[Fundraising] First Meeting - May 9th

[Frank Warmerdam]

Dave,

I agree with pretty much everything you wrote, and so dropped the
earlier parts of the email out.

Dave McIlhagga wrote:
> My sense is you would want to keep these two components very distinct, 
> so as not to confuse a general listing of consultants (who to some 
> degree are then endorsed/recognized by a project/OSGeo)

I think that (for some projects at least) a consultants list would also
be very clearly not endorsed.  I can't imagine putting the MapServer PSC
in the position of having to judge the quality of consultants to decide
if they belong on a listing page.

 > and Sponsors,
> where we make it very clear that it is without endorsement by OSGeo. For 
> sponsors the message is 'thanks for your money and support, here's your 
> 15 minutes of fame, now let us get back to work'.

Agreed.

> I think one thing we all want to be sensitive to is $$$ via Sponsorship 
> should not influence OSGeo -- it is and needs to remain arm's length 
> from any organization. But with clear rules around sponsorship, I think 
> we can get some significant sustainable funding that can form win-wins 
> for the sponsors, OSGeo and it's projects.

Well, I find myself of two minds on this whole influence buying aspect.
For the GDAL project I have been thinking along the lines of offering some
sorts of vague influence.  Possibly priority treatment for bug fixes by
any contract maintainer hired with project sponsorship money for instance.
And at least an implicitly more friendly hearing for feature requests.

I'm not suggesting that all projects would need to do this, nor that we
would need to give sponsors any OSGeo-wise priveledges.  But for GDAL I
would like to (PSC willing!) offer some extended bonuses to sponsoring
organizations.

OSGeo wide, I think the major benefits of sponsorship will promotional
placement.  In addition to the web site, I think we might want to fit
a bit of sponsorship placement into conference presentations and other
"tell the OSGeo story" type events.

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGF, http://osgeo.org