Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members

[Duarte Carreira]

Well I just have to chime in...

I do promote osgeo projects all the time. I don't get paid. I am a Charter 
Member. This sometimes is useful for people to understand the sense of 
community that exists in Open Source projects, as opposed to "other 
associations" who are in fact many times seen (and are in fact) protectorate 
systems for a profession or market/business (also lobbying) generally 
benefiting a well defined group of individuals and companies.

So if I have to pay for membership I will have no feedback for that money since 
all the work I do promoting and educating on open source in gis is volunteered. 
And I still am requested to pay on top of that...

This is to say membership has value *for OSGeo*. Many times it has no monetary 
value for volunteers. So I can flip this and say, OSGeo should be paying me and 
thousands of volunteers around the world. At least a small recognition should 
be given that OSGeo reach is based on people who will not pay the fees, have no 
income from open source, and still do the work because they see some kind of 
social/community/long term general benefit from open source. Paying fees seems 
to undermine the open relationship between OSGeo and its bases. 

I am not 100% against fees but there should be always a way to not pay fees and 
keep the open free model, volunteer based, membership. If you want, you can 
have the fees as donations and not compulsory. Give a badge to those who pay.

Best,
Duarte



-Mensagem original-
De: Mr. Puneet Kishor [mailto:punk.k...@gmail.com] 
Enviada: segunda-feira, 23 de Junho de 2014 17:41
Para: Howard Butler
Cc: ML osgeo discuss
Assunto: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter 
members



> On Jun 23, 2014, at 6:08 PM, Howard Butler  wrote:
> 
> Do you lose a significant benefit by not being a Charter Member? Just the 
> ability to vote for the board and the ability to tout your exclusivity on a 
> vita/resume. Anything else? Lack of membership does not prevent anyone from 
> participating now, and we wouldn't want it to (unlike many other professional 
> organizations).

I don't lose anything significant, which implies that everything significant I 
gain from OSGeo's community is unaffected by my membership. This is one of the 
reasons I don't attend foss4g anymore (actually, mainly because I can't afford 
to do so). I will still support all the community ideals and aspirations to the 
fullest possible.

In short, I consider this both my vote for membership dues and the concurrent 
renunciation of my membership as a result.

--
Puneet Kishor



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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members

[Kari Salovaara]

Hi,

I was following this thread with disbelief how most of the participants 
don't understand which is the situation of open idea, open source 
applications and open data in most countries round the world. And what 
kind of support those people get when trying to bring message to 
disbelievers. And how small is the group of actives really working. Yes, 
there is much more "members", those who are actually end users taking 
only benefits and nagging about missing features. And the fight against 
commercial sector, how much you get back kicking with out real facts?
If membership fees are needed, if yearly reporting is needed and if you 
have to organize real elections, we'll be in trouble. First of all we 
have to establish a society which is eligible to have bookkeeping, bank 
accounts, board and official meetings for its election etc. A lot of 
bureaucracy which will be above the work pain already done by the few 
volunteers (who are by themselves not satisfied currently to their own 
efforts due lack of time).
If we don't establish a society (without that is impossible to collect 
money) we should pay these fees to some other country! And then it would 
be even more difficult to attract people to join. And who will get the 
benefits of our money then? Of course in organization (OsGeo) those 
members who represent larger groups(countries can reach their goals 
easier and can direct the development and efforts to goals more powerful 
than smaller group representatives or those who lack totally their 
"man/woman". So none in this discussion has presented democratic way, 
how to ensure equality, in this sense.


The timing of this discussion is perfect as it's holiday season and very 
very few people in northern Europe is reading their emails.


Cheers,
Kari


On 06/24/2014 09:57 AM, Arnulf Christl wrote:

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 06/23/2014 09:33 PM, b.j.kob...@utwente.nl wrote:

I am very dissapointed in this whole membership/fees discussion.
In reading the emails one does not see the international volunteer
community I would like to think OSGEO is (should be), but it rather
seems we are dealing with a US-based professional organisation,
mostly keen on not paying US taxes, and that is not what I want
OSGEO to become...

Hey Barend,
if it makes you feel any better - I can still see the volunteer driven
OSGeo and have no intention to drop out just because there are ideas
to move to a more consistent way of mapping members. I have been CRO
in two consecutive years and cannot see any advantage in sticking with
the non-system we have had so far. Instead, my hopes are that a fee
based membership can broaden the base we are one. It would make so
many things so much easier.

I also believe that we have grown to a size where we do not have to
fear a hostile takeover so that a lot of the self-referencing and
sustaining mechanisms we put in place to start with are not required
any more.

