https://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/foss4g/2016/financial_stuff/agreement_with_osgeo/Agreement-between-OSGeo-and-FOSSGISeV-2016.pdf

    As for past FOSS4G agreements, Seoul was the first time that the
    OSGeo Board had a direct signed agreement with the local committee,
    between Sanghee and myself, agreeing on such details as profit
    sharing; for all of the other FOSS4G events, those details were
    handled in the agreement between the professional conference
    organizing company (PCO).  Steven Feldman compiled some details from
    some of the recent FOSS4G events, in a Google spreadsheet (I just
    sent each board member an invite to that document).

    At the time that this 2016 agreement was being initially proposed,
    it was before FOSS4G Seoul, and it was honestly a little tricky to
    be signing such a commitment before we knew the outcome of the
    FOSS4G Seoul event (like any event, we could have lost money).  But
    now, I feel everything is more clear for the Board: FOSS4G Seoul was
    successful, the break-even point was 400 attendees, and we went over
    that to roughly 560 attendees.  So OSGeo doesn't have to worry about
    that, and now we can financially guarantee the 2016 Bonn event, for
    100,000 euros, as was originally proposed.

    I want to make sure that each Board member supports this, and I will
    personally do my best to meet privately with whoever has questions.

    Maxi, now that we are through FOSS4G Seoul, do you yourself have any
    concerns not handled now?  If you do (or any Board member) I suggest
    that we meet through Google Hangout on this Thursday. Possible time:
    http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?year=2015&month=10&day=8&hour=18&min=0&sec=0%2015.00UTC
    (sorry Venka/Sanghee that time is not do-able for you, but you can
    voice your opinions here or to me privately, sorry about this one
    meeting time)

    I'm getting many direct emails on how this is important for the 2016
    committee.  We OSGeo must get this agreement passed.  It is on next
    week's Board agenda, but I hope we can solve this this week.  It
    will be a team effort.

    Thanks all,

    -jeff

_______________________________________________
Board mailing list
Board at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:Board at lists.osgeo.org>
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board

This message and any attachment are intended solely for the addressee
and may contain confidential information. If you have received this
message in error, please send it back to me, and immediately delete it. 

Please do not use, copy or disclose the information contained in this
message or in any attachment.  Any views or opinions expressed by the
author of this email do not necessarily reflect the views of the
University of Nottingham.

This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an
attachment may still contain software viruses which could damage your
computer system, you are advised to perform your own checks. Email
communications with the University of Nottingham may be monitored as
permitted by UK legislation.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/attachments/20151006/ad65b555/attachment.htm>