[OSGeo-Conf] FOSS4G-NA -- request for financial records

Thu Jun 14 18:06:22 PDT 2018

Hi Marc:

Please do not bring my employer into this. That is threatening behavior,
and is incredibly inappropriate for anyone in this community to engage in.

The fact that I was Program Chair of FOSS4G-NA 2018 for six months is no
secret: among many reasons documented elsewhere, I found a replacement for
myself and stepped down from the role in order to maintain "separation of
church & state", as it were, when I felt it was no longer tenable to
represent both my employer and FOSS4G-NA at the same time (this directly
followed you asking Sara-the-Program-Chair to "wiggle a platinum
sponsorship from" her employer).

Come on, folks. I'm not trying to make unreasonable demands. I'm not trying
to launch any missiles. I'm just trying to continue a conversation that
LocationTech staff started on May 4. Personal attacks on me and dismissing
this as a "non-discussion" aren't constructive.

--Sara

On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 8:00 PM, Marc Vloemans <marcvloemans1 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> After so many tweets, posts, blogs etc. I feel a formal response is needed.
>
> LocationTech - as part of a longstanding agreement with the Core Committee
> of Foss4g NA - has acted as the contractor/producer of this conference.
> This entailed that all pre-conference investments and financial risks were
> off the shoulders of OSGeo.org. Regional conferences like this one
> elsewhere in the world are taken on by local/regional chapters. But until
> some weeks ago there was no such chapter in North America. Therefor this
> special construct.
> LocationTech has informed the Core Committee before “St Louis” that we
> would  not be able to continue this arrangement as the financial and human
> resources were beyond its means.
>
> The demands made by Sara Safavi to give insight into the books are not
> appropriate. Comparable to a customer asking her employer (Planet Labs) to
> open their books to a customer. Since FOSS4G NA mostly relied on
> professional staff (instead of volunteers like in “Boston” and Companies
> sponsoring their employee’s time) this would give third parties indirect
> information re salaries etc.
> And I will not do that. Ever. Especially if persons try to force my hand,
> when they have no legal, moral or other right to this type of personal
> information.
>
> Furthermore, I would like to emphasise that Sara has been Program Chair of
> FOSS4G NA 2018 until the deadline for the CfP. She has been aware of this
> arrangement from the beginning....
>
> On another note; this non-discussion is damaging the Core Committee, the
> FOSS4G NA and overall brands at large and OSGeo (both .org and US). And the
> great working relationship between OSGeo and LocationTech. But furthermore,
> it makes our community a place where those who put in actual work and
> energy are subjected to harassment. With the silent approval of the
> majority.....
> If we want to keep present/attract future volunteers, partners, supporters
> and sponsors we need to put a stop to this type of behaviour. Right here
> and now. Otherwise we dig our collective grave.
>
> If the majority keeps their silence then OSGeo has become a very toxic
> place, indeed!
>
> (And I still wonder whether the demands represent Planet Labs’ (who was a
> welcome and respected sponsor of this year’s FOSS4G NA) opinion or not
> .....)
>
> Hope this gives background and puts an end to this non-discussion.
>
> Kind regards,
> Marc
>
> >
> > -------- Original Message --------
> > Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Conf] FOSS4G-NA -- request for financial records
> > Date: 2018-06-14 14:23
> > From: Sara <sara at sarasafavi.com>
> > To: Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
> > Cc: michael terner <ternergeo at gmail.com>, foss4gna_selection@
> googlegroups.com, Conference Dev <conference_dev at lists.osgeo.org>
> >
> > Hi Cameron, all:
> >
> > Sure, happy to explain further: my request is for information that
> > LocationTech already stated publicly was "open", "has always been", and
> > would be posted to OSGeo's wiki -- to actually be made open and posted
> > to the wiki. If LocationTech either misspoke, lied, or changed their
> > mind on that then as a community member/volunteer/sponsor I would like
> > to know why. I'm not alone in this, either: I'm just today's squeaky
> > wheel. :)
> >
> > As Steven said:
> >> I would not expect preparing a schedule of income and expenditure for
> > a conference to be a lot of effort. The organising team or their PCO
> > must maintain some schedules to record income and expenditure.
> >
> > I'm not expecting miracles, but as a community centered around
> > transparency and openness it seems unusual to not have at least some
> > insight into one of our larger event's basic financial records. As Mike
> > & Steven both point out, though not a requirement this is a longstanding
> > community norm for many FOSS4G events.
> >
> > Considering the past conversations we've all seen on the distro lists
> > re: this working group/LOC specifically and transparency, I'm surprised
> > that one now needs to provide "a worthy motivation" to even pose the
> > question. Meanwhile off-list I'm getting private messages telling me to
> > "just let this go". Did I miss a memo or something?
> >
> > On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 10:44 PM, Cameron Shorter
> > <cameron.shorter at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Sara,
> >> I'd suggest it might be helpful to explain why you are requesting
> >> people open the books. Providing a worthy motivation will likely help
> >> inspire a volunteer to help you.
> >> There is typically quite a bit of volunteer effort required to pull
> >> together past data into a usable format. Quite often it requires data
> >> to be de-personalised for public consumption. Maybe you can say
> >> something along the lines of "if you release the metrics, then I will
> >> be able to add value to the osgeo community to help ..."
> >> On 14/6/18 8:20 am, michael terner wrote:
> >> Sara:
> >> I fully support the notion of "open books" and the Boston Team has
> >> endeavored to do that. Indeed, when asking volunteers to do so much in
> >> this ecosystem it is important to have openness around the finances.
> >> This tweet from Matthew Hanson had a picture of the "raw" (and