It would be a pity if others and especially existing OSGeo Charter
Members would feel negatively about the proposed suggestions so I beg
you all to voice your concerns now. And we should make sure that we
pass any changes of this format by the existing Charter Members and
make sure there is a fat majority of support for it. Otherwise we
would betray our principles which is exactly what we tried to prevent
with the existing system in place.


Have fun,
Arnulf




On 23-06-14 21:00, "Alex Mandel" 
wrote:


On 06/19/2014 11:58 AM, Peter Baumann wrote:

Hi all,

good - and important! - discussion! Being Charter Member I am
somewhat concerned:

- I am surprised that the common democratic procedure of
election is perceived as creating "dissent".

Well it's somewhat conjecture without public confirmation that
someone walked away from OSGeo because they didn't get picked.


- yes, democracy is expensive, but generally it is considered
worth the effort. - is "lifelong membership" compatible with
community participation?

Nope and we've actually have discussed in the past what the rules
should be to weed out charter members who no longer particpate in
the community.


- "Recognised OSGeo Community Leaders" seem to get determined
in a very special, selective way (as compared to standard
election procedures).

Altogether, the criteria seem to make OSGeo a self-sustaining
group: insiders will remain insiders for a lifetime, outsiders
will...well, face a hurdle.

So the contrary of "open".

Just an idea: what about applying the OSGeo incubation
checklist to OSGeo itself to determine feasible procedures?

cheers, Peter

I think the discussion of membership fees is timely this year now
that we officially have our IRS 501c4 status. Why, well when we
were aiming for 501c3 that would have given us donations as tax
write offs for US members. Without that incentive to donate,
membership now seems like it might be the way to push individuals
to donate.

The amount should be researched quite a bit though, factoring in
how to reach

Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members

[Bart van den Eijnden]

Hi Kari,

some replies inline.

Best regards,
Bart

On 24 Jun 2014, at 11:47, Kari Salovaara  wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I was following this thread with disbelief how most of the participants don't 
> understand which is the situation of open idea, open source applications and 
> open data in most countries round the world. And what kind of support those 
> people get when trying to bring message to disbelievers. And how small is the 
> group of actives really working. Yes, there is much more "members", those who 
> are actually end users taking only benefits and nagging about missing 
> features. And the fight against commercial sector, how much you get back 
> kicking with out real facts?
> If membership fees are needed, if yearly reporting is needed and if you have 
> to organize real elections, we'll be in trouble. First of all we have to 
> establish a society which is eligible to have bookkeeping, bank accounts, 
> board and official meetings for its election etc. A lot of bureaucracy which 
> will be above the work pain already done by the few volunteers (who are by 
> themselves not satisfied currently to their own efforts due lack of time).

With “we" are you talking about the global OSGeo organisation, or its local 
chapters?
OSGeo global already has official status, bank accounts bookkeeping etc.

I don’t think it is necessary to do this at the local chapter level personally, 
I would leave this up to the local chapters to decide.

> If we don't establish a society (without that is impossible to collect money) 
> we should pay these fees to some other country! And then it would be even 
> more difficult to attract people to join. And who will get the benefits of 
> our money then? Of course in organization (OsGeo) those members who represent 
> larger groups(countries can reach their goals easier and can direct the 
> development and efforts to goals more powerful than smaller group 
> representatives or those who lack totally their "man/woman". So none in this 
> discussion has presented democratic way, how to ensure equality, in this 
> sense.
> 
> The timing of this discussion is perfect as it's holiday season and very very 
> few people in northern Europe is reading their emails.

I live in Northern Europe (The Netherlands) but still quite some weeks until 
holiday season starts here.

