Re: Entrepreneurial freedom for the Debian Partners Programme
On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 07:38:44AM +0200, martin f krafft wrote: also sprach Luca Filipozzi lfili...@debian.org [2015-04-03 04:52 +0200]: Consequently, I am in favour of a recognition mechanism that values both cash donations and service donations against the same scale, yielding a platinum/gold/silver/bronze type ranking that is reassessed annually. Something like: https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/sponsors.shtml Note that this pages splits financial and hardware donations, which I understand that you don't want, right? My primary concern is recognizing organizations that provide in-kind contribution to Debian (not labour, necessarily, but services). As I said in a previous post, evaluating in-kind donations against a financial scale is possible, albeit not always easy, and the evaluation depends on many factors, including our need and a suitable market price to use. I'm prepared to accept pro-forma invoices from commercial organizations, based on their published pricing. Although it could be argued that 1RU/1Gbps of hosting is the same no matter the location of the data centre, the reality is that pricing varies widely and attempting to normalize across markets is untenable. In other words, my measuring stick is what would it have cost Debian to put a server in that data centre, based on the published pricing. For academic institutions, we can find a corresponding commercial provider in their jurisdiction / country, perhaps. With regards to fundraising, I'm in favour of using a service such as crowdrise.com -- and only one such service -- even if that means paying 3-5% (plus credit card fees, if applicable). By leveraging such a platform, we can brand our donations portal, avoid managing multiple payment processor accounts, conduct campaigns (no, not spam ... more like earmark your donation for X or Y), etc. Yes, having a micro-payment service available for payments too would be beneficial. .oO( snowdrift.coop ) .oO( BitCoin ) Finding a single service capable of providing crowdrise-like features AND a very wide variety of payment mechanisms may prove difficult. That said, we can begin our search with this as a requirement. -- Luca Filipozzi http://www.crowdrise.com/SupportDebian -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20150403065725.ga3...@emyr.net
Re: Entrepreneurial freedom for the Debian Partners Programme
On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 10:10:11PM +0200, martin f krafft wrote: also sprach Luca Filipozzi lfili...@debian.org [2015-04-03 08:57 +0200]: I'm prepared to accept pro-forma invoices from commercial organizations, based on their published pricing. Although it could be argued that 1RU/1Gbps of hosting is the same no matter the location of the data centre, the reality is that pricing varies widely and attempting to normalize across markets is untenable. In other words, my measuring stick is what would it have cost Debian to put a server in that data centre, based on the published pricing. For academic institutions, we can find a corresponding commercial provider in their jurisdiction / country, perhaps. Absolutely, iff we need the hosting, then we can rank it according to market price. All of Debian's equipment is hosted gratis by one organization or other. However — I am not aware of prices for the type and volume of hosting required — but I'd be surprised if it'd slot in to the levels I'm imagining. I mean, look at https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/sponsors.shtml and think about the market price of some of the hosting offers we get. At most, they'd probably reach Bronze, if at all. And yet, it might just be that the admins there give us special access or support because they also use Debian etc. and suddenly you cannot weigh it up against purely financial support anymore. So I don't think the solution is quite that simple and I think we shouldn't rule out the possibility to just name in-kind donations as such, rather than to slot them in with financial scales. I'm not opposed to separate in-kind and cash donation rankings. Finding a single service capable of providing crowdrise-like features AND a very wide variety of payment mechanisms may prove difficult. That said, we can begin our search with this as a requirement. I'm new to crowdrise. What's the story? It's not that I'm a proponent of crowdrise in particular. Rather, it's the feature set that's appealing. There are several operators of similar tools. And couldn't crowdrise itself be (convinced to be) interested in supporting Debian by waiving commissions on incoming donations? I doubt it: their business model is to offer non-profits a service. -- Luca Filipozzi http://www.crowdrise.com/SupportDebian -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20150403210249.ga27...@emyr.net
Re: Entrepreneurial freedom for the Debian Partners Programme
also sprach Luca Filipozzi lfili...@debian.org [2015-04-03 08:57 +0200]: I'm prepared to accept pro-forma invoices from commercial organizations, based on their published pricing. Although it could be argued that 1RU/1Gbps of hosting is the same no matter the location of the data centre, the reality is that pricing varies widely and attempting to normalize across markets is untenable. In other words, my measuring stick is what would it have cost Debian to put a server in that data centre, based on the published pricing. For academic institutions, we can find a corresponding commercial provider in their jurisdiction / country, perhaps. Absolutely, iff we need the hosting, then we can rank it according to market price. However — I am not aware of prices for the type and volume of hosting required — but I'd be surprised if it'd slot in to the levels I'm imagining. I mean, look at https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/sponsors.shtml and think about the market price of some of the hosting offers we get. At most, they'd probably reach Bronze, if at all. And yet, it might just be that the admins there give us special access or support because they also use Debian etc. and suddenly you cannot weigh it up against purely financial support anymore. So I don't think the solution is quite that simple and I think we shouldn't rule out the possibility to just name in-kind donations as such, rather than to slot them in with financial scales. Finding a single service capable of providing crowdrise-like features AND a very wide variety of payment mechanisms may prove difficult. That said, we can begin our search with this as a requirement. I'm new to crowdrise. What's the story? And couldn't crowdrise itself be (convinced to be) interested in supporting Debian by waiving commissions on incoming donations? -- .''`. martin f. krafft madduck@d.o @martinkrafft : :' : proud Debian developer `. `'` http://people.debian.org/~madduck `- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems plan to be spontaneous tomorrow. digital_signature_gpg.asc Description: Digital signature (see http://martin-krafft.net/gpg/sig-policy/999bbcc4/current)
