[OSGeo-Discuss] Membership fee (was: Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members)

Tue Jul 1 09:46:23 PDT 2014

Although I am not so active on the mailing list,  I am an OSGeo's
advocate, and I take the opportunity to promote OSGeo wherever I can.

I became an OSGeo member in 2007 because I was proud on what the
organisation did and I wanted to support it, with the scarce resources I
own.

One of the things I appreciate enormously is

- The organisation is open (as in open source)
- Becoming a member of the organisation is totally free (*yes* like in
free beer!)
- the organisation has a perfect DNA:
    - members can  
        - act as *A* user
        - act as *T*echnical skilled person (sofware developers,
industry, documentation)
        - work at *G*overmental body
        - member of the s*C*ientific world (academic world)

In the world of today *free* as in gratis, *free* as in *free* *beer*,
doing something for
somebody else is very rare (scarce) that it becomes very valuable.
Being a part of a community like OSGeo not only is *fun* but also gives
you a *good* feeling, and it is very motivating to work in a company or
organisation that supports OSGeo.

I may be naive, but for me personally this works out well, and having
that feeling is one of the important incentives to keep contributing to
the community. (And by the way, working with other members of the OSGeo
community didn't result in any bad experience until now)

Of course, an organisation needs money, To support some stuff (.svn or
whathever goal is worth supporting). But I think we should keep the
membership *free* (and not as in *free* beer!), because it is in my eyes
a very essential part of OSGeo:

"Core principles are:

    OSGeo should act as a low capital, volunteer focused organisation.
    OSGeo should focus support on OSGeo communities and initiatives
which support themselves. " [1]

As in DNA, different chains have different roles.

*G*overnments are happy to have such a movement as the Free and open
source software [2] movement, because they can avoid vendor lock-in,
gain control over their projects (read: become free again), and save a
lot of money. They should take this advantage seriously and sponsor open
source activities.

the s*C*ientific world is happy to use open source solutions, because
they can study the tools themselves and focus on research, not being
bothered of the licenses they are using.
They also should take this advantage seriously and donate scientific
relevant material they don't want to exploit immediately to the community.

*A*ny user should be free (*not* as in free beer) to use and experiment
with the results of what the community is producing. The community
should welcome *A*ny user and help him to find his way, so he can take
his responsibility and earn respect for what he is doing.

And last but not least: the *T*echnically skilled persons are the heart
of the community. Being able to create great teamwork and donate back to
the community. Also they should take their responsibility and earn the
respect they deserve.

But where is the money we need to operate the organisation?

Personally, I don't think it are the users nor the community members who
should take care of that. Because the belonging to the community should
remain a *free* right, where the value comes from respect and the
intense feeling of giving something without expecting something back.

The strange thing is that many of the members are also professional
involved into OSGeo (acting as A T G or C).
So I suggest it should not be the (community) members who should pay for
the support, but these professional actors.
And they (the professional actors) should become a member (in their role
of incorporation) to support it. But sponsored membership should not
give rights to vote, or whatsoever. The only thing you gain is that you,
as a professional incorporation, are happy with an organisation as
OSGeo, fighting for your rights to be able to use *free* software.  And
the sponsors should trust and believe that a low capital, volunteer
focused organisation will do that for them, as they do it already today.

The sponsoring should not be an obligation either, but should be the
common responsibility of the companies sponsoring the FOSS4G events today.

my 2c

[1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_of_Directors#Board_Priorities
[2] http://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software

Dirk
On 24-06-14 15:12, Even Rouault wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Interesting topic that raises quite a few questions.
>
> I think that all people who have commented in that thread have not necessarily
> agreed if membership fees would be something in addition to the nomination and
> election processs, or if it would replace it.
>
> If we switch to a paid membership, one would likely have to identify the
> benefits brought by being a member. Voting rights for the board would probably
> not a big enough benefit. In the AAG example quoted by Paul, there are several
> benefits associated: access to journals, reduced prices to
> publications/meetings, etc... That would mean that there is a commitment of
> OSGeo to provide the advertized benefits, and thus the question on how to
> guarantee this commitment would arise : volunteers effort, or paid
> staff/contractors ?
> Interestingly one of the benefit of AAG membership is access to "AAG specialty
> groups" whose equivalent in OSGeo would probably be our mailing lists. So would
> we want to restrict access to those to non members ? Mateusz also mentionned
> that bills have to be paid to maintain some OSGeo servers, like svn. Would we
> want to restrict access to those servers only to the folks who have paid the
> membership fee ? Probably not.
>
> We have only mentionned individual members, but would we want to extend to
> corportate members as well ?
>
> From my perspective, OSGeo Charter membership is a recognition for the
> accomplishments of an individual to support OSGeo values and missions, and thus
> gets a right to define its steering through board election. Perhaps we at a
> community sometimes fail to welcome people who would deserve it, because they
> are a bit outside of our usual networks to be nominated (or because people are
> not confortable enough to do public nominations, perhaps for language or
> cultural reasons), or because we reach the yearly quota for new members. That's
> certainly a pitty if folks feel excluded whereas I think we generally try to be
> rather inclusive.
>
> One thing to keep in mind is that if we translate into money the value of the
> accomplishments of OSGeo Charter members, I'm pretty sure that in 99.99% of the
> cases that translates to much more than USD 70. You can probably add one or two
> zeros to that figure. So asking them for a fee, in addition to their other forms
> of contribution, would seem a bit awkward, although I can understand that
> contribution in term of money rather than time is sometimes more useful. So I
> wouldn't object to paying a membership fee.
>
> But IMHO the main question is : do we need membership fees to sustain OSGeo ?
> Aren't surplus funds generated by FOSS4G sufficient for that (although I can
> understand that Howard's fear that FOSS4G organization by volunteers might not
> be a sustainable model) ? Or perhaps we would need more funds to be able to do
> more things ?
>
> OSGeo is perhaps rather different from other organizations in the geomatics
> field in the way it manages its membership, but is it more a strength or a
> weakness ?
>
> Even
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

-- 
Yours sincerely,

ir. Dirk Frigne
CEO

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