On 1/24/10, Florian Effenberger <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Alexandro, > > [email protected] wrote on 2010-01-23 17.08: > >> Well I am not sure why one has to do with the other. I mean, is not like >> decision makers have to stop to make decisions while they work on a >> proposal. But we have 4 decision makers, I am sure delegation shouldnt >> be a problem. > > Exactly. I doubt it would make much sense this year to stop making > decisions, as many important things are coming up. > >> I have asked myself that question earlier last year where there is >> really no clear criteria to mention what to fund. There were ideas that >> could expand the concept fo funding events however they were rapidly >> isolated and treated like a "special request" rather than focusing on a >> policy making framework. > > I think at the moment this is no real problem, as all funding requests > have been granted and there has been enough money left. However, I > agree, we need some sort of guidelines. I'm currently drafting a > document where I use this term, gudielines. We already have a policy we > are bound to, the general Community Council funding policies -- > everything else we set up depends on them, and I would like to have some > flexibility and not more rules that restrict us. Thus, the term guidelines. > > Give me some more time until I can publish a first draft. > >> Wasn't John the budget holder, or is that being change now? > > John and I switched roles also on the budget process, so you first have > to struggle with me now. ;-) > >> I really dont see what or wheere is the problem here, I gave Louis a >> good list just a few days after he request it and then he just drop the >> ball or went completely silent on it. I think this should be developed > > I don't know, only that it's on the council agenda. Ping Louis and ask > him. However, the calendar would be a nice-to-have, but it is not > binding for funding requests, neither does it delay the guidelines I'm > drafting, so I don't think it's too urgent. However, I agree, having it > would be nice. > >> On a different note I expect much more new events to fund this year >> specially for NLC and others. Important question is if Marketing will be >> the event that funds all meetings. NLC don't have a budget and is 50% of >> the community. If the OOo Groups start picking up like the Scandinavian >> one or the North America, meetings will need to be created and funding >> will be needed. >> Again a decision would need to be made if this is a marketing, >> development or infrastructure spense? > > I think it depends on each case. Like for FOSDEM, we agreed to fund the > speakers out of the development budget, and collaterals and other staff > members from the marketing budget. I doubt we need strict rules here, it > worked out fine in the past. Too many rules make working complicated. If > we see that there are problems, we can still improvde rules and > guidelines, but at the moment, I don't see any real problems, so we > should focus on the actual events, not on what-might-be's. > >> The way I see it, there are two levels of to see it, it could be a >> Global Marketing decision or a NLC marketing decision. For example Cebit >> is a very local european event that dont benefit marketing wise to OOoES >> for example, yet is very important to OOo DE. However OSWC and >> Latinoware is very important for OOoES community but not as important to >> the whole OOo. > > Again, I think it depends on each case. It's hard to distinguish between > global and local events, as every event is local somehow. If it helps > the cause and can be considered as marketing-relevant and helps the > community marketing efforts, it can basically be funded out of our budget. > >> I don't think that this has proven very efficient in the past because >> the requests have been basically the same but the questioning had vary a >> lot from one to the other by the bdget authorizers. To prevent this, I >> would consider writing down what are the basic requisit when consider a >> funding for traveling, and a seperate one on budgeting for events. > > I agree on that, indeed. A requisite will not ensure that a request gets > funded, but it can help the budget holder and authorizers to process > them faster. I'd also love to have something in it like "for > collaterals, if possible, ask for donations" so these donations go back > to the marketing budget. > >> Also the funding cap are very irrelevant with reality (I think it was >> 300), this is great for Europe, not so great for America. Traveling cost >> varies widely in Europe since they have cheap budget airlines while the >> options are largely limited in North and South America (still not sure >> about Asia but my guess is that it is). > > Where have we applied a funding cap in the past? I only recall these > from OOoCons because of the mass of requests.
I heard you saying that you were not comfortable with funding greater than 500 DLS or something similar. Yet not sure if Louis snapped 2,000 Euros for a gnome event in Asia. Then again accountability here would help a lot since we still don't have a list of past fundings reported on the wiki do we? Something similar to this: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Community_Council/Funding_And_Budgets/Developer So far there hasn't been any from Marketing or Infrastructure. Also the Funding and Budget hasn't been updated for 2009 which I guess it should be out by now (1 month into 2010). Any word on this? >> I think you can start by adopting the one I sent to louis and assign a >> space on the wiki. > > Feel free to do so. > > So, in short: I'm working on a draft for some guidelines -- but they are > not more than that, guidelines. I'm against more policies, because > policies make things complicated. The intended guidelines shall help the > budget holder and authorizers in deciding and should show the marketing > project which requests can be funded. However, the guidelines will be no > strict policies -- we may disagree on some requests, and accept others > that do not fulfill all of the guidelines. > > However, looking at the past, I think we will work it out. I can't > recall major problems with funding, other than some delayed responses... > > Florian My feelings is that there is unspoken guidelines and policies already, they just haven't been written down and thats what I mean by "creating" them. -- Alexandro Colorado OpenOffice.org Español IM: [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