Re: Entrepreneurial freedom for the Debian Partners Programme
Hi Martin, I recognize that you sent this to the soon-to-be DPL but I'll take the opportunity (on debian-project to leave debian-vote for possible replies from the DPL candidates) to share my thoughts. In my experience in recruiting organizations to provide services (hardware, hosting, DNS, CDN, etc.) to Debian, being able to offer ongoing acknowledgement (ie, prominent webpage such as /partners) is the single most effective tool in my toolbox (others being coordinated press releases, blog postings, and member benefits). Consequently, I am in favour of a recognition mechanism that values both cash donations and service donations against the same scale, yielding a platinum/gold/silver/bronze type ranking that is reassessed annually. Something like: https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/sponsors.shtml I do not find it antithetical to FLOSS principles to acknowledge, publically, the contributions that organizations provide to Debian, be they academic institutions such as MIT or corporations such as Bytemark. With regards to fundraising, I'm in favour of using a service such as crowdrise.com -- and only one such service -- even if that means paying 3-5% (plus credit card fees, if applicable). By leveraging such a platform, we can brand our donations portal, avoid managing multiple payment processor accounts, conduct campaigns (no, not spam ... more like earmark your donation for X or Y), etc. In support, Luca On Thu, Apr 02, 2015 at 07:37:23PM +0200, martin f krafft wrote: Dear about-to-be-DPL, I know discussion period is over but Lucas encouraged me to post this now, so blame him. We've had a discussion over on -project about the revival of the Debian Partners Programme, which I hijacked into meta-level. tl;dr would be: while I am interested and want to work on this, I would only do so with enough rope, which I call entrepreneurial freedom. The thread is here: https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2015/03/threads.html#00025 and I am particularly interested in how you would respond as DPL to my last two messages (Lucas reply included in the middle for completeness): https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2015/03/msg00031.html https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2015/03/msg00032.html https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2015/03/msg00035.html PS: In this context, let me quickly also highlight my response to Paul Wise, who doesn't want Debian to turn into an advertising agency: https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2015/03/msg00036.html I am fully aware that this is a contentious topic and the only way the project would succeed is if people can identify with it. There must not be any sell-out and we must not acquire more money than we can reasonably use towards the improvement of Debian. -- .''`. martin f. krafft madduck@d.o @martinkrafft : :' : proud Debian developer `. `'` http://people.debian.org/~madduck `- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems when a gentoo admin tells me that the KISS principle is good for 'busy sysadmins', and that it's not an evolutionary step backwards, i wonder whether their tape is already running backwards. -- Luca Filipozzi http://www.crowdrise.com/SupportDebian -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20150403025251.ga28...@emyr.net
Re: Entrepreneurial freedom for the Debian Partners Programme
On Fri, Apr 3, 2015 at 10:52 AM, Luca Filipozzi wrote: I do not find it antithetical to FLOSS principles to acknowledge, publically, the contributions that organizations provide to Debian, be they academic institutions such as MIT or corporations such as Bytemark. Random thought, it might be interesting to also acknowledge donors (organizations and individuals) via contributors.debian.org. -- bye, pabs https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/CAKTje6FJ6=m+D4FdczF_C4kZuyGUUuuC36gRyXS7AR=cgp0...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Entrepreneurial freedom for the Debian Partners Programme
also sprach Luca Filipozzi lfili...@debian.org [2015-04-03 04:52 +0200]: Consequently, I am in favour of a recognition mechanism that values both cash donations and service donations against the same scale, yielding a platinum/gold/silver/bronze type ranking that is reassessed annually. Something like: https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/sponsors.shtml Note that this pages splits financial and hardware donations, which I understand that you don't want, right? As I said in a previous post, evaluating in-kind donations against a financial scale is possible, albeit not always easy, and the evaluation depends on many factors, including our need and a suitable market price to use. With regards to fundraising, I'm in favour of using a service such as crowdrise.com -- and only one such service -- even if that means paying 3-5% (plus credit card fees, if applicable). By leveraging such a platform, we can brand our donations portal, avoid managing multiple payment processor accounts, conduct campaigns (no, not spam ... more like earmark your donation for X or Y), etc. Yes, having a micro-payment service available for payments too would be beneficial. .oO( snowdrift.coop ) .oO( BitCoin ) -- .''`. martin f. krafft madduck@d.o @martinkrafft : :' : proud Debian developer `. `'` http://people.debian.org/~madduck `- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems it has been said that there are only two businesses that refer to customers as users: illegal drug trade and the computer industry. digital_signature_gpg.asc Description: Digital signature (see http://martin-krafft.net/gpg/sig-policy/999bbcc4/current)
Re: call for help: partners program
