[GRASS-PSC] Donations for the GRASS project

[Markus Neteler]

PSC,
(cc President of GFOSS.it)

during the last Italian GFOSS/GRASS meeting (last week) we discussed again
to add a "donate to GRASS" button (via Paypal) to
http://www.gfoss.it

(also site of the Italian OSGeo chapter).

Given the fact that OSGeo is not interested in small donations (in my
opinion OSGeo errs here ignoring the potential community donations,
see for an old proposal: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Microdonations
and remember how Wikipedia and OSM get money), I suggest to activate
the button.

The money is obviously hold in trust by GFOSS.it for the GRASS project.
We could, once some money is accumulated, co-finance bug-squashing
meetings, hack-sessings, promotional material or even invent our
own "GRASS winter/spring/... of code" with a competition for the best
proposals.
GFOSS.it already does the same for the QGIS project.

When operative, we can clone the button on the GRASS main
Web site, too.

Any objections to proceed?

Markus

On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 12:46 PM, Markus Neteler <neteler at osgeo.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 4:01 PM, Frank Warmerdam <warmerdam at pobox.com> wrote:
>> Markus Neteler wrote:
>>
>> > While we are at it: do we have guidelines how to set up a new
>> > sponsorship program? I want to launch one for GRASS now given
>> > that we no longer use the IRST server as primary infrastructure.
>> >
>> > I see
>> >  http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Project_Sponsorship
>> > but that doesn't address our needs. We want to collect small
>> > money donations first which aren't under level regulations.
>> > Think "donate button".
>> >
>>
>>  Markus,
>>
>>  We have no program for this, and the sponsorship program was explicitly
>>  established to handle larger amounts because of a concern that small
>>  amounts would prove to be a hassle to manage properly.
>>
>>  Perhaps the finance committee could consider mechanisms for handling
>>  project directed small donations efficiently.
>
> At this point we could set up our own mechanism (for now).
> E.g. the German GRASS Association (a legal entity) could
> handle the money on a trust basis in a managed account - they
> do it already for the FOSSGIS.de series of conferences.
>
> Of course we need consulations in the PSC and 8if so) with
> the German GRASS Association first.
>
> I just wanted to explore the current situation.
>
> thanks,
> Markus
>