[OSGeo-Board] Spending Approvals, Money, etc

Committees Marketing
1

On Wed, August 23, 2006 20:16, Gary Lang wrote:

And in case I wasn't clear, OSGeo is not comprised of children. So let's
not use child rearing techniques to manage the business of OSGeo.

:slight_smile:

In near future VisCom needs:
$500 for shirts to go to Asia (last mail by Venka, prob. all giveaways,
I'd suggest to have Venka make good use of any leftovers)
$500 for shirts at the FOSS4G (maybe people will pay / cash? i'll be
sitting in the booth and can collect it..:slight_smile: Real(!) cool would be to have
one shirt for every conference registrant. But thats more than $500,-.
I'd be prepared to suggest this to VisCom as a good investment but I do
not because from all that I know OSGeo does not have any money to do this.
Thoughts?
$100 for shirts at EuroOSCON (booth staff, if OSGeo doesn't get it done I
will)

Booth equipment, infrastructure at both EU events are taken care of by
Tina Mena, Autodesk. Thanks a lot. Autodesk will be displayed on the
booth, so attribution is in place. There will be no additional expenses
(afaik) to OSGeo VisCom by operating the booth.

--- Original Message ---
From: "Gary Lang" <gary.lang@autodesk.com>
Sent: Wed 8/23/06 2:08 pm
To: "Frank Warmerdam (External)" <warmerdam@pobox.com>
Cc: "board@board.osgeo.org" <board@board.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Board] Spending Approvals, Money, etc

So OSGeo doesn't think it's been spending it's own money? That's news to
me.

Its basically what Markus is asking: How much money is there on the OSGeo
account? From what I can see nothing, so OSGeo can also spend nothing.
Hence Franks 6k suggestions (cool, thanks for the initiative). And as it
is we (All of OSGeo) are indebted a lot to Autodesk.

Certainly children need to experience the physical sensation of holding
money in their hands to understand its worth.

So yes sometimes it does fell a little like OSGeo "...needs to experience
the physical sensation of holding money..." in a bank account. :slight_smile: Ideally
we get sponsoring going real soon and have some money of "our own".

Regards, Arnulf.

At any rate, I'd like to know what the budget is I'd be sponsoring
activities for so that I can go to finance and explain why we should
donate the money. If it's within my quarterized budget, they'll approve.A
list of activities should do it.

So we need a budgeted amount. Maybe something from Jo on the OSU stuff,
hosting for the site, travel to FOSS4G, etc.

And it won't be a loan, which means it really will be OSGeo's money.

Gary

--- Original Message ---
From: "Frank Warmerdam (External)" <warmerdam@pobox.com>
Sent: Wed 8/23/06 1:44 pm
To: "Gary Lang" <gary.lang@autodesk.com>
Cc: "board@board.osgeo.org" <board@board.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Board] Spending Approvals, Money, etc

Gary Lang wrote:

Rather than do that, let's just look at the budget and whoever eants to
(us included) can deposit money based on cash flow expectations.

Gary,

Well, I'd assume anyone else, adsk included, would be welcome to
deposit money.

Right now, we'd end up paying you unless funcom starts getting traction.

I have every expectation that funcom will have no problem raising 30 or
40K
within six months. And if we didn't, I'd be willing to take the loss
rather than expect someone else to cover the amount.

So I am not sure what the point is. Also, I'm not sure OSGeo needs debt
at this stage of it's life..

Well, the problem, as I see it, is that I don't feel write telling MPG
to go ahead and spend 500 dollars on shirts when I know it will likely
just be paid by ADSK instead of by OSGeo. I think we need to have
money of our own so we can treat it more seriously. This is a bit like
why I make my kids keep their own money, even if I pay them an allowance.
Otherwise they are always asking me to pay for stuff without any real
effort to balance desires off against each other to prioritize.

Now it feel like we are operating in a vacuum - a vacuum that sucks
modest, but still poorly accounted for money out of Autodesk.

As for the debt issue, what are the negative ramifications of having debt?

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

--
Arnulf Christl
http://www.ccgis.de