On 16/03/15 at 10:13 +0100, martin f krafft wrote: also sprach Lucas Nussbaum lea...@debian.org [2015-03-16 09:45 +0100]: Obviously I'm not in a position to make long term commitments as the DPL. I'd welcome crazy ideas in that area, at least in a brainstorming phase. Maybe you could start by working on a list of possible benefits, and then discuss with the DPL and the project which ones we are willing to give to sponsors? Okay, so then let's assume we identify perk Foo; now there are three possible scenarios: a) you know best, do as you see fit — okay, forget that… ;) b) nice perk, but I think this should not be Silver but Gold and up c) no way we will offer this from n people, good idea from m people I can only dream of (a), and (b) would be really useful feedback. But what do we do in the case of (c)? Scratch it for lack of consensus? Push it anyway? What if it's hugely successful with our sponsors and doesn't change the project really, once people have come to accept it? What if it's a big failure and we won't do it again? I am asking all these questions now because such sponsorship brochure is a lot of work. I don't think any small team among us will be able to just get it right, and being able to obtain feedback from the community will be extremely useful. At the same time, however, I'd hate to create all this work (which does involve speaking with sponsors at some point), only to find that the efforts will get stalled because the Debian community can't agree to place this in the hands of a few and ride along. The DebConf15 brochure had some perks at some time that caused vicious debates, and while we removed the contentious ones, I think that the only reason we managed to actually get this brochure out was due to time pressure and just pushing things, which may have alienated some people. In the context of Debian partners, we do not have this time pressure and we don't have the ability to drive this to completion, unless delegated. Obviously, nobody would be interested to go against the majority, but knowing that there won't be consensus on everything, one still needs to be able to make a move with the support of the project. I think that it is the role of the DPL to break ties in that context, under Make any decision for whom noone else has responsibility.. Of course, that should be done after hearing opinions, including from teams such as the press team and the www team that are likely to be affected by many of the perks. I don't think that it makes sense to delegate that authority to the partners team. Its role should be to: - *propose* a list of Perks - rank them in levels (Silver, Gold, ...) - decide on values for their levels - translate non-financial contributions to a common scale I agree that some perks might be contentious. But there are also a lot of easy ones. Maybe start by building a list, and we'll see where this goes? - Lucas signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: non-financial donations (was: call for help: partners program)
also sprach Paul Wise p...@debian.org [2015-03-16 12:52 +0100]: Re financial donations, I'd personally like to see more focus on something like having 20k or more individuals donating $10 a year and most of them listed on contributors.d.o, as opposed to turning Debian into more of an advertising organisation, which seems to be the end of the spectrum we are headed towards. I don't think Debian should become an advertising organisation. We have identified some ways in which we could use money that IMHO requires a cash flow. So I am merely advocating finding ways of generating that cash flow based on our product and brand, without losing the soul. The problem with 20k × $10 / year is collection. We can let Paypal do this, but I am sure we would find people strongly opposed to Paypal here. But we'd need to use such a provider, working globally, but then you are looking at losing 5–10% of those funds to them. Anyway, the two are not at all in disagreement. Someone giving $10 to Debian every year should be treated with the same diligence as someone giving 20k, especially since the $10 are likely to be a larger cut of their budget than 20k for BigCorp. -- .''`. martin f. krafft madduck@d.o @martinkrafft : :' : proud Debian developer `. `'` http://people.debian.org/~madduck `- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems if you stew apples like cranberries, they taste more like prunes than rhubarb does. -- groucho marx digital_signature_gpg.asc Description: Digital signature (see http://martin-krafft.net/gpg/sig-policy/999bbcc4/current)
Re: call for help: partners program
also sprach Lucas Nussbaum lea...@debian.org [2015-03-16 10:39 +0100]: I think that it is the role of the DPL to break ties in that context, under Make any decision for whom noone else has responsibility.. Of course, that should be done after hearing opinions, including from teams such as the press team and the www team that are likely to be affected by many of the perks. You say the DPL would break ties of course […] after hearing opinions. How is that different from a delegate making decisions after hearing opinions? Obviously, perks affect other teams and designing them would require being in touch with those teams. The goal should not only be to sell perks that don't sell out our soul, but also perks that we can actually fulfill, and unless the fundraising team wants to also become the fulfillment team, we'll need to have all the other teams on board, identifying with our product(s) and having felt part of the process so that they are motivated later on to fulfill the promises we made. But this design process will need active driving and decision-making all along, and while we have all the time in the world to discuss technical decisions until we get stuck and have to call the CTTE, fundraising won't work this way, and I wouldn't feel particularly motivated to engage, to be honest. It really all boils down to one question, IMHO: Assuming there's a team with good knowledge of Debian (the product, as well as the project's values) — Are we as a project ready to delegate design, implementation and further management to said group in full trust that they will - always stay faithful to the project, - engage with the stakeholders involved (e.g. press team, web team, the community) for feedback, - act without an agenda though still enabled and willing to drive the process and make decisions, - get up after making mistakes and learn from them? To me, the role of the DPL in this should not be to be the tip of the scales at the end of the design process, when dozens of strongly held opinions have been formed and you can basically only choose whom to go against and lose. To me, the leader should make such decisions before the process, be ready to defend these decisions and back the efforts with support by the project — this is all assuming that while mistakes will happen, none are breaches of trust or harm the project. But Lucas, I am not trying to put you on the spot here, nor any of the candidates. The issue at hand is about money, and we all know that as soon as money gets involved, we all recall history and go into hyper-defensive mode over our and the project's ideals, which is GOOD; asking the DPL to simply step beyond this would be unfair, and unrealistic as well. Yet, if we wanted to create a cash flow with the goal to be able to hand out budgets to teams such as DSA, sprints, DebConfs, outreach programmes and what not (make better use of our money), then I *think* the only way to do so is to approach it with entrepreneurial freedom. -- .''`. martin f. krafft madduck@d.o @martinkrafft : :' : proud Debian developer `. `'` http://people.debian.org/~madduck `- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems der glaube an den kausalnexus ist der aberglaube -- wittgenstein digital_signature_gpg.asc Description: Digital signature (see http://martin-krafft.net/gpg/sig-policy/999bbcc4/current)
