On 2012-01-29 23:38:54 (+0530), Manu Gupta <manugupt1@gmail.com> wrote:

Today as I was discussing on the -marketing channel with you a few people around. I dont know if its a brilliant idea or not but if we have a foundation we can certainly encourage startups. Perhaps such

I don't know. I would even say that if we're honest, no one knows, actually. Maybe it would encourage some startups (or "smaller businesses", rather, to generalize a bit), maybe it wouldn't.

sort of behaviour lead to future sponsorships and better technical engagements too.

Perhaps, or perhaps not. The question is what we would like sponsors to be sponsoring: - money, on a regular basis: very difficult, there needs to be a precise set of things they would get in return, because a regular budget would mean a ROI plan on their side - money, on an occasional basis: much more feasible, e.g. for the openSUSE conference, as it would generally also be easier to give them something in return (e.g. sponsorship visibility, "vendor talks", a stand, ... -- at least in case of a conference) - hardware/hosting: that would be very helpful for a few use cases, although not that many right now - paid contributors: that would probably be the most helpful option, have qualified people who can work full time (or part time) on contributing to the projects -- it is also often easier to find such contributors, as they typically have a direct interest in that work (e.g. it's what B1 is doing, from what I can see) Out of the above, not everything is influenced by the presence of a foundation or not: - money, on a regular basis: yes, a foundation _might_ help, as other businesses would most probably feel more comfortable giving money to a foundation than to SUSE/Attachmate (which probably isn't even possible in the first place) -- but that alone won't bring any sponsors, there is a lot more work to do, such as actively poking potential sponsors, "selling" the idea to them, stay in touch, again and again; it also requires a lot of care because you can't just offer them anything in return: e.g. a seat on the board because they're a sponsor seems unacceptable to me - money, on an occasional basis: that's difficult to say: for some, it's easier to pay a foundation than a business, but on the other hand, a business such as SUSE has a lot more options in place - hardware/hosting: I don't think having a foundation makes a difference there: it would be perfectly feasible for a business to sponsor e.g. Packman with hosting - paid contributors: a foundation doesn't change anything It's certainly a lot more complicated than "have a foundation => have sponsors". cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser /\\ http://opensuse.org -- we haz green _\_v http://fosdem.org -- we haz conf