> >> rounded) Boston numbers that I presented in a talk at FOSS4GNA in STL:
> >> https://twitter.com/GeoSkeptic/status/996147340854652928 [2]
> >> There's one other slide in that deck that showed the net results
> >> (i.e., surplus) and I would be happy to share the entire deck with
> >> this list if useful. Just ask. (And, we have lots of other more
> >> granular data if there are other, specific questions [e.g., speaker
> >> fees; # of people who were early bird; etc.]).
> >> That said, the numbers by themselves don't tell the entire story as
> >> there is a whole lot of context that matters greatly. Stuff like:
> >> * Organizers do not know how the numbers will fully add up until a
> >> good bit after the conference. Indeed, there are both trailing
> >> expenses to pay, and revenue to collect (some of which are dependent
> >> on the actual attendance you achieve). And, some
> >> accounting/spreadsheet work to do by already tired volunteers.
> >> * Conference registrations are slow to pour in. So while Boston
> >> ultimately harvested a sizable surplus, we did not know until _2 weeks
> >> _before the conference that we had achieved our break-even number. If
> >> we knew what our final attendance would be in advance we would have
> >> surely lowered our prices and/or better funded the travel grant
> >> program. But we, nor any other organizer, has that luxury. We are
> >> pleased that some of our surplus is going to support the Dar es Salaam
> >> conference through OSGeo _paying_ for sponsorship for that event.
> >> * Decisions that organizers make greatly impact the finances. Things
> >> ranging from providing day care, to giving all speakers a free pass,
> >> to the location of the host city, greatly impact costs/revenues while
> >> serving other important objectives.
> >> Indeed, it is an imperfect science and the Boston team was petrified
> >> by our finances up until that "break even" moment 2 weeks before the
> >> conference started. But it is also the imperfectness of this science
> >> that makes "opening the books" so important as all future conferences
> >> can learn from both past triumphs and mistakes. I would never look
> >> askance at a set of numbers that told a sadder story than Boston's
> >> (unless there was abject corruption, or something like that). Running
> >> a conference is hard and in all of the FOSS4G and FOSS4GNA conferences
> >> I've volunteered on (which now numbers 5, and includes STL) I have
> >> never doubted than anyone acted in a way other than to deliver the
> >> best possible conference at the lowest possible cost. I also don't
> >> expect that everyone would make the same choices that we did in
> >> Boston. Indeed, the Chair and his/her LOC make the choices they feel
> >> will lead to the best/most successful conference. Second guessing is a
> >> natural impulse, but it easier to do than running the conference. And,
> >> from my vantage, open books are important as they serve to help
> >> explain the choices that were made, and the financial impact of those
> >> choices.
> >> Sincerely,
> >> MT
> >> On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 1:18 PM Sara <sara at sarasafavi.com> wrote:
> >> Hi folks,
> >> Some of you may be aware that for the past ~5 weeks, I have
> >> periodically renewed a public request [0] for FOSS4G-NA 2018's
> >> financial records.
> >> Yesterday, Marc Vloemans, speaking on behalf of LocationTech, said
> >> that I was "misrepresenting" this issue [1]. That's certainly not my
> >> intent, so I'd like to clarify the basis for my ongoing request in
> >> longform, and renew said request in this forum.
> >> - On May 4, 2018, a LocationTech representative stated publicly that
> >> FOSS4G-NA's "financials are open, have always been" [2]
> >> - Later the same day, the same representative said that they were
> >> "working on posting all our materials to the wiki (...) Expect those
> >> late this week" [3]
> >> - Those statements now appear to be contradicted by the recent comment
> >> [1] that "there is no obligation" of LocationTech to share FOSS4G-NA
> >> financials
> >> My ongoing requests have thus far been an attempt to continue the
> >> conversation that originally took place on twitter on May 4th. As Marc
> >> said last night that he does not "communicate with people via twitter"
> >> [1], I'm more than happy to continue the public conversation with him
> >> or any relevant representative(s) here.
> >> [0a] https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/1006304174332661760 [3]
> >> [0b] https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/1001543441053114368 [4]
> >> [0c] https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/994930635096641536 [5]
> >> [1] https://i.imgur.com/NlbXb4t.png [6]
> >> [2] https://twitter.com/TheaClay/status/992394814749577217 [7]
> >> [3] https://twitter.com/TheaClay/status/993584128279957504 [8]
> >> Regards,
> >> Sara Safavi _______________________________________________
> >> Conference_dev mailing list
> >> Conference_dev at lists.osgeo.org
> >> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev [1]
> >> --
> >> Michael Terner
> >> ternergeo at gmail.com
> >> (M) 978-631-6602
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Conference_dev mailing list
> >> Conference_dev at lists.osgeo.org
> >> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev [1]
> >
> > --
> > Cameron Shorter
> > Technology Demystifier
> > Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant
> >
> > M +61 (0) 419 142 254
> >
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> 2BW3R5DUHRdPoFR%3D-Z19WJug0FO7cybxGZHxq_fVxAfe9Hd8Q%40mail.gmail.com
> > [9].
> > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
> >
> >
> > Links:
> > ------
> > [1] https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev
> > [2] https://twitter.com/GeoSkeptic/status/996147340854652928
> > [3] https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/1006304174332661760
> > [4] https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/1001543441053114368
> > [5] https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/994930635096641536
> > [6] https://i.imgur.com/NlbXb4t.png
> > [7] https://twitter.com/TheaClay/status/992394814749577217
> > [8] https://twitter.com/TheaClay/status/993584128279957504
> > [9] https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/foss4gna_selection/CAF%
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