JDay sponsorship

[paulories]

Hello everybody,

I've been reading the new information (but without a date .... ?) on the organization of joomla day.

Several items caught my attention, but before the Brazil 2011 Joomla Day event, scheduled for early September, I became concerned with the part that speaks of the sponsors.

Initially we have:

"Joomla! May Day organizers seek sponsors to support Their event. In general, sought sponsorships May Be from any source, However The Following limitations apply.


1. Sponsorship from Which Firms Have That Are not in products compliance with the Joomla! license May Not Be accepted. This is to Prevent any association of the Joomla! brand with Violations of the license. If you have any questions about the sponsor please contact the events team for assistance.
2. All sponsoring Firms Must Be in compliance with Open Source Matters trademark policies. "

At this point I get the following question: There is a host sponsoring the event? Is it legal for Paypal, a restaurant, a computer school (these are examples ...) to sponsor the event?

If the negative is repsosta think it will be detrimental to the organizers raise funds.

Remember, I'm not telling Microsoft to sponsor ... lol .....

P.S.: Excuse me for bad translation by google ...

[hamanaka]

That is an interesting question that you pose.

Lack of clarity in the rules allows for holes in accountability and community leadership when it comes to community events.

Larger non-compliant companies, and OSM itself could potentially step on the efforts of smaller organizations/individuals who also contribute, especially when dealing with recurring events, you can't simply pull a Joomla! to rename the whole thing just to rewrite the rules and expel, demote, or push out former sponsors and volunteers. Community members should not be thought of as expendable, disposable, and too small to matter. Well, I guess you can think this way, you are free to think any way you please, but it seems to be bad community form.

This is most importantly a deeper concern at events that are allowed to use titles other then the good old fashion "Joomla Day CityName" As soon as you start creating these conference of conferences, and universal assemblies, this is where I see problems that can be damaging to individual members of the local communities. Just like the Joomla software, the events need to give proper credit where due.

Although this could be the direction that Joomla community events are headed, as all of the above examples of sponsors that you listed in your question have actually sponsored Joomla events. Hopefully community leadership at future events will be able to use good judgement and know when to apply rewards for goodwill and long term support, and not be even tempted to publicly solicit sponsorships above what is necessary to fund the actual event activities. Ultimately some people will be voluntarily stepped on by recurring events where past efforts of individuals and their small businesses will be discounted by new organizers and their greater aspirations for bigger sponsorships which can further propel future alternate global agendas, and others at some point will need to speak up from under the sole of a community leader's shoe.

Read the last six words of the following quoted paragraph, and know that if you are soliciting sponsorships at your Joomla related event, that in the future you might not be allowed to be involved in that event if you are honest and show that the event was a profitable and self-sustainable. Know that all the sponsorships you sell could be aggregating and enabling a larger entity to challenge the community involvment of the individuals and small business owners inside of the Joomla community, and that is not how the Joomla Community should be allowed to be operated. I am sure the Joomla community members don't want to see OSM stepping on any community members, without exception.

"Open Source Matters, Inc. (OSM) is a not-for-profit formed under United States and New York state law that provides organizational, legal, and financial support for the Joomla! open-source project. OSM has been incorporated as a New York not-for-profit to ensure the Joomla project and future projects continue to exist beyond the participation of individual volunteers."

I will be more then livid if my opinion in this on-topic thread is censored or muzzled.