Re: non-financial donations (was: call for help: partners program)
On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 6:33 PM, martin f krafft wrote: If Debian had a wishlist, we could let partners join by donating hardware on this list — until the need is higher and we cannot wait and have to buy the hardware ourselves, so this would need to be actively managed. We have a hardware wishlist but there is nothing on it yet and no-one replied to my calls for adding things to it (on IRC, d-d-a). https://wiki.debian.org/Hardware/Wanted https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/03/msg4.html The previous hardware wishlist became obsolete because it was writeable only by the web team. There is also the DSA wishlist but half of it is obsolete since zack created sources.d.n. https://dsa.debian.org/hardware-wishlist/ Looking at my hardware-donations@d.o archive, we've been offered mostly hardware that we can't use for one reason or another; out of warranty, too slow/ancient, donor didn't follow-up with suggestion to contact porters or we had no use for them. So far only one of eight has been accepted and that was from the manufacturer and was very new hardware. IIRC, the partners program was meant for continuous support every year like supplying machines as-needed for port X rather than one-off donations. Re financial donations, I'd personally like to see more focus on something like having 20k or more individuals donating $10 a year and most of them listed on contributors.d.o, as opposed to turning Debian into more of an advertising organisation, which seems to be the end of the spectrum we are headed towards. -- bye, pabs https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/CAKTje6Hoa2QBavjbZcRURfca=+wk-7e0ageeitjlhesj6l-...@mail.gmail.com
non-financial donations (was: call for help: partners program)
also sprach Lucas Nussbaum lea...@debian.org [2015-03-16 09:45 +0100]: Also note that one of the tricky parts of the partners role is the ability to consider non-financial contributions (e.g. hardware, hosting, sprint hosting, etc.). This is largely orthogonal, but must not be forgotten. The pending partners inquiries are all of that nature. Well, this is indeed a very hard subject, and also includes hardware donations. There's the easy case, which is when Debian needs something and then there's demand and presumably a market price (hardware donations and hosting). If Debian had a wishlist, we could let partners join by donating hardware on this list — until the need is higher and we cannot wait and have to buy the hardware ourselves, so this would need to be actively managed. Wrt sprint hosting, I'd refrain from asking the potential hoster for a price to use their offices before accepting them for free, so here I'd rather use some sort of formula that takes into account geographic location (travel costs), amenities provided, food, etc. to determine the actual worth of the hosting to us. I'd reject sponsors who want to give us products instead of cash when there's no concrete need. The biggest challenge IMHO here is though not the valuation of a single donation and slotting it in with our offerings. Instead, I think the biggest challenge are the different lifetimes, e.g. gold partnership lasts one year and let's just say we would award it in return for a specific SAN by SANManufacturer Ltd. with a 5 year SLA. What then? Does the partner get degraded the next year? All in all, I think the way to solve this is by fixing the rules in the brochure and not to make exceptions, i.e. to become a dependable and predictable peer to our sponsors. And to get there, we probably need to engage with them and shape the product, which will be a longer process. -- .''`. martin f. krafft madduck@d.o @martinkrafft : :' : proud Debian developer `. `'` http://people.debian.org/~madduck `- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems i love deadlines. i like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. -- douglas adams digital_signature_gpg.asc Description: Digital signature (see http://martin-krafft.net/gpg/sig-policy/999bbcc4/current)
Re: call for help: partners program
On 15/03/15 at 14:51 +0100, martin f krafft wrote: Sorry for bringing up https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2015/03/msg00020.html earlier today without having seen this message last month. also sprach Lucas Nussbaum lea...@debian.org [2015-02-17 14:02 +0100]: I would like to build a small group of people in charge of this program. Count me in. That's great! Steffen Möller (Cced) also volunteered. Maybe you too could start discussing how you want to organize, and get the ball rolling? Ideally, this program would be merged with a Debian fundraising team. Do we have a fundraising team? If not, then no need to merge, for then you are talking about the fundraising team, no? Anyway, details… 1) improve the DebConf fundraising processes, and keep in mind that it could be transferred from 'DebConf fundraising' to 'Debian fundraising' We're (DebConf fundraising) already looking at ourselves as that, at least when we take a step back, so I'd say that you can check this off. This was obvious in the discussion around a CRM, which we'll need desperately… 2) revitalize the partners team … and which I'd introduce as point 2.5). In fact… 3) discuss merging both efforts when they are both in a sufficiently good shape. … I wouldn't do it this way. Please let me propose an alternative idea that I think could get us further faster without disrupting DebConf fundraising until we're ready to. How about we revive the partners team and work e.g. on a brochure / marketing material (incl. all the benefits and stuff we sell), as well as a CRM (and cash collection automation).¹ Meanwhile, communications between this newly revived team and the DebConf team will be keep all on the same page and it might well make sense to prepare our DebConf sponsors e.g. during the DC16 cycle.² Once a CRM is in place and we have products identify that we can sell to our subscribers,³ then we can dive into the waters and merge in DebConf fundraising. The above plan looks good to me. Please let me know if you need something from me. - Lucas signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: call for help: partners program
