Re: Membership dues [ was: Re: Advisory Board Letter ]

[Bart Decrem <bart eazel com>]

David,

I think this is an important issue that merits further discussion.  My take on
it is that, looking at prospective members that I can think of, everybody's
able to afford the membership fee, and there's a real likelihood that we'll
want to have a coordination person.  If we don't need a staff person, then we
have a 'war chest' that we can use to organize conferences, buy computers for
hackers etc.  And it breaks my heart to think of some of the huge companies who
may come on board, and to think that we might *not* ask them for $20,000 to
donate to the cause.  So the current dues structure gives us that option, and
options are good in life.

If a start-up came along tomorrow that cannot afford the fee, then the board
can (and, I'm sure, will) waive the fee.

Now, if there's consensus that having a $100,000 budget and/or having one paid
staff person, is a Bad Idea, then obviously we should change the proposed
membership structure.

Bart

"David C. Mason" wrote:

> Chris DiBona <chris@valinux.com> writes:
>
> > Will the different amount translate into different amounts of power within
> > the organization, I ask because it seems kind of stupid to stratify prices
> > if you don't stratify membership (something I don't thik would be wise)
>
> Being one of the few in the closed conversations before - I still have
> to ask why we really need this in the GNOME foundation.
>
> I personally don't see a need for a full time employee and would think
> that funds are more useful for things like conference calls, booths at
> shows, etc. I just don't see why we need to have an employee for the
> manner in which we want this thing to run. I know there are many
> administrative functions that should be performed within any
> organization but we are not trying to make a Linux International out
> of this - we are, in simple terms, trying to get a foundation that has
> a representative group of GNOME contributors so that corporations can
> communicate to the GNOME community.
>
> I just don't see a need to complicate it much further by having a
> person, who needs an office, who needs supplies, who needs....
>
> Dave
>
> --
>
> David Mason
> Red Hat Advanced Development Labs
> dcm@redhat.com (919)547-0012 x248
>
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