Here is my experience and view on your problem ================================
I have faced this type of situation where in one of the meetup Adobe was sponsor and they tried to distribute their close source software. We raised a big issue and lots of flamewar on mailing list. Technology domain is very big, it is not all about creating software. So do not rigid on your decisions, I see lots of momentum from Microsoft to work/sponsor html5 conference. I do not see much flamewar when it comes to open web society at silicon valley. Just go with sponsor but make sure they should only put advertisement and nothing else, like no software distribution. Take FOSS as your tool for learning as well as thought process but do not become full time FOSS advocate, that is a altogether different job and you as a CS student must focus on Computing+Programming Skills with FOSS tool rather then learning and advocating Linux Kernel. I am writing this with lots of experience in my mind, so think on it !! 2014-07-03 16:31 GMT+05:30 Avinash Sonawane <[email protected]>: > We are a bunch of hackers at Hacker's Den (http://hackersden.org) who > believe in sharing and openness. We are going to organise a FOSS event > in coming few days. But at the moment we are kinda puzzled over > sponsorship for the event. > > 1) To have a proprietary product company as a sponsor of FOSS event is > it morally right? I mean there will be banners, flyers of that > proprietary company all over the venue. In an event we are promoting > FOSS and on a venue we are promoting/marketing proprietary product > company. Isn't it contradictory behaviour? > > But if we deny the sponsorship aren't we depriving that proprietary > company of doing a noble deed (of supporting a FOSS event)? > > 2) What about proprietary *service* company? I mean the one which > serves it's client with say system administration or building a dbms > system (which is closed source suppose) for the client e.g. Infosys > (http://www.infosys.com/), Wipro (www.wipro.com), Persistent > (www.persistent.com) etc. Is it something different with the > proprietary service company compared to proprietary product company? > > Should we accept the sponsorship or deny it? > > 3) A solution? > Accepting a sponsorship from a proprietary company (product/service) > and placing a large banner at the entrance of a venue as well as on > the website saying "We do not necessarily support any of our sponsors' > products or philosophy." as a countermeasure, will work? Or is it > similar to printing "smoking is injurious to health" on cigarette > packets and continuing the cigarette production at the same time and > later on denying any responsibility saying "We warned you"? Personally > I think printing a warning on cigarette packet is a big joke; because > if you really cared for the health of society you would have stopped > the production itself. > > Thoughts? > > -- > Avinash Sonawane (RootKea) > PICT, Pune > http://www.rootkea.wordpress.com > > -- > -- > Mailing list guidelines and other related articles: > http://lug-iitd.org/Footer > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Linux User Group @ IIT Delhi" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- *Narendra SisodiyaUI Architect @ *Unicommerce <http://www.unicommerce.com> Delhi - Bharat (India) -- -- Mailing list guidelines and other related articles: http://lug-iitd.org/Footer --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Linux User Group @ IIT Delhi" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