also sprach Lucas Nussbaum lea...@debian.org [2015-03-16 07:55 +0100]: Please let me know if you need something from me. I would like to know how the procedure will be between now and then. Let's make it easy and say up-front that we will not allow a sponsor to gain influence over project decisions, no matter how much money they give us.¹ So we get to work and design the products to sell with our sponsorship brochure, i.e. bundling perks (benefits) for different levels. For instance, we might want to name sprints after our Silver+ sponsors, mention all Gold and Platinum sponsors in our press releases forthwith, and offer 50% discounts on the DebConf sponsorship packages of equal or lesser levels to all our sponsors. Obviously, none of this will be developed behind closed doors (though probably also not on a mailing list like this) and it'll be really useful to reach out to the community for feedback, scrutiny and ideas, but what I wouldn't want to do is develop this brochure in a mailing list discussion with dozens of people. I'd only be motivated to work on this if I was allowed to try things (within limits of course, and also respecting guidelines put forth in a delegation), make mistakes and recover from them. Can you imagine that we can pull this off? ¹) I think we could open ourselves to ideas about this later on, but that would certainly require a working programme and a lengthy discussion about values. So let's not even go there now. -- .''`. martin f. krafft madduck@d.o @martinkrafft : :' : proud Debian developer `. `'` http://people.debian.org/~madduck `- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems no, 'eureka' is greek for 'this bath is too hot.' -- dr. who digital_signature_gpg.asc Description: Digital signature (see http://martin-krafft.net/gpg/sig-policy/999bbcc4/current)
Re: call for help: partners program
On 16/03/15 at 09:32 +0100, martin f krafft wrote: also sprach Lucas Nussbaum lea...@debian.org [2015-03-16 07:55 +0100]: Please let me know if you need something from me. I would like to know how the procedure will be between now and then. Let's make it easy and say up-front that we will not allow a sponsor to gain influence over project decisions, no matter how much money they give us.¹ So we get to work and design the products to sell with our sponsorship brochure, i.e. bundling perks (benefits) for different levels. For instance, we might want to name sprints after our Silver+ sponsors, mention all Gold and Platinum sponsors in our press releases forthwith, and offer 50% discounts on the DebConf sponsorship packages of equal or lesser levels to all our sponsors. Obviously, none of this will be developed behind closed doors (though probably also not on a mailing list like this) and it'll be really useful to reach out to the community for feedback, scrutiny and ideas, but what I wouldn't want to do is develop this brochure in a mailing list discussion with dozens of people. I'd only be motivated to work on this if I was allowed to try things (within limits of course, and also respecting guidelines put forth in a delegation), make mistakes and recover from them. Can you imagine that we can pull this off? ¹) I think we could open ourselves to ideas about this later on, but that would certainly require a working programme and a lengthy discussion about values. So let's not even go there now. Obviously I'm not in a position to make long term commitments as the DPL. I'd welcome crazy ideas in that area, at least in a brainstorming phase. Maybe you could start by working on a list of possible benefits, and then discuss with the DPL and the project which ones we are willing to give to sponsors? Also note that one of the tricky parts of the partners role is the ability to consider non-financial contributions (e.g. hardware, hosting, sprint hosting, etc.). This is largely orthogonal, but must not be forgotten. The pending partners inquiries are all of that nature. Lucas signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: call for help: partners program
also sprach Lucas Nussbaum lea...@debian.org [2015-03-16 09:45 +0100]: Obviously I'm not in a position to make long term commitments as the DPL. I'd welcome crazy ideas in that area, at least in a brainstorming phase. Maybe you could start by working on a list of possible benefits, and then discuss with the DPL and the project which ones we are willing to give to sponsors? Okay, so then let's assume we identify perk Foo; now there are three possible scenarios: a) you know best, do as you see fit — okay, forget that… ;) b) nice perk, but I think this should not be Silver but Gold and up c) no way we will offer this from n people, good idea from m people I can only dream of (a), and (b) would be really useful feedback. But what do we do in the case of (c)? Scratch it for lack of consensus? Push it anyway? What if it's hugely successful with our sponsors and doesn't change the project really, once people have come to accept it? What if it's a big failure and we won't do it again? I am asking all these questions now because such sponsorship brochure is a lot of work. I don't think any small team among us will be able to just get it right, and being able to obtain feedback from the community will be extremely useful. At the same time, however, I'd hate to create all this work (which does involve speaking with sponsors at some point), only to find that the efforts will get stalled because the Debian community can't agree to place this in the hands of a few and ride along. The DebConf15 brochure had some perks at some time that caused vicious debates, and while we removed the contentious ones, I think that the only reason we managed to actually get this brochure out was due to time pressure and just pushing things, which may have alienated some people. In the context of Debian partners, we do not have this time pressure and we don't have the ability to drive this to completion, unless delegated. Obviously, nobody would be interested to go against the majority, but knowing that there won't be consensus on everything, one still needs to be able to make a move with the support of the project. -- .''`. martin f. krafft madduck@d.o @martinkrafft : :' : proud Debian developer `. `'` http://people.debian.org/~madduck `- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems only by counting could humans demonstrate their independence of computers. -- douglas adams, the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy digital_signature_gpg.asc Description: Digital signature (see http://martin-krafft.net/gpg/sig-policy/999bbcc4/current)
