Re: IRC Meeting Action Items - 20100921

[Pockey Lam <pockey beijinglug org>]

> On 09/25/2010 12:36 PM, Emily Chen wrote:
> >     Isn't there a conflict of interest? Shouldn't we deal with a
> >     "neutral" 3rd party making any issue in our dealings a lot easier to
> >     settle?
> >
> > Can you introduce a  a "neutral" 3rd party to us ? The "one selling
> > T-shirt (free software) community"?
>
> I don't have any in my address book. It's something we as a community 
> need to look into. What I am saying is that selecting a member of our 
> community to sell t-shirt is a dangerous path, or the community 
> decides to handle the shop themselves. But it should be a carefully 
> thought out decision.
>
> For the other community I'm talking about, I'd prefer not to be 
> associated with them in any way. They seem more focused on selling 
> their t-shirts that promoting free software or whatever they're 
> supposed to promote. @ Blug we call "them" the T-shirt salesman.... I 
> have yet to see any passion in Free and Open Source from that 
> individual and really think that to be associated or compared with his 
> behavior would reflect very badly on our community. -> which is why 
> it's probably best to select a "neutral seller".
>
> I think we have time, it's not like we NEED to sell stuff tomorrow and 
> have no other choice.
> > We are happy to work with other organization as long as it make things
> > done.
> >
> > -Emily
Since Emily is going to have a discussion with the Beijing GUG, she will 
update us on the proposition later :)
I would also be interested to know what are the existing rules in place 
related to the profit generated by official GNOME User Group and the 
sales of the tshirts/other stuff? if the BGUG sells tshirts, do the 
profit go only to the user group? does the GNOME User Group needs the 
money or is the group doing it on behalf of GNOME.Asia or The GNOME 
Foundation?  Should we expect the same behaviour for the whole Asia region?
Are these rules already specify in the contract? Can we have a look at 
the contact?

There are probably more questions to ask ourselves in order to clarify 
the matter.

At the meantime, we can also look if there is any third party(s) that we 
can trust and can help us to build the GNOME store similar to the 
concept of zazzle in Asia. Maybe India and China would be great 
locations to start with as Abharath also mentioned that there is a big 
market in India as well :)

Pockey