> 
> Cheers,
> Kari
> 
> 
> On 06/24/2014 09:57 AM, Arnulf Christl wrote:
>> -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
>> Hash: SHA1
>> 
>> On 06/23/2014 09:33 PM, b.j.kob...@utwente.nl wrote:
>>> I am very dissapointed in this whole membership/fees discussion.
>>> In reading the emails one does not see the international volunteer
>>> community I would like to think OSGEO is (should be), but it rather
>>> seems we are dealing with a US-based professional organisation,
>>> mostly keen on not paying US taxes, and that is not what I want
>>> OSGEO to become...
>> Hey Barend,
>> if it makes you feel any better - I can still see the volunteer driven
>> OSGeo and have no intention to drop out just because there are ideas
>> to move to a more consistent way of mapping members. I have been CRO
>> in two consecutive years and cannot see any advantage in sticking with
>> the non-system we have had so far. Instead, my hopes are that a fee
>> based membership can broaden the base we are one. It would make so
>> many things so much easier.
>> 
>> I also believe that we have grown to a size where we do not have to
>> fear a hostile takeover so that a lot of the self-referencing and
>> sustaining mechanisms we put in place to start with are not required
>> any more.
>> 
>> It would be a pity if others and especially existing OSGeo Charter
>> Members would feel negatively about the proposed suggestions so I beg
>> you all to voice your concerns now. And we should make sure that we
>> pass any changes of this format by the existing Charter Members and
>> make sure there is a fat majority of support for it. Otherwise we
>> would betray our principles which is exactly what we tried to prevent
>> with the existing system in place.
>> 
>> 
>> Have fun,
>> Arnulf
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 23-06-14 21:00, "Alex Mandel" 
>> wrote:
>> 
 On 06/19/2014 11:58 AM, Peter Baumann wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> good - and important! - discussion! Being Charter Member I am
> somewhat concerned:
> 
> - I am surprised that the common democratic procedure of
> election is perceived as creating "dissent".
 Well it's somewhat conjecture without public confirmation that
 someone walked away from OSGeo because they didn't get picked.
 
> - yes, democracy is expensive, but generally it is considered
> worth the effort. - is "lifelong membership" compatible with
> community participation?
 Nope and we've actually have discussed in the past what the rules
 should be to weed out charter members who no longer particpate in
 the community.
 
> - "Recognised OSGeo Community Leaders" seem to get determined
>>

Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members

[Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas]

El 24/06/14 10:58, Duarte Carreira escribió:
> Well I just have to chime in...
> 
> I do promote osgeo projects all the time. I don't get paid. I am a Charter 
> Member. This sometimes is useful for people to understand the sense of 
> community that exists in Open Source projects, as opposed to "other 
> associations" who are in fact many times seen (and are in fact) protectorate 
> systems for a profession or market/business (also lobbying) generally 
> benefiting a well defined group of individuals and companies.
> 
> So if I have to pay for membership I will have no feedback for that money 
> since all the work I do promoting and educating on open source in gis is 
> volunteered. And I still am requested to pay on top of that...
> 
> This is to say membership has value *for OSGeo*. Many times it has no 
> monetary value for volunteers. So I can flip this and say, OSGeo should be 
> paying me and thousands of volunteers around the world. At least a small 
> recognition should be given that OSGeo reach is based on people who will not 
> pay the fees, have no income from open source, and still do the work because 
> they see some kind of social/community/long term general benefit from open 
> source. Paying fees seems to undermine the open relationship between OSGeo 
> and its bases. 
> 
> I am not 100% against fees but there should be always a way to not pay fees 
> and keep the open free model, volunteer based, membership. If you want, you 
> can have the fees as donations and not compulsory. Give a badge to those who 
> pay.
> 
> Best,
> Duarte
> 
> 

Thanks Duarte, you tackled an important point that was bugging me.

I want to believe OSGeo inspires people to do things because we think is
good in a general sense (for business, for education, the merit good,
fun, whatever.). Involving money on the relationship IMHO could take
that intrinsic motivation out of the equation: "if I'm already paying a
fee, let others do the job", "why I'm not paid if I'm doing this hard
job?", etc.

A membership should be related with people willing to participate with
OSGeo efforts on projects, committees and local chapters. If we want to
channel personal money to the foundation, I'd prefer something like an
individual sponsorship program* and give that good people the credit and
acknowledgment that kind of support deserves.

* maybe you have money but not time to participate? i.e. I've been doing
that with Red Cross for many years.

But that is very different from what I see as the organizational body
that has the obligation to drive the organization with direct elections
or delegating to a board. That group of members should emerge from a
motivated community*.

* following mi example, I don't want to have any decision power on Red
Cross or my labor union just because I pay an annual fee.

What is more important, what do we really *need* more, an active
membership or funds? Sure that both but if I have to decide between one
or the other I prefer a low-profile organization with a healthy
community and look for money on other places (events, sponsors, etc.)

I don't see OSGeo as an association that ask for money on the first
place to be a member, but as an open community where anyone with the
enough time and motivation can participate and influence. Of course as
others said, if a paid membership is what the current membership wants,
I'll support that decision but I'm afraid we will drive off some
valuable people.

Cheers.

-- 
Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas
http://es.osgeo.org
http://jorgesanz.net



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[OSGeo-Discuss] Membership fee (was: Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members)

[Mateusz Łoskot]

Folks,

I still can't comprehend what actually is being objected in the proposal
of membership fee.
Moreover, I can't understand how the fact members financially support their
organisation stands in contradiction with active volunteer-based participation.

What is the actual problem here, act of paying or amount or anything else?