Re: call for help: partners program
Sorry for bringing up https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2015/03/msg00020.html earlier today without having seen this message last month. also sprach Lucas Nussbaum lea...@debian.org [2015-02-17 14:02 +0100]: I would like to build a small group of people in charge of this program. Count me in. Ideally, this program would be merged with a Debian fundraising team. Do we have a fundraising team? If not, then no need to merge, for then you are talking about the fundraising team, no? Anyway, details… 1) improve the DebConf fundraising processes, and keep in mind that it could be transferred from 'DebConf fundraising' to 'Debian fundraising' We're (DebConf fundraising) already looking at ourselves as that, at least when we take a step back, so I'd say that you can check this off. This was obvious in the discussion around a CRM, which we'll need desperately… 2) revitalize the partners team … and which I'd introduce as point 2.5). In fact… 3) discuss merging both efforts when they are both in a sufficiently good shape. … I wouldn't do it this way. Please let me propose an alternative idea that I think could get us further faster without disrupting DebConf fundraising until we're ready to. How about we revive the partners team and work e.g. on a brochure / marketing material (incl. all the benefits and stuff we sell), as well as a CRM (and cash collection automation).¹ Meanwhile, communications between this newly revived team and the DebConf team will be keep all on the same page and it might well make sense to prepare our DebConf sponsors e.g. during the DC16 cycle.² Once a CRM is in place and we have products identify that we can sell to our subscribers,³ then we can dive into the waters and merge in DebConf fundraising. Footnotes: ¹) DebConf fundraising uses a text-file and it's quite bad. A real CRM would really help the process and would be a great asset for Debian anyway. Allison Randall has taken a lot of time and scouted out some possibilities: https://titanpad.com/hHhmrGb7uY. So one contribution anyone who's less interested in sales and finances but still likes the ideas being discussed here would be to drive on this evaluation; then — in collaboration with DSA — identify a CRM we could use, and set it up. ²) We'll always also have DebConf fundraising: the small business close to Heidelberg giving us money to be able to be at the DC15 job fair, as well as the small startup in Cape Town going bronze this one time because it's in their home town even though they cannot really afford it, will not really be reachable by a global Debian partners/fundraising programme, at least not without support from the DCX team. ³) Reduced prices for DebConf sponsorship packages could be one such product… -- .''`. martin f. krafft madduck@d.o @martinkrafft : :' : proud Debian developer `. `'` http://people.debian.org/~madduck `- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems there's an old proverb that says just about whatever you want it to. digital_signature_gpg.asc Description: Digital signature (see http://martin-krafft.net/gpg/sig-policy/999bbcc4/current)
call for help: partners program
Hi, Debian has a partners program (see https://www.debian.org/partners/). It is used to thank and advertise organizations that are supporting or helping us. Examples include: - hosting Debian infrastructure, or providing services used by Debian - providing hardware (or plans to buy hardware at a lower cost) - hosting sprints - supporting the LTS initiative - etc. Unfortunately, due to lack of time of the people that used to be involved, the partners@ team has not been able to keep up with addition requests. I discussed this program with DSA (which is one of the main teams making use of it, to thank hardware/hosting sponsors), and at least Luca Filipozzi is interested in helping getting the partners team back in shape. I would like to build a small group of people in charge of this program. There are ideas floating around about having several levels (platinium/gold/silver/...), and a limited duration for membership. The team would be responsible for setting this up in a way that makes it possible to mix different kinds of contributions using the same rankings/levels. Then, the team would be responsible for evaluating requests for joining the program. There's a number of pending requests that could be used to benchmark the designed ranking. Ideally, this program would be merged with a Debian fundraising team. However, at this point, most of what Debian does in terms of fundraising from large organizations (not individuals) happens through DebConf. I fear that merging this now would be too big, so I think that the plan here should be to: 1) improve the DebConf fundraising processes, and keep in mind that it could be transferred from 'DebConf fundraising' to 'Debian fundraising' 2) revitalize the partners team 3) discuss merging both efforts when they are both in a sufficiently good shape. So, at this point, I'm looking for 2-3 people interested in creating a partners team. - Lucas signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Partners
Quoting from a freshly created http://wiki.debian.org/Derivatives/Guidelines # Current Debian trademark policy states: To be fair to all businesses, we insist that no business use the name Debian in the name of the business, or a domain name of the business. * ongoing work on the Draft of the new Debian trademark policy aims to clarify/relax above restriction. Consult the DebianProjectLeader meanwhile on a case-by-case basis On Sun, 19 Dec 2010, Jonathan Wiltshire wrote: On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 07:49:09PM +0100, Jesús M. Navarro wrote: Humm... don't think so. Building, say, a Debian Professional distribution would indeed be a Debian's trademark violation and that's probably what the original poster was asking to do. Of course, if the pro version was also called Debian, that would be a trademark violation. But if it were called something else, it's just a derivative. -- =--= Keep in touch www.onerussian.com Yaroslav Halchenko www.ohloh.net/accounts/yarikoptic -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20101224193515.gh8...@onerussian.com
