[Board] OSGeo is the host of FOSS4G not a guest

[Shin, Sanghee]

Dear Maxi, 

First of all thanks for your raising concerns over this. And I’d like to share my thoughts on this with you & others. 

1. As a non native English(or Latin) speaker, I couldn’t tell the difference between ‘hosted by OSGeo’ and ‘presented by OSGeo’ and even ‘organised by OSGeo.’ To me, it means ‘Oh, OSGeo does something great here’ That’s all. And as you might be aware of, BLOC team clearly mentioned on the webpage that ‘Presented by OSGeo’ as requested by Conference Committee. 
2. I don’t think it’s unnatural to list OSGeo itself as sponsor for its project. Let’s take a look at the webpages of Daytona code sprint, QGIS user conference and GeoServer code sprints. OSGeo lists itself as a sponsor for its project. OSGeo is even copyright holder of GeoServer project and OSGeo lists itself as gold sponsor for GeoSever code sprint. I can’t see any difference between these self-organising events and FOSS4G. Do we need to ask to all these events organisers to put ‘Hosted by OSGeo’ instead of ‘Sponsored by OSGeo.’ Or do we need to mandate the people who try to self-organise the OSGeo-copyrighted project to put ‘Hosted by OSGeo’ because OSGeo holds the copyright? I’m not sure if you know OSGeo even doesn’t have any legal right over the FOSS4G. 
3. Real heroes/heroines of FOSS4G are LOC members, not OSGeo. Let’s be frank. After selecting host city, OSGeo did almost nothing except providing seed money and take the risk. That’s all. FOSS4G is a OSGeo’s volunteer project that consumes LOC member’s efforts, resources and most importantly their time very intensively only for OSGeo itself. LOC members know this is ‘THE OSGeo Project’ and try to spread this sprits voluntarily. 
4. I really thanks to BLOC team which generously listed OSGeo as gold sponsor and provided 3 free tickets to us. When I was a chair of FOSS4G Seoul 2015, I even didn’t provide any free tickets to OSGeo. Thanks again for your good intentions.

Kind regards, 
신상희 드림 
---
Shin, Sanghee
Gaia3D, Inc. - The GeoSpatial Company
http://www.gaia3d.com 

보낸 사람: Massimiliano Cannata
보낸 날짜: 2017년 7월 2일 일요일 오후 6:22
받는 사람: OSGeo Discussions; OSGeo Board
제목: [Board] OSGeo is the host of FOSS4G not a guest

Dear community and board members,
Today I found out that OSGeo is a a SPONSOR of the FOSS4G-2017 Boston conference.

This is disappointing me !

At least for two reasons:

1- foss4g is the OSGeo's conference, so OSGeo is the host not a guest (have you ever seen AGU sponsoring it's annual event?)

2- OSGeo is already providing seed and risk exposure money so it shouldn't need to pay for get exposure or being listed in the sponsor page.

So, as an OSGeo charter member, I formally ask the board to remove OSGeo from the sponsor list !

Regards
Maxi

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