What if we've never considered the membership fee and instead
we (the OSGeo) would be issuing regular calls on the mailing list:

"""
People, this month's bill for svn.osgeo.org is due.
Who's paying this time, any ***volunteers***?
"""


Questions about amount are irrelevant at this point,
because we are free to decide it will be adjuster
per country/region - we rule OSGeo, don't we.


Best regards,
-- 
Mateusz  Łoskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Membership fee (was: Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members)

[Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas]

El 24/06/14 12:33, Mateusz Łoskot escribió:
> Folks,
> 
> I still can't comprehend what actually is being objected in the proposal
> of membership fee.
> Moreover, I can't understand how the fact members financially support their
> organisation stands in contradiction with active volunteer-based 
> participation.
> 
> What is the actual problem here, act of paying or amount or anything else?
> 

The problem I think is that we are talking about the membership, about
putting money as a requirement, instead of recognition being elected by
your peers.


> What if we've never considered the membership fee and instead
> we (the OSGeo) would be issuing regular calls on the mailing list:
> 
> """
> People, this month's bill for svn.osgeo.org is due.
> Who's paying this time, any ***volunteers***?
> """
> 

Ha! Not exactly that, but maybe doing better outreach effort to show
where the money is used would help to a better understanding of the need
of funds.

Budgets are published and anyone willing to ask can reach them, but
maybe being more proactive on showing the need for money could help to
increase the perception that maintaining OSGeo is not free (as free beer).


-- 
Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas
http://es.osgeo.org
http://jorgesanz.net



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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Membership fee (was: Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members)

[Mateusz Łoskot]

On 24 June 2014 12:52, Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas  wrote:
> El 24/06/14 12:33, Mateusz Łoskot escribió:
>>
>> I still can't comprehend what actually is being objected in the proposal
>> of membership fee.
>> Moreover, I can't understand how the fact members financially support their
>> organisation stands in contradiction with active volunteer-based 
>> participation.
>>
>> What is the actual problem here, act of paying or amount or anything else?
>>
>
> The problem I think is that we are talking about the membership, about
> putting money as a requirement, instead of recognition being elected by
> your peers.

Right, that is something, an actual topic that we can discuss about.

IMHO, simple "Donate" button does not really provoke a deeper reflection
that would potentially lead to concious decision "Yes, I want to donate".
That is because there "Donate" button these days work like
JustGiving.com calls from friends on social networks...
one would have to be a billionaire to be able to donate everyone!

So, my understanding is that we are considering to add
for-fee membership as a form of regular donation that also allows
us to predict cash flow and budget.

I would suggest to stop thinking of such paid OSGeo membership
in terms of memberships to other professional organisations like
AGI, AAG, etc. Those are not even remotely linked to OSGeo.

Would we ever prevent anyone from attending the OSGeo AGM
if she has not paid a membership?
Would we ever consider paid OSGeo AGM?

Shortly, I see nothing wrong in expecting as an organisation
that if an individual aims and agrees to be nominated for
OSGeo Charter Member she/he also agrees to donate on yearly/monthly basis.


>> What if we've never considered the membership fee and instead
>> we (the OSGeo) would be issuing regular calls on the mailing list:
>>
>> """
>> People, this month's bill for svn.osgeo.org is due.
>> Who's paying this time, any ***volunteers***?
>> """
>>
>
> Ha! Not exactly that, but maybe doing better outreach effort to show
> where the money is used would help to a better understanding of the need
> of funds.
>
> Budgets are published and anyone willing to ask can reach them, but
> maybe being more proactive on showing the need for money could help to
> increase the perception that maintaining OSGeo is not free (as free beer).

Yes, but that is more a technical issue. So, it's the easiest one to
solve, I think.

Best regards,
-- 
Mateusz  Łoskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Membership fee (was: Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members)

[Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas]

El 24/06/14 13:26, Mateusz Łoskot escribió:
>>
>> The problem I think is that we are talking about the membership, about
>> putting money as a requirement, instead of recognition being elected by
>> your peers.
> 
> Right, that is something, an actual topic that we can discuss about.
> 
> IMHO, simple "Donate" button does not really provoke a deeper reflection
> that would potentially lead to concious decision "Yes, I want to donate".
> That is because there "Donate" button these days work like
> JustGiving.com calls from friends on social networks...
> one would have to be a billionaire to be able to donate everyone!
> 
> So, my understanding is that we are considering to add
> for-fee membership as a form of regular donation that also allows
> us to predict cash flow and budget.
> 
> I would suggest to stop thinking of such paid OSGeo membership
> in terms of memberships to other professional organisations like
> AGI, AAG, etc. Those are not even remotely linked to OSGeo.
> 
> Would we ever prevent anyone from attending the OSGeo AGM
> if she has not paid a membership?
> Would we ever consider paid OSGeo AGM?
> 
> Shortly, I see nothing wrong in expecting as an organisation
> that if an individual aims and agrees to be nominated for
> OSGeo Charter Member she/he also agrees to donate on yearly/monthly basis.
> 