Re: Partners
Hi, Jonathan: On Saturday 18 December 2010 02:06:27 Jonathan Wiltshire wrote: Please keep this discussion on-list, that is debian-project@lists.debian.org, and avoid top-posting (http://idallen.com/topposting.html). On Sat, Dec 18, 2010 at 12:51:50AM +, anthony budd wrote: If a system could be arrnaged what would be the terms? Also could a pro version be made. When I say made I just mean make it look diffent with minor changes. So that people can buy a new and inovative product. You don't seem to have understood the purpose of Debian, or its philosophy, or read the links I sent you. Of course you can take our works, make them look prettier and redistribute them for money, but you still have to honour the license terms of each package. Humm... don't think so. Building, say, a Debian Professional distribution would indeed be a Debian's trademark violation and that's probably what the original poster was asking to do. Cheers. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/201012191949.09689.jesus.nava...@undominio.net
Re: Partners
On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 07:49:09PM +0100, Jesús M. Navarro wrote: Humm... don't think so. Building, say, a Debian Professional distribution would indeed be a Debian's trademark violation and that's probably what the original poster was asking to do. Of course, if the pro version was also called Debian, that would be a trademark violation. But if it were called something else, it's just a derivative. -- Jonathan Wiltshire j...@debian.org Debian Developer http://people.debian.org/~jmw 4096R: 0xD3524C51 / 0A55 B7C5 1223 3942 86EC 74C3 5394 479D D352 4C51 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20101219195940.ga15...@lupin.powdarrmonkey.net
Partners
Hi, I was looking at your website on the partners program page, and i was wondering. Does being a partner give the right to sell Debian? Or if not do you offer a program in which a business can sell Debian for a commission? Many thanks, Anthony
Re: Partners
On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 10:36:06PM +, anthony budd wrote: I was looking at your website on the partners program page, and i was wondering. Does being a partner give the right to sell Debian? Or if not do you offer a program in which a business can sell Debian for a commission? Debian is free software[1], anybody can reproduce CDs for users and charge whatever they like for that convenience. Equally, any user can choose to buy CDs from a vendor or download Debian directly - it's their choice. Regarding partners: The project is run by volunteers; the companies listed on the partners page are those that have provided ongoing assistance through hardware, hosting, or some other service. People who have given financial donations are recognised differently [2]. 1: http://www.debian.org/social_contract 2: http://www.debian.org/donations -- Jonathan Wiltshire j...@debian.org Debian Developer http://people.debian.org/~jmw 4096R: 0xD3524C51 / 0A55 B7C5 1223 3942 86EC 74C3 5394 479D D352 4C51 signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Partners
On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 11:12:37PM +, anthony budd wrote: But is it not the case that if someone sold your OS for any price yet downloaded it for free would infringe the copyright law? No, because the software you download is made availabe under a free license, see the previous links and http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html The service you are providing is downloading the software and putting it onto some kind of media for users to install. You can charge whatever you like for that service, but you can't force people to use it because they are free to download it themselves at their own cost. Otherwise could we negotiate a commission system were I sell the OS in the UK? If you redistribute Debian and make a profit, you could consider making a donation to the project to fund further development. But no, there is no commission system and there will probably never be. -- Jonathan Wiltshire j...@debian.org Debian Developer http://people.debian.org/~jmw 4096R: 0xD3524C51 / 0A55 B7C5 1223 3942 86EC 74C3 5394 479D D352 4C51 signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Partners
But is it not the case that if someone sold your OS for any price yet downloaded it for free would infringe the copyright law? Otherwise could we negotiate a commission system were I sell the OS in the UK? On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 11:02 PM, Jonathan Wiltshire j...@debian.org wrote: On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 10:36:06PM +, anthony budd wrote: I was looking at your website on the partners program page, and i was wondering. Does being a partner give the right to sell Debian? Or if not do you offer a program in which a business can sell Debian for a commission? Debian is free software[1], anybody can reproduce CDs for users and charge whatever they like for that convenience. Equally, any user can choose to buy CDs from a vendor or download Debian directly - it's their choice. Regarding partners: The project is run by volunteers; the companies listed on the partners page are those that have provided ongoing assistance through hardware, hosting, or some other service. People who have given financial donations are recognised differently [2]. 1: http://www.debian.org/social_contract 2: http://www.debian.org/donations -- Jonathan Wiltshire j...@debian.org Debian Developer http://people.debian.org/~jmw 4096R: 0xD3524C51 / 0A55 B7C5 1223 3942 86EC 74C3 5394 479D D352 4C51 -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJNC+wEAAoJEFOUR53TUkxR9LwP/iXywrjBRxgTeCVJqeaCNeRT oPzKv71vI8KfdOhyCXyVr5h2lcqVzOqsnK85BF+nSQp3Vh8J2dqOj33SIoHoeFfU jnwKgBIthim8r9+kNbu0QXvDDOpNUiArbm2WyZbeeqqmGzO/CGToUMy+j7+9+to6 jwldmRao4tuLxuDX8avOHScHlIGWBJMKkA0gNImH8/RcYZnvNoK8YWo5t2vyHM8K gD60Q0w77Az6sD+k8bQ53WUtr5HgB5R8REJLDSxD9Fb10tgQ/A2NKd3Lw3uU1tUS Q5QjUtdzTKR/poPzeFYwaAgfqLmcgBhYUUU64VHtPiErkUxAFtFWHZduOfdkC6Rp V7nxuM4HPXigI0CzL52kPGkNhhoBWoWwZJtiQBqbZb13SFa3pNFWHKGdJtvlS3A3 20pNMFOgFu/sXP5wBO+A+xdIfh/7NgRMI7sIeg+JHHThwrDKQZ7USs6X8kOVSEf2 nahqBBJRfI2sXVgHqtTjsoiXWIGDQKs1TVgwicxMntIIfxO1xeX33IvwFtvDLpa4 RIpv4Mpz8qfOS7uWA+H3pH8nU1tmoymGQPGcCyofFrkUh10tu8JFfsK8AF3Ubo6k m/A5X3g+iULDsNR2TemL8hMZKCzv3RJlLqXLfybeXCxJF/mCiAO14/68hPoIywn3 ehEJCGwn0qkmAQhoLbDT =cCcs -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: Partners
