FOSS4G'13: Eclipse Location Tech Group sponsorship for FOSS4G

Eclipse Location Tech Group sponsorship for FOSS4G

Posted by Steven Feldman on July 26, 2012

I want to brief you on a call that I had with Andrew Ross of the Eclipse Foundation. The call was set up by Jo who has been in discussion with Andrew as part of a broader conversation between Eclipse and OSGeo (which may or may not progress but is I believe irrelevant to this discussion).

The Eclipse Location Tech group are keen to sponsor FOSS4G. They want to expose their brand and projects to our community and they believe that some of their larger members (IBM, SAP, Oracle, Google, Nokia, Lockheed for example) would wish to have a presence at the event. Andrew suggested that they sell sponsorship to their members within an area of the exhibition that has a Location Tech umbrella brand. He is confident that he can bring us several large sponsors and they would seek some rebate on the sponsorship fees (details need to be discussed). They would also help to promote the event through their members and their publicity machine.

It sounds like it would work well for us as a conference and would provide anchor sponsors quickly but of course it may not be what OSGeo wants and I know I could be missing something.

I don't have a proposal for you at this stage. I would like your provisional green light to develop these discussions and also feedback from Peter and Jo on behalf of the OSGeo Board.

I said to Andrew that I would try to give him some feedback on whether we wanted to progress discussions before I go on holiday on Tuesday

Thoughts, comments, screams, ideas?

Steven

Comments

Jo Cook on July 27, 2012:

I'm mostly all for this- with a couple of caveats. The first is that we need to ensure that we keep the "OSGeo"-ness of the conference- it is first and foremost OSGeo's event and we need to ensure that we don't dilute from that too much.

The second is that people will complain about this, in the same way that they complain about ESRI sponsoring the event- there is a subset of the OSGeo community that really needs to grow up a bit!

Actually that's just one caveat and one observation...

Jo

Steven Feldman on July 27, 2012:

Well the ESRIphobes probably aren't going to be big fans of any conference that I am working on so we won't worry about that too much :)

Maintaining the OSGeo-ness of the event is essential and we must be robust in not allowing Location Tech to expect undue influence for their sponsorship. They will be a group of sponsors not co-hosts

Others, let's have your views. I want to get some words back to Andrew if I can before close on Monday

Cheers

Barry Rowlingson on July 28, 2012:

Is the concern here that the LocationTech group and OSGeo have similar aims, in that of supporting the development of open-source geospatial software, and, bluntly put, that one group may poach projects from the other?

As I see it (from reading their FAQ), LocationTech's approach is they are backed by professionals (Eclipse org) rather than volunteers (OSGeo), and they don't accept [L]GPL-licensed software (because its perceived as commercially unfriendly).

Fair enough. Room for both, surely.

Mark Iliffe on July 28, 2012:

I think there is room for both. I'm reminded of the old adage 'people fear what they don't understand'. While they've briefly articulated what they are on their wiki. I've spoken to Andrew Ross and Mike Milinkovich on a few occasions on matters unrelated to FOSS4G and I would echo Barry's comments. Poaching could exist, however I think they want more collaboration than competition.

Rollo Home on July 30, 2012:

I was not previously aware of Eclipse before this debate, so my interpretation of the situation is limited to a review of their website. What I surmised from that is:

they are well funded (10 permanent staff?),

they have an unusual origin (Oracle) and membership base (IBM etc.) and

their purpose is blunt (I roughly translated as "making OS commercial").

I can understand why the OS community might not take an immediate liking to them! I can also see why Eclipse might want to reach out to a community - they don't appear to have a significant profile despite the resources they have to hand.
I am obviously a little uncomfortable with the association, but I'm willing to listen to more well formed opinions on this. Also, the FOSS community does need to explore ways to make their tools commercially viable in a changing world...perhaps Eclipse have something to offer there?

Steven Feldman on July 30, 2012:

I don't think it is our role to determine whether there should be a relationship between Eclipse Location Tech and OSGeo Foundation or what form that should take. Those calls are for the board and the broader membership and I wish them luck in reaching a consensus on that.

The question for us as a conference team is whether we are comfortable entering into negotiations with a large potential sponsor organisation that can potentially bring on board sponsors like IBM, Oracle and SAP and who are active in making Open Source a commercially sustainable model. I imagine you can work out my view from the way i phrased that.

I want to mail Andrew this afternoon if possible as I am away tomorrow morning. So far I am picking up reservations but not outright opposition, unless others come in strongly against I am going to respond that subject to the detail we would be pleased to welcome them and their members as sponsors and that I will pick up the discussion with him on my return from holiday.

Barry Rowlingson on July 30, 2012:

Contrary to Mark's assertion I don't see why the Open-Source community would have a problem with LocationTech. The Free Software community might, but last time I looked I didn't see Richard Stallman on the conference committee.

I don't see a threat to the FOSS4G conference - the current EclipseCon conference is smaller than FOSS4G.

+1 for taking their money.

Steven Feldman on July 30, 2012:

I like pragmatism :)

Peter Batty on July 31, 2012:

I have no real reservations about having Eclipse as a sponsor. In some ways I have greater reservations about other potential sponsors like ESRI, who don't have the commitment to Open Source that Eclipse does. In Denver I had to push back on sponsors occasionally. But it's a tricky balancing act of course, sponsors are important, they need to feel appreciated and that they're getting value for their money. So it's important to have a sponsor prospectus that details up front exactly what they get. I'd suggest using the one we did for Denver as a starting point (should still be available on the web site). But in general we can't and shouldn't pick and choose our sponsors I don't think - but they all need to understand that there's a certain ethos and "non-commercial" tradition at FOSS4G that means that sponsors don't have undue influence on the program etc.