H! Gora, On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 11:20 PM, Gora Mohanty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi, > Let me now make the counter-arguments that I should have raised > at the meeting. For the moment, I will put on my Sarai hat, and > ask hard questions of you all: > (a) As per my original proposal, say 8-10 workshops, and 1 lakh for > Freed.in 2009, Sarai's contribution comes to at least about > Rs. 1.5 lakh. Maybe more, if the funds allow, and we can find > explicit charges to bill for the workshops. This is certainly > not something to sneer at. And, as for the issue of the money > being too low for the publicity that Sarai gets from juxtaposition > to Freed.in, I think that we are too full of ourselves at times. > On one hand we claim that the Freed.in brand is such a great > thing, and how we deserve huge sums of money, and on the other > hand we are not willing to expend the effort to really make that > true. In case people had not noticed, we have delivered on close > to zero of the promises from the Feb. 2008 conclave, and Intel is > most unlikely to sponsor us again. > (b) With regards to Sarai delivering on its promises, we would > have as valid a commitment as we had from Sun for example, a > written contract if so desired, and my word to back it up. I am > not sure if other people would agree, but Sarai is much, much > closer in terms of ideals to ILUG-D/Freed.in than either of Sun > or Intel. > (c) I could be wrong here, but from what I have seen, asking local > colleges to pay ILUG-D 10-20K/workshop just will not happen. > Even where they have funds, and the willingness to do that, > they would be faced with issues similar to the ones that > Sarai faces, in terms of making not-directly-accounted-for > payments to external agents. And, believe me, Sarai will be > easier to deal with in this regard. As opposed to horse-trading > with each institution separately, the Sarai money is there > once, and for all. > (d) Management issues: Sarai has made a commitment to the project > that funds us, and we will hold such workshops in any case. > If ILUG-D/Freed.in chooses not to participate we have *no* > option but to go ahead anyway, even though this will probably > mean a change of focus towards more localisation-related stuff, > fewer workshops, and probably more workshops outside Delhi. > Part of the reason that I wanted to involve ILUG-D/Freed.in is > that this would allow me time from Sarai's side to manage > the workshops, and if this does not happen, I am not sure how > much time I could devote to a separate programme of Freed.in > workshops, nor how I could build a rationale for this. Please > understand that I do not mean this as a threat, or as if > someone else from ILUG-D could not step in, and take over such > work, but as a realistic view of things. In the final analysis, > Sarai pays me a salary, and ILUG-D doesn't, so like it or not, > in my opinion, I am more answerable to them.
How about asking the colleges to pay say Rs. 4/5k per speaker? (Plus travel and lodging and boarding in case of outside NCR Region) If you take 4 speakers per workshops with agreement with speakers that they will be be given 1/2K and remaining fund can go to ILUG-D. ILUG-D can foot the bill for local travel and incidental cost and can put aside anywhere from 8/10K per event for funding future ILUG-D/Freed.in events That way we are less dependent on sponsors for each event. > Looking forward to flamewars^W counter-arguments. Remember, we are > all kindness and light these days, thanks to the grace of > St. Gonsalves. My two bits. With regards, -- --Dinesh Shah :-) Shah Micro System +91-98213-11906 -- Groucho Marx - "A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five." _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- [email protected] http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