Yes but I see that as different things, one is being nominated and
elected as member, and other being an active sponsor of the
organization. They are complementary, some people want to be involved on
the organization donating time, others maybe just want to donate funds,
and finally some crazy people both :-)

But when it comes on deciding who is on the board or any other important
issue, I prefer having a membership that has been in one way or the
other elected by the community, not one that has paid their annual fee.

>>
>> Ha! Not exactly that, but maybe doing better outreach effort to show
>> where the money is used would help to a better understanding of the need
>> of funds.
>>
>> Budgets are published and anyone willing to ask can reach them, but
>> maybe being more proactive on showing the need for money could help to
>> increase the perception that maintaining OSGeo is not free (as free beer).
> 
> Yes, but that is more a technical issue. So, it's the easiest one to
> solve, I think.

It's not important now but anyway I didn't explain well myself. I see it
as an organizational and marketing issue. As our treasurer, the task of
publicly remembering where the money comes and goes is probably one of
most ungrateful jobs anyone can have here, only for a tireless special one.


-- 
Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas
http://es.osgeo.org
http://jorgesanz.net



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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Membership fee (was: Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members)

[Mateusz Łoskot]

On 24 June 2014 14:02, Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas  wrote:
> El 24/06/14 13:26, Mateusz Łoskot escribió:
>>>
>> Shortly, I see nothing wrong in expecting as an organisation
>> that if an individual aims and agrees to be nominated for
>> OSGeo Charter Member she/he also agrees to donate on yearly/monthly basis.
>>
>
> Yes but I see that as different things, one is being nominated and
> elected as member, and other being an active sponsor of the
> organization.
>
> They are complementary, some people want to be involved on
> the organization donating time, others maybe just want to donate funds,
> and finally some crazy people both :-)

So, you prefer that Charter Members and non-Charter Members
is not differentiated (among other things) by paid membership.

> But when it comes on deciding who is on the board or any other important
> issue, I prefer having a membership that has been in one way or the
> other elected by the community, not one that has paid their annual fee.

AFAIU, nobody proposed to replace Charter Members election
with membership fees, but to complement the former with the latter.

>>> Ha! Not exactly that, but maybe doing better outreach effort to show
>>> where the money is used would help to a better understanding of the need
>>> of funds.
>>>
>>> Budgets are published and anyone willing to ask can reach them, but
>>> maybe being more proactive on showing the need for money could help to
>>> increase the perception that maintaining OSGeo is not free (as free beer).
>>
>> Yes, but that is more a technical issue. So, it's the easiest one to
>> solve, I think.
>
> It's not important now but anyway I didn't explain well myself. I see it
> as an organizational and marketing issue. As our treasurer, the task of
> publicly remembering where the money comes and goes is probably one of
> most ungrateful jobs anyone can have here, only for a tireless special one.

The books show where the money comes from and where it goes,
so still technical issue, but yes it requires hard work to maintain.
However, the marketing side...is a different issue that is much harder to
work on than the former one, I think.

Best regards,
-- 
Mateusz  Łoskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Membership fee (was: Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members)

[María Arias de Reyna]

Hi,

I have been reading this conversation silently and for my point of view, if
paying helps OsGeo, then subsctription fees are welcome.

But there is a big but: for students and people who are unemployed,
subsctription fees can be very discouraging. It happened to me with IEEE
and I still haven't returned to them after so many years. Once I couldn't
pay the membership, it was like forcing me to go away. I know that OsGeo is
more open and that even people who is not a member can participate actively
on mailing lists and projects but... it helps if you feel that you are part
of the community.

So, couldn't we add some kind of volunteer work to compensate the fee on
some cases? For example: people that work on maintenance of the servers, or
translate very hard or help on conferences, can they get a discounted or
even free subscription?

This way, all OsGeo members will contribute to OsGeo (with fees or work)
and people who are very active but cannot pay the fees will have also
recognition.

Just a random thought.


