[CREATE] Pitching a community-funded conference

[Jon Phillips]

On Wed, 2008-03-12 at 18:02 +0100, Dave Neary wrote:
> Hi guys,
> 
> I've had little luck with sponsorship this year, and I know that the
> peopel I've asked have all said the same thing - "there are so many
> conferences, we just don't get why this one is important to our business".
> 
> I would like to propose that we go straight to the community for funds.
> 
> Graphics applications rank among the most desired applications on Linux
> - PhotoShop, Illustrator, AutoCAD, DreamWeaver and Visio are the top 5
> missing applications on Linux according to a Linux Foundation survey.
> And yet there's no corporate money being spent improving the free
> software apps out there. The investment from Google and others is going
> into making commercial apps on Windows work better on Linux.
> 
> What we need to do is publicise the Create project, publicise the
> concrete results we've achieved out of the last 2 LGMs (XCF2, improved
> drag & drop between graphics apps, shared swatches, other shared
> resources, SIOX integration into Blender, ...). The list is pretty long.
> Above all, we've achieved a cohesion across different projects which
> will benefit us all moving forward.
> 
> And then we say that we're short money for the conference, and we ask
> for donations. I can have a Paypal account set up (I suggest asking the
> GNOME Foundation again to set up a specific account for us), and we can
> all spread the news on our various project websites, and throughout the
> web. I'm sure we'll raise over $10,000, perhaps much more.

What is the specific amount that has been raised and that needs to be
raised, and by when?

All these ideas are good. The event is just very soon...I think pulling
this data together will be useful as well.

> This will also be a data point for companies representing the interest
> in free software graphics apps on Linux.
> 
> What do ye think? Should we go for it?
> 
> Cheers,
> Dave.

Of course...but just to be clear...LGM2008 goes on regardless, right?
This is money for travel, etc, right? Or is it for actual operation of
the event?

We could do a community campaign through http://pledgie.org/ for a
certain amount and then should get a corporate match.

Who has been asked, and/or where is this documented? I'll see how I can
help...

Jon

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Jon Phillips

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