It's better than TV :p
Jacques
From: "Ruth Hoffman" <rhoff...@aesolves.com>
David:
I think this thread is just about dead.
Regardless of what others think, I found ambiguity in your original statement concerning the profit motive of the ApacheCon
organization. I now understand what you said. No more ambiguities. Thanks for that clarification.
Regards,
Ruth
David E Jones wrote:
You're right to be suspicious Ruth. The traffic volume on the private list is at least twice the volume on the dev list. Also,
you should have seen the thread about you we had a couple of weeks ago!
Seriously though... what are you talking about? There seems to be some sort of
implied issue here and I don't get it.
-David
On Apr 2, 2010, at 2:45 PM, 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.
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.