[OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity

[Jo Walsh]

dear Howard, thanks for your email which has been along with its
responses very thought-provoking,

On Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 10:18:36PM -0700, Dave Patton wrote:
> Howard Butler wrote:
> >Most of OSGeo's measurable successes to date have been volunteer 
> >efforts, not primarily financially-backed ones.  The OSGeo Journal 
> >effort, Google Summer of Code administration, the Geodata committee's 
> >efforts, and even much of our system administration to keep the lights 
> >on for developer tools 

Well, these are quite different kinds of efforts. The Journal has come
together because of Tyler's time invested in it, so it is more or less 
direct financial backing from OSGeo. The SoC programme, look forward 
to hear more about the eventual experiences of, but that came about in
the first place because of direct Google financial support to students.

The Geodata committee's efforts have been more like what you describe
about software projects coming together - a byproduct of a set of
interconnected people each scratching their own itches. But being more
loose collaboration than planned action it is a bit impenetrable to
those outside the immediate loop, i think. And geodata and systems
administration have overlapped quite a bit, as people get shanghaied
into helping with different problems ;) 

But keeping the lights on, and creating new things, are quite
different. One burns out on doing administrative / organising things
and i wish there were a way that could be automated and/or shared. 
The structure we have now with one "Committee Chair" per committee,
one gets into overcommitment/guilt and superfluous soul-searching.

> >benefactor as we do now.  We're almost two years down the road into 
> >bootstrapping, and our majority benefactor situation has budged very 
> >little.  As far as I know, our only significant incoming sponsorship 
> >dollars beyond Autodesk are the "targeted development" vehicles like 
> >those that pay for a permanent maintainer for GDAL.

This definitely seems something the Board should be talking about, the
whole question of what sponsors are visibly getting and what can be
done to get them involved, and at what should we aim.
I have added a few notes to the Agenda section for the next meeting
right before FOSS4G and i would urge anyone to add their concerns so
it can be refined - re-framed? - nearer the time...
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Board_Meeting_FOSS4G2007#Agenda

> There has certainly been a lot of volunteer effort by the organizers
> of the FOSS4G 2007 conference

It is terrific to see so much effort and I am really looking forward
to getting to see it realised, taking lots of pictures, sending press
releases etc. At the same time i am having to beg and borrow to get
to Victoria and I know many, many others from outside North America 
for whom the combination of long flight and cost of living disparity
is just too large a barrier.

Something else i would like to add to the Board's discussion is the
possibility of funding either travel expenses or better, several
smaller conferences distributed around the planet, next year...

cheers,


jo
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