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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