[Qgis-developer] sponsoring

[Frank Warmerdam]

Tim Sutton wrote:
> I think we should have:
...

 > In particular we would like to fund the following project activities:

Tim / Paolo,

I like the description of things to fund!  In addition to providing
examples of the sorts of things you hope to fund, I'd suggest making
it clear that the project PSC will use the funds as it sees appropriate.

> We accept two kinds of financial contributions:
> 
>  * sponsorships
>  * donations
> 
> A sponsorship is an annual commitment of funds to the project.
> Sponsorships can be cancelled at any time, but while a sponsorship is
> active, the sponsor will enjoy some marketing exposure via the QGIS
> project web and print medium properties. We regret no advertising will
> be placed within the QGIS application itself. We provide the following
> levels of sponsorship opportunity:
> 
>   Platinum sponsors: $1500 or more per annum
> 
>   <logo placed on rotating banner on front page of qgis.org>
> 
>   Gold sponsors: $1000 per annum
> 
>   <list of sponsors and logo displayed on sponsors page at e.g. 300x200>
> 
>   Silver sponsors: $500 per annum
> 
>   <list of sponsors and logo displayed on sponsors page e.g. 150x100>
> 
>   Bronze sponsors: $250 per annum
> 
>   <list of sponsors and logo displayed on sponsors page at e.g. 64x64>

I like the above, but I think the levels are too low.  I assume sponsorship
is aimed at organizations more so than individuals, right?  I think, in
light of the amounts of money you might hope to eventually collect, and
the amounts of money an organization is likely to commit that you should
raise the levels substantially.  Perhaps something more like
25000/10000/2500/500, or 27000/9000/3000 like the OSGeo defined Project
Sponsorship levels.

Which raises the issue that I'd like QGIS to consider whether it wants
to collect and administer money itself, or through OSGeo.  If through
OSGeo the defined mechanism is the Project Sponsorship program at:

   http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Project_Sponsorship

A point to note is that 25% of money administered by OSGeo is treated
as a general contribution to the foundation while the other 75% is kept
as project specific reserved funds, only to be spent by direction of
the project PSC.   There may be concerns amount some contributors, or
in the project itself about this arrangement.

OSGeo is not interested in waiving this arrangement at this time,
partly because there are very concrete costs to OSGeo administering
funds (collecting and dispersing).   Also, keep in mind that OSGeo
in turn attempts to provide some cross project services out of
general revenues, such as hosted systems for svn, trac, etc.

I would stress that I'm not saying that the QGIS project cannot
collect and administer it's own funds.  I'm just saying if you would
like OSGeo to take care of the funds then it needs to be done within
the currently available mechanisms.

> Donors:
...
> Please use the PayPal link provided on this site if you are able to
> contribute. Even a small donation can make a big difference!

I assume donors are aimed at small payments from individuals.  I must confess
that OSGeo is not currently not able to practically accept small payments from
individuals through the project sponsorship program.  Mostly this boils down
to the accounting overhead involved.  Potentially an individual on the QGIS
team could administer a Paypal account to accept qgis contributions, and
then submit pass them on to OSGeo in bulk (perhaps quarterly).

As a general note, QGIS may find it helpful to consider the project
sponsorship approaches of a few other projects:

   http://openlayers.org/sponsorship/
   http://www.gdal.org/sponsorship.html

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    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent