[OSGeo-Fundraising] Local Sponsorships (was: Re: [Board] conference naming?)

[Arnulf Christl]

Gary Lang wrote:
> I see.
> 
> I don't know what to think about it, except to say that if diluting the 
> OSGeo brand helps promote free geospatial software, then it was a good 
> idea. If not, it was not. I will assume that this was thought through 
> and a decision made accordingly.

This was discussed and I take it that FOSS4G will be a "product" of OSGeo. Just like the software stack might become or our meta data service or the www portal. So it will strengthen the brand OSGeo for what it is and profit from the existing product FOSS4G. imho and all that.

Maybe the "OSGeo conference" will eventually also come into existence but I imagine that it would be more like 30 so people who do all the internal shit jobs. :-)

> An _open source geospatial_ conference, regardless of the foundation 
> name, sounds like a good thing, I would think. Who is "FOSS"? Do I send 
> them money to help keep FOSS going? etc.

Yes, you got the message. Send money to FOSS and IT will be good to you. 

We have collected money by sponsors with the FOSSGIS conference in Germany to fund the venue itself and some other expenses. End of 2006 we sponsored a profit of €10k that we made with the conferences to the GAV e.V. (GRASS Anwender-Vereinigung legal non-profit in Germany) who is friendly with OSGeo. At a later stage this should become a formal association but no one around here did this before, dito for OSGeo. This means we are making money with the "product" FOSSGIS (says me who wants to keep it all revenue neutral and low cost and still always ends up with some surplus. Darn). So we "donated" this money to be spent by the OSGeo Local Chapter Deutsch. But Local Chapter Deutsch doesn't exist yet. 

The money is earmarked to be spent "OSGeo and FOSS GIS related". It will be spent in Germany for events, printing brochures, booths, caps, t-shirts, advertisements, whatnot. Whatever OSGeo VisCom and VisCom-DE think makes sense. Do you think that a share of that money should end up on your OSGeo account? With what reasoning (I will have to explain this to the local chaps here)?

I am still chewing on Local Chapter Sponsorship issues but can't get a grip on it. 

This is a FunCom thing really. Good that I am not on that committee, else I would get mixed up all the time. 

:-)

Best regards, 
Arnulf. 

> Gary
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From:   board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org on behalf of Arnulf Christl
> Sent:   Mon 2/5/2007 2:02 AM
> To:     board at lists.osgeo.org
> Cc:    
> Subject:        Re: [Board] conference naming?
> 
> Gary Lang wrote:
>  > I missed that. Where is the minutes of that meeting?
>  >
>  > Thx
> 
> Start here to get the full story:
> http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2006-November/thread.html
> 
> Guess what, I was part of the subversive group that tries to dilute the 
> OSGeo brand name and I could not refrain from having a strong position 
> in favor of having the term Free in the title. So if you need to blame 
> somebody for supporting such a stupid idea blame me. And next time join 
> the discussion in time... ;-)
> 
> Best regards,
> Arnulf.
> 
>  > -----Original Message-----
>  > From:   board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org on behalf of Frank Warmerdam
>  > (External)
>  > Sent:   Sun 2/4/2007 4:21 PM
>  > To:     Chris Holmes
>  > Cc:     board at lists.osgeo.org
>  > Subject:        Re: [Board] conference naming?
>  >
>  > Chris Holmes wrote:
>  >  > This is kind of random, but weren't we going to call the next 
> conference
>  >  > the OSGeo conference?  As that was the name the year before, and 
> it also
>  >  > fits with our name, becomes our thing?  But it looks like it's become
>  >  > foss4g again - http://www.foss4g2007.org/.  Was that a conscious
>  > decision?
>  >
>  > Chris,
>  >
>  > This was the product of a rather heated debate, followed by a vote by
>  > the conference committee.  So yes, it was a conscious decision.
>  >
>  > Best regards,
>  > --
>  > 
> ---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
>  > 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 OSGeo, 
> http://osgeo.org
>  >
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