On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 2:17 PM, Mateusz Łoskot  wrote:

> On 24 June 2014 14:02, Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas  wrote:
> > El 24/06/14 13:26, Mateusz Łoskot escribió:
> >>>
> >> Shortly, I see nothing wrong in expecting as an organisation
> >> that if an individual aims and agrees to be nominated for
> >> OSGeo Charter Member she/he also agrees to donate on yearly/monthly
> basis.
> >>
> >
> > Yes but I see that as different things, one is being nominated and
> > elected as member, and other being an active sponsor of the
> > organization.
> >
> > They are complementary, some people want to be involved on
> > the organization donating time, others maybe just want to donate funds,
> > and finally some crazy people both :-)
>
> So, you prefer that Charter Members and non-Charter Members
> is not differentiated (among other things) by paid membership.
>
> > But when it comes on deciding who is on the board or any other important
> > issue, I prefer having a membership that has been in one way or the
> > other elected by the community, not one that has paid their annual fee.
>
> AFAIU, nobody proposed to replace Charter Members election
> with membership fees, but to complement the former with the latter.
>
> >>> Ha! Not exactly that, but maybe doing better outreach effort to show
> >>> where the money is used would help to a better understanding of the
> need
> >>> of funds.
> >>>
> >>> Budgets are published and anyone willing to ask can reach them, but
> >>> maybe being more proactive on showing the need for money could help to
> >>> increase the perception that maintaining OSGeo is not free (as free
> beer).
> >>
> >> Yes, but that is more a technical issue. So, it's the easiest one to
> >> solve, I think.
> >
> > It's not important now but anyway I didn't explain well myself. I see it
> > as an organizational and marketing issue. As our treasurer, the task of
> > publicly remembering where the money comes and goes is probably one of
> > most ungrateful jobs anyone can have here, only for a tireless special
> one.
>
> The books show where the money comes from and where it goes,
> so still technical issue, but yes it requires hard work to maintain.
> However, the marketing side...is a different issue that is much harder to
> work on than the former one, I think.
>
> Best regards,
> --
> Mateusz  Łoskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Membership fee (was: Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members)

[Arnulf Christl]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

María,
good points, thanks. I strongly believe that paying a fee for one type
of membership must not estrange anybody else who wants to participate.
And I don't think that this is in the interest of anybody proposing a
paid scheme.

Trying to gauge the volunteer effect to decide whether somebody is
"worthy" or not takes somebody to actually measure. Who would be this
poor sod? What should she measure and how? Mission impossible and no
fun, so forget it. :-)

I guess the paid membership - if it comes, will just be complimentary
to what we have. Ideally we can somehow carry all Charter Members over
to a paid model, just because it would simplify our process so much.
And maybe this is also a perfectly sound step to more professionalism.
This does not mean that those who do not pay are less professional,
instead they will also profit from a more professional environment.

Having said that, all who use the word "professionalism" have probably
just run out of sound arguments. :-)

Cheers,
Arnulf

On 06/24/2014 02:38 PM, María Arias de Reyna wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have been reading this conversation silently and for my point of
> view, if paying helps OsGeo, then subsctription fees are welcome.
> 
> But there is a big but: for students and people who are
> unemployed, subsctription fees can be very discouraging. It
> happened to me with IEEE and I still haven't returned to them after
> so many years. Once I couldn't pay the membership, it was like
> forcing me to go away. I know that OsGeo is more open and that even
> people who is not a member can participate actively on mailing
> lists and projects but... it helps if you feel that you are part of
> the community.
> 
> So, couldn't we add some kind of volunteer work to compensate the
> fee on some cases? For example: people that work on maintenance of
> the servers, or translate very hard or help on conferences, can
> they get a discounted or even free subscription?
> 
> This way, all OsGeo members will contribute to OsGeo (with fees or
> work) and people who are very active but cannot pay the fees will
> have also recognition.
> 
> Just a random thought.
> 
> 
> On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 2:17 PM, Mateusz Łoskot
> mailto:mate...@loskot.net>> wrote:
> 
> On 24 June 2014 14:02, Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas  > wrote:
>> El 24/06/14 13:26, Mateusz Łoskot escribió:
 
>>> Shortly, I see nothing wrong in expecting as an organisation 
>>> that if an individual aims and agrees to be nominated for OSGeo
>>> Charter Member she/he also agrees to donate on
> yearly/monthly basis.
>>> 
>> 
>> Yes but I see that as different things, one is being nominated
>> and elected as member, and other being an active sponsor of the 
>> organization.
>> 
>> They are complementary, some people want to be involved on the
>> organization donating time, others maybe just want to donate
> funds,
>> and finally some crazy people both :-)
> 
> So, you prefer that Charter Members and non-Charter Members is not
> differentiated (among other things) by paid membership.
> 
>> But when it comes on deciding who is on the board or any other
> important
>> issue, I prefer having a membership that has been in one way or
>> the other elected by the community, not one that has paid their
>> annual
> fee.
> 
> AFAIU, nobody proposed to replace Charter Members election with
> membership fees, but to complement the former with the latter.
> 
 Ha! Not exactly that, but maybe doing better outreach effort
 to show where the money is used would help to a better
 understanding of
> the need
 of funds.
 
