[Qgis-developer] sponsoring

[Tim Sutton]

Hi

On Wed, 2008-11-26 at 16:35 -0500, Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> 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.
> 


Agreed this is very important otherwise we will paint ourselves into a
corner and have money that we can't use for things we want to use.

> > 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.
> 

As discussed on IRC, I agree with you, my initial figures were just
thumbsucks.


> 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).
> 

These latter issues I think its better for Paolo to think about and come
to the PSC with a plan of action of how to proceed.




> 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


Great thanks!


Regards

-- 
Tim Sutton - QGIS Project Steering Committee Member (Release  Manager)
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