The socialist comment is actually not far from the truth. Speaking as someone who has handled a FOSS4G budget.
(a) OSGeo wants the general admission fee to be as low as possible (b) 100s of people present at FOSS4G (c) Combine (a) and (b) with free admission for speakers => large deficit Solutions - Higher (by about 2 times) admission for non-speakers - "More sponsorship" (unless you know more organizations willing to come on board at the top sponsorship level, this isn't actually a solution, it's a wish) - Fewer speakers and only somewhat higher general fees Workshop presenters (who are providing 3 *hours* of teaching) do get free admission. But presenters with 25 minute talks, get nothing. The comparison to O'Reilly is hard, since they have been able to build very corporate-friendly events, attracting numerous high-dollar sponsors, and also charge general admission several times that of FOSS4G. Add that all together, and it's possible to provide the free admission and honoraria for teachers that they do (and make a profit too). Yours, Paul On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 10:59 AM, Anselm Hook <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:> > As far as I was able to understand foss4g wanted to charge $600 dollars for > speakers to present. Maybe I misunderstood this? It just seems so bizarre > and so alien and such a speed-bump that it really didn't make any sense to > me. It was like a socialist take on open source - where everybody has to > carry equal weight. This is why I dropped my participation with prejudice - > apologies to the folks who wanted to see my talk. _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
