Ruth Hoffman wrote:
Your point?
I asked for clarification. I got it. End of story.
Thanks for helping me out Hans. And thanks for making this mailing
list a friendlier place for all of us out here who are not privy to
all the secrets of those on the PMC.
Past or present.
Regards,
Ruth
Hans Bakker wrote:
perhaps next time read more carefully and think again and then reply?
On Fri, 2010-04-02 at 16:04 -0400, Ruth Hoffman wrote:
Hi David:
This says it all. No need to defend anything. My comments weren't
not meant as an offensive move on my part. I only want to understand
the dynamics of the conference and the ASF.
Regards,
Ruth
David E Jones wrote:
Ruth,
Yeah, that's the point, I wrote: "ApacheCon is a for profit effort
with some of the proceeds going to the foundation".
You wrote: "David has made a statement that the ApacheCon
organization is a for profit organization".
I guess my problem is I don't know how to defend a statement I
didn't make. You're the one who confronted me to challenge a
statement that you said I made.
Sorry, I guess I just don't know how to respond. Any hints?
-David
On Apr 2, 2010, at 1:44 PM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:
Hello David:
I simply would like clarification on your statement: "ApacheCon
is a for profit effort." No need to get confrontational.
Regards,
Ruth
David E Jones wrote:
Ruth,
I challenge you to quote where I said that.
-David
On Apr 2, 2010, at 12:53 PM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:
Hi Scott:
Thanks that has been my understanding.
However, David has made a statement that the ApacheCon
organization is a for profit organization. I want to make sure
that I'm operating under the correct assumptions when I make my
decisions relative to this conference. There is a HUGE
difference between an organization taking in more money than
expenses and an organization operating as a "for profit" endeavor.
I'd like to know what David really means by his statement.
Regards,
Ruth
Scott Gray wrote:
Apache is non-profit, but the foundation does "profit" from
ApacheCons in the sense that their takings exceed expenses.
This "profit" goes back into the foundation account to be used
for other expenses involved in running the foundation.
Regards
Scott
HotWax Media
http://www.hotwaxmedia.com
On 2/04/2010, at 12:32 PM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:
Hi David:
Where have you seen it documented that ApacheCon is an
organization with a "for profit" tax status?
Everything I see says that ApacheCon is the "Official User
Conference of the Apache Software Foundation". This implies
that it is sanctioned by ASF and that it is a non-profit
organization. Please, if you know for sure where it is
documented that ApacheCon is a separate, for profit,
organization, I'd like to know.
Regards,
Ruth
David E Jones wrote:
It would be nice if it were that way, but that's just not the
case.
ApacheCon is a for profit effort with some of the proceeds
going to the foundation (in theory). In other words, the ASF
gets money from ApacheCon and does not generally invest any
money in ApacheCon. In 2009 I think the foundation did invest
some money in marketing (for the anniversary) that also
benefitted ApacheCon (since they had a party there for it),
but that's the closest thing I'm aware of to what you are
describing.
Also consider that the majority of the participants in the
OFBiz events have been people who already know about and are
already using OFBiz. Even in 2008 with the enormous
investments in the conference by OFBiz contributors, much of
which was supposed to go into promoting the conference but
the PR consulting company messed up that year (which caused
them to be replaced), and so even then most of the people
attending sessions were presenters at other sessions.
Even in the pre-ApacheCon OFBiz Users Conferences there were
far more developers and contributors attending than users,
and typically the users were people who happened to live
close to the conference and who attended to check out what
was going on.
We need something else to attract end-users and better meet
their needs.
-David
On Apr 2, 2010, at 11:58 AM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:
Hi Ean:
Nice, but I think you might be missing my point.
ApacheCon is all about telling the world about OFBiz and
using the immense resources available to the Foundation to
do that.
IMHO it isn't really about socializing with the small and
(getting smaller by the hour) OFBiz community. ApacheCon is
for our end-users. Or rather, our potential end-users. This
should be the place where we showcase our wares and not
"vacation with a purpose".
Just my 2 cents.
Regards,
Ruth
Ean Schuessler wrote:
I think DebConf is a good example that this can be done and
done right. I know HP helps out with the expenses of
DebConf but part of that is helping fly in developers from
countries where the currency exchange rates make attendance
impractically high. We may simply not be able to do that or
we may come to some agreement about how we would share
those expenses for speakers with something especially
important to contribute.
Given the relatively small size of our community, we have a
lot of flexibility about where we choose to meet. In my
mind, the accommodations should be purposefully modest yet
interesting and fun. There are lots of options like that in
all kinds of places. We can think of it as a
collaboratively planned vacation with a purpose.
David E Jones wrote:
I'm not sure if you meant this or not Ruth, but as it was
addressed to me I should clarify: I did speak up here, but
I am not taking a role in organizing anything as I did in
previous years. In other words, I'm not committing to
anything on behalf of the project and I'm not trying to
recruit speakers and I'm not volunteering to speak or do
training either.
Quite frankly in the past it has required a lot of time
and money and liability with no real benefit. I hope
someone profited from those past efforts, perhaps the
for-profit organizers and maybe some attendees as well.
About that, I don't know. ApacheCon was a mess in '08
because people were paying a lot to attend (both the
training and the conference) and yet none of the money
(not a penny) went to any of the presenters or trainers.
In other words, the presenters and trainers were paying to
be there and so were the attendees. This culminated in
some fascinating personal attacks from people who attended
and who were not satisfied that what they got was worth
what they paid for it.
Just in case anyone is wondering ApacheCon is not the only
one that ended up this way. In another conference I did
some pre-conference training and made almost nothing doing
it because the conference organizers mixed the funds for
the training with the funds for the conference, and so
basically I offered training and most of the proceeds went
to subsidize the conference. My guess is that this happens
a lot with conferences.
So, taking that on just so other people can make money?
Well, I'd like to say that I learned my lesson and that's
why I'm not interested (that would incorrectly make me
look experienced and intelligent and somehow remotely good
at business dealings), but the fact of the matter is that
even if I wanted to I don't have the weeks of time and
thousands of dollars to even participate in a bare minimum
way. If someone else does, I'm sure many people will
benefit from their contributions and they should certainly
step up and go for it.
Anyway, sorry if any bitterness bled through in this text.
I think it's really just human nature that expectations of
EVERYONE involved with such things have expectations
dramatically inconsistent with reality.
