<quote who="Davyd Madeley"> > I received today a request for travel sponsorship to GNOME.conf.au. > Obviously, GNOME.conf.au, being run as a no-money event (where we charge > no entry, but all the facilities we require are provided for us by > linux.conf.au). > > It seems to me that sponsorship to this event should really be handled by > linux.conf.au, but I was wondering if the Foundation saw any place for > itself here.
My linux.conf.au 2007 lead organiser hat is very firmly on for this reply (and I'll mention some things that Davyd already knows, just so everyone else can understand where I'm coming from). linux.conf.au is a community-focused, non-profit conference held by a fresh volunteer team, in a different Australasian city each year. It is one of the world's very best. You're all too late to submit for the 2007 CFP (suffer in your jocks), but you could always come down for GNOME.conf.au. For three years now, it has been one of the best miniconfs (community organised streams) supported by the main conference. The miniconfs are not funded (aside from basic venue, signage and so on) and are not allowed to source sponsorship independently from the main conference organisation. Most of the miniconfs don't need sponsorship anyway, so this might seem unnecessarily fascist -- however, we have to work around multiple events harassing potential sponsors, and inappropriate commercialisation of the miniconfs (such as a miniconf being run by a company, for their own interests). Mostly, it means "no banners, no advertising, no naming rights". However, miniconf organisers can work with the main conference organisers to sort out sponsorship issues, should they arise. For instance, agreeing that a sponsor can support travel/accomodation for a particular person at a miniconf, but being visible as a sponsor as the main conference, etc. So, the simple answer from linux.conf.au's point of view is this: We don't have the money to sponsor miniconf participants -- we already invest *lots* (seriously *LOTS*) of money in travel/accomodation for the main conference. In terms of the Foundation, while it can't sponsor "GNOME.conf.au", there is no issue whatsoever with the Foundation funding travel/accomodation for an attendee (much like a company will pay for a staff members to attend, but this would not be considered "sponsorship"). Thanks, - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2007: Sydney, Australia http://lca2007.linux.org.au/ Hunch, n.: U.S. Foreign Policy. _______________________________________________ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list