 Budgets are published and anyone willing to ask can reach
 them, but maybe being more proactive on showing the need for
 money could
> help to
 increase the perception that maintaining OSGeo is not free
 (as
> free beer).
>>> 
>>> Yes, but that is more a technical issue. So, it's the easiest
>>> one to solve, I think.
>> 
>> It's not important now but anyway I didn't explain well myself.
>> I
> see it
>> as an organizational and marketing issue. As our treasurer, the
> task of
>> publicly remembering where the money comes and goes is probably
>> one of most ungrateful jobs anyone can have here, only for a
>> tireless
> special one.
> 
> The books show where the money comes from and where it goes, so
> still technical issue, but yes it requires hard work to maintain. 
> However, the marketing side...is a different issue that is much 
> harder to work on than the former one, I think.
> 
> Best regards, -- Mateusz  Łoskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net 
> ___ Discuss mailing
> list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org  
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ___ Discuss mailing
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> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> 


- -- 
http://metaspatia

Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Membership fee (was: Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members)

[Even Rouault]

Hi,

Interesting topic that raises quite a few questions.

I think that all people who have commented in that thread have not necessarily
agreed if membership fees would be something in addition to the nomination and
election processs, or if it would replace it.

If we switch to a paid membership, one would likely have to identify the
benefits brought by being a member. Voting rights for the board would probably
not a big enough benefit. In the AAG example quoted by Paul, there are several
benefits associated: access to journals, reduced prices to
publications/meetings, etc... That would mean that there is a commitment of
OSGeo to provide the advertized benefits, and thus the question on how to
guarantee this commitment would arise : volunteers effort, or paid
staff/contractors ?
Interestingly one of the benefit of AAG membership is access to "AAG specialty
groups" whose equivalent in OSGeo would probably be our mailing lists. So would
we want to restrict access to those to non members ? Mateusz also mentionned
that bills have to be paid to maintain some OSGeo servers, like svn. Would we
want to restrict access to those servers only to the folks who have paid the
membership fee ? Probably not.

We have only mentionned individual members, but would we want to extend to
corportate members as well ?

>From my perspective, OSGeo Charter membership is a recognition for the
accomplishments of an individual to support OSGeo values and missions, and thus
gets a right to define its steering through board election. Perhaps we at a
community sometimes fail to welcome people who would deserve it, because they
are a bit outside of our usual networks to be nominated (or because people are
not confortable enough to do public nominations, perhaps for language or
cultural reasons), or because we reach the yearly quota for new members. That's
certainly a pitty if folks feel excluded whereas I think we generally try to be
rather inclusive.

One thing to keep in mind is that if we translate into money the value of the
accomplishments of OSGeo Charter members, I'm pretty sure that in 99.99% of the
cases that translates to much more than USD 70. You can probably add one or two
zeros to that figure. So asking them for a fee, in addition to their other forms
of contribution, would seem a bit awkward, although I can understand that
contribution in term of money rather than time is sometimes more useful. So I
wouldn't object to paying a membership fee.

But IMHO the main question is : do we need membership fees to sustain OSGeo ?
Aren't surplus funds generated by FOSS4G sufficient for that (although I can
understand that Howard's fear that FOSS4G organization by volunteers might not
be a sustainable model) ? Or perhaps we would need more funds to be able to do
more things ?

OSGeo is perhaps rather different from other organizations in the geomatics
field in the way it manages its membership, but is it more a strength or a
weakness ?

Even
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Membership fee (was: Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members)

[Mateusz Łoskot]

On 24 June 2014 14:38, María Arias de Reyna  wrote:
>
> But there is a big but:

That's why I decided to ask, what are those "buts", as I haven't learned
any concrete arguments from the original thread.

> It happened to me with IEEE and
> I still haven't returned to them after so many years. Once I couldn't pay
> the membership, it was like forcing me to go away.

Yes, I experienced similar situation, but ACM/IEEE/... are different
organisations.

> So, couldn't we add some kind of volunteer work to compensate the fee on
> some cases?

Again, that is a technical issue related to amount of fee,
region-based adjustment of fee, etc.

First, we should focus discussion on the aspects Howard explained [1]
and understand what are the major pros and cons of paid membership.