Please keep this discussion on-list, that is debian-project@lists.debian.org, and avoid top-posting (http://idallen.com/topposting.html). On Sat, Dec 18, 2010 at 12:51:50AM +, anthony budd wrote: If a system could be arrnaged what would be the terms? Also could a pro version be made. When I say made I just mean make it look diffent with minor changes. So that people can buy a new and inovative product. You don't seem to have understood the purpose of Debian, or its philosophy, or read the links I sent you. Of course you can take our works, make them look prettier and redistribute them for money, but you still have to honour the license terms of each package. -- Jonathan Wiltshire j...@debian.org Debian Developer http://people.debian.org/~jmw 4096R: 0xD3524C51 / 0A55 B7C5 1223 3942 86EC 74C3 5394 479D D352 4C51 signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Partners
If a system could be arrnaged what would be the terms? Also could a pro version be made. When I say made I just mean make it look diffent with minor changes. So that people can buy a new and inovative product. On Friday, December 17, 2010, Jonathan Wiltshire j...@debian.org wrote: On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 11:12:37PM +, anthony budd wrote: But is it not the case that if someone sold your OS for any price yet downloaded it for free would infringe the copyright law? No, because the software you download is made availabe under a free license, see the previous links and http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html The service you are providing is downloading the software and putting it onto some kind of media for users to install. You can charge whatever you like for that service, but you can't force people to use it because they are free to download it themselves at their own cost. Otherwise could we negotiate a commission system were I sell the OS in the UK? If you redistribute Debian and make a profit, you could consider making a donation to the project to fund further development. But no, there is no commission system and there will probably never be. -- Jonathan Wiltshire ...@debian.org Debian Developer http://people.debian.org/~jmw 4096R: 0xD3524C51 / 0A55 B7C5 1223 3942 86EC 74C3 5394 479D D352 4C51 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/aanlkti=e_jydoczqkrj9kpyaioptit6wejswt0ok7...@mail.gmail.com
Project of New Arabic Television Satellite Channel ( Partners )
Dear Mr. Abdalla ElNaser, This has reference to the upcoming channel from Arab Enterprise. We at Essel Shyam India provide Uplinking, Playout DSNG services for TV Channels. We are associated with all the major channels in India. We wanted to know about the status of the project and would like to be associated with you for satellite and broadcasting solutions. Fortunately we will be implementing a project in Middle East very soon. We shall be glad to provide you information about Essel Shyam Broadcasting services. Best regards looking forward for a fruitful association with you. Shazir Viqar Sr. Exe Marketing ESSEL SHYAM COMMUNICATION LIMITED C-34 Sector 62, Electronic City, Noida- 201307 India Tel No; +91- 120-2402301 -08 Mob: +91-98992 97435
Project of New Arabic Television Satellite Channel ( Partners )
Looking for partner for Project of New Arabic Satellite Television Looking for partner for Project of New Arabic Satellite Television and/or Radio Channel for ADVERTISING. Our TV and Radio channels will be interesting in Arab and Medal East (Travel, Decoration, Arab Wedding, Fashions, fairs.. without any political content) Phone: + Fax ++(20-2) 572-4971 My Mobil: ++(20-10) 530-7899 Abdalla ElNaser Recherche de l'associé pour le projet de la nouvelle télévision par satellite arabe et/ou de la Manche par radio pour la PUBLICITÉ. Notre TV et canaux par radio seront intéressants dans le téléphone est d'Arabe et de médaille (voyage, décoration, mariage arabe, modes, foires. sans tout contenu politique) : + Fax ++(20-2) 572-4971 Mon Mobil : ++(20-10) 530-7899 Abdalla ElNaser Buscar a socio para el proyecto de la televisión via satélite árabe nueva y/o del canal de radio para ANUNCIAR. Nuestra TV y canales de radio serán interesantes en teléfono del este del árabe y de la medalla (recorrido, decoración, boda árabe, las maneras, las ferias. sin cualquier contenido político): + Fax ++(20-2) 572-4971 Mi Mobil: ++(20-10) 530-7899 Abdalla ElNaser
Project of New Arabic Television Satellite Channel ( Partners )
Arab Enterprise Television Radio (AESAT)URL: http://aesat.tk Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]--- Dear madam/Sir, We are planning to building a new Arabic Satellite Television and/or Radio Channel for ADVERTISING.We looking forpartners support and corporation ( Full Teleport Services (satellite space and uplink service), License from your country and more ). We looking for start with Nilesat Arabsat covering all Arab aria cost is very important.Our TV and Radio channels will be interesting in Arab and Medal East (Travel, Decoration, Arab Wedding, Food Restaurants, Fashions, fairs .. without any political content)AESAT will be first ADVERTISING channel satellite television network to broadcast to the Arab world.1. Most of our viewers in the Arab aria.2. All of our programs recorded and ready to shipped to your center (No live programs).3. Content of the programs not yet ready ( for now It will be interesting in Arab and Medal East Travel, Decoration, Food Restaurants, Fashions, fairs .. as advertisings ). 4. We looking start our transmissions next summer (June/July 2004). 5. The origin of our programs is Egyptian Arab countries6. We do not have satellite license till now. We looking to get it from non Arab countries. Do you have any advice? 7. we will be looking for play out our programs from your teleport.8. It will be (6) hours a day (the beginning) (Digital bands). We are also looking for long period corporation (It's permanent Channel not a temporary Channel).9. We not looking for invest a big amount at the beginning.We looking for the best offer of uplink services soon.If you can help us. It will be appreciated, if you send us details about all your business and how you can help.I'm look forward to your early reply.Also .. We are ready to cooperate with you based on appointing us as your sales commission agent or partner in Egypt.Appreciating your Cooperation.Best regards,Abdalla ElNaserDirectorArab Enterprise Television RadioEmail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Giza 12211, Cairo, Egypt.Phone: + Fax ++(20-2) 572-4971My Mobil: ++(20-10) 530-7899