[1] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2014-June/012964.html

Best regards,
-- 
Mateusz  Łoskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Membership fee (was: Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members)

[Stephen Woodbridge]

Folks,

I'll toss my two cents into this discussion. I think a lot of this has 
been already stated in part by others.


o while I don't object to a membership fee in principal it has to come 
with some benefits for the member not for OSGeo. While it might be 
beneficial to OSGeo by providing an income stream, I think it is more 
important that the member gets a significant benefit above and beyond 
whatever benefits of association they currently get.


o since this is currently a volunteer organization and there are a lot 
of people that volunteer a lot of effort to OSGeo it seems like a lot to 
ask them to also volunteer funds in addition to their time. I would be 
concerned that if people have to pay a fee then we might see a 
significant reduction in effort in time volunteered and this could 
potentially offset the funds received from fees.


This discussion started discussing membership and voting and has wrapped 
into membership fees. I understand that this is part of our growing 
process as an organization, but this feels like a random walk around the 
various aspects of how other orgs deal with members. I clearly don't 
know all the issues, but I think if we want to make a reasonable case 
for doing any of the things discussed we need a more coherent plan that 
we can "sell" to the members and should how "Membership has privileges 
and benefits" to them and how it also helps the organization over time.


When OSGeo was formed a lot of model for it was taken from the Apache 
Foundation model. I wonder how these issue fit in that, not that we have 
to follow that model, but I do think we need to have a big picture view 
of the OSGeo and where it wants to go as an organization for its members 
rather than just as a self perpetuating bureaucracy.


-Steve Woodbridge
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Membership fee (was: Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members)

[Alex Mandel]

On 06/24/2014 06:14 AM, Mateusz Łoskot wrote:
> On 24 June 2014 14:38, María Arias de Reyna  wrote:
>>
>> But there is a big but:
> 
> That's why I decided to ask, what are those "buts", as I haven't learned
> any concrete arguments from the original thread.
> 
>> It happened to me with IEEE and
>> I still haven't returned to them after so many years. Once I couldn't pay
>> the membership, it was like forcing me to go away.
> 
> Yes, I experienced similar situation, but ACM/IEEE/... are different
> organisations.
> 
>> So, couldn't we add some kind of volunteer work to compensate the fee on
>> some cases?
> 
> Again, that is a technical issue related to amount of fee,
> region-based adjustment of fee, etc.
> 
> First, we should focus discussion on the aspects Howard explained [1]
> and understand what are the major pros and cons of paid membership.
> 
> [1] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2014-June/012964.html
> 
> Best regards,
> 

There is a question about whether or not people value enough the Free
services they are currently receiving. This is a general question about
whether people truly value things they get for Free. I'm still looking
for good research on the topic and not just internet chatter.

Many of our committees are somewhat short-handed or non-operational due
to lack of volunteers. Webcom is almost non-existent, so the main
website upgrade has been on hold for years even though a design plan was
created. There's also been a suggestion for stipends for some system
admins to keep things running more smoothly. Marketing/Outreach always
gets requests for materials and we do allocate I think up ~$500 to new
chapters needing permanent materials but we don't cover any handouts.

I agree $ should not block anyone from access to any of our services. So
the question is what would people get for their membership besides a
resume line?

Your note about professional society fees being a blocker is why I
suggested they be quite low. If even 1/2 of our mailing list subscribers
joined ($10-$20) we could double or triple our operating budget. Maybe
we just need fundraising drives every year or for specific things.

Thanks everyone for contributing lots of ideas.

Alex
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Membership fee (was: Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members)

[Dave Patton]

On 2014/06/24 03:33, Mateusz Łoskot wrote:
> Folks,
> 
> I still can't comprehend what actually is being objected in the
> proposal of membership fee. Moreover, I can't understand how the fact
> members financially support their organisation stands in
> contradiction with active volunteer-based participation.
> 
> What is the actual problem here, act of paying or amount or anything
> else?

My $0.02 [1]

Separate the issues:

A)
Have a discussion about the Charter Member process that does
not have anything to do with "fees", and then come to a
resolution (at least for this year).

B)
Have a separate discussion about "fees" and types of
memberships (e.g. different thread(s), perhaps at a
different time frame than (A) to avoid muddying the waters).

C)
Have a separate discussion about "fundraising", and ways
to accomplish that (some of which have already been
brought up within the current discussions).


[1]
With the elimination of the Canadian penny[2]
and the rounding process, that $0.02 is worth
zero dollars, so take it for what's it's worth ;-)

[2]
http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/about-the-mint/phasing-out-the-penny-692

-- 
Dave Patton
Victoria, B.C.

Degree Confluence Project:
Canadian Coordinator
Technical Coordinator
http://www.confluence.org/

Personal website:
http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/
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