[Ambassadors] EMEA Membership Questions

[Christoph Wickert]

Am Donnerstag, den 15.05.2008, 16:20 +0200 schrieb Gerold:
> Hi Christop and all other,
> 
> hopefully we don't bother you with that never ending discussion but it
> seems that there is a really, really big misunderstanding between some
> single persons and the Fedora EMEA e.V. which must be discussed here in
> public

Some days ago it was you who wanted to discuss all this in private,
remember? ;)

Maybe it actually IS a misunderstanding, but I'm not the only one who
has concerns regarding the high membership fee. Others on the
list agreed and I know there are others who also agree but don't want
to say this on the list because they are afraid to get flamed by you
like I was last week.

> >> And there can not be a conflict
> >> because FESCO, FAMSCO ... - are the rulers, the NPO serve the
> >> Fedoraproject
> >> for their needs - and must Report it quarterly.
> >
> > Sorry for asking again, but my question still isn't answered: Is Fedora
> > EMEA really bound to FESCO or FAMSCO from a judical point of view? Can
> > someone please show me the corresponding words in the EMEA statutes?
> > TIA.
> ^^
> ONCE again!
> Fedora EMEA e.V. is NOT PART of the Ambassador project and because of
> that, FEDORA EMEA isn't bound to any decissions from FAmSCo or any other
> SCo of Fedora or on behalb of Red Hat ...

This means the answer to my question is a simple "no". Why did it take
so long to get this clear?

So my original question is legitimate: What happens if EMEA e. V.
disagrees with FAmSCo or FeSCo? Indeed, it's a hypothetical question.
I'm not saying that it necessarily will happen, but in a big community
of people it is very likely to happen sooner or later and we need to be
prepared for the worst case.

> and ALSO ONCE AGAIN: it is _not_ a mandatory membership for!

It's not mandatory for being an ambassador, but it is mandatory if you
want to vote on EMEA issues. The budget RH spends for all (!)
ambassadors is one of these issues where only (!) members can make
decisions. So the ambassadors who are also (paying) members of the EMEA
have more powers than the rest of the ambassadors.

I repeat: I don not say that the EMEA e. V. is evil and will abuse it's
power, but there may emerge conflicts, because the resources (especially
money) are limited.

> Fedora EMEA e.V. is bounded on the votes the member make depending on the
> Fedora EMEA e.V. targets and audiences.
> 
> Nobody needs to sign a membership with us, but we're really happy if YOU
> could do so.

I'm sorry, I cannot sign THIS membership and I think I have already
explained why.

> >> We live meritocracy, be sure if there are People who do valuable
> >> contributions
> >> and can not pay the fee we will find a Solution, maybe Sponsors for
> >> them.
> >
> > It's a fact that we already have this situation. Think of Kushal for
> > example: No doubt that he is a valuable contributor and if I did not
> > offer him a free place to sleep he would not have been able to come to
> > Berlin at all. Two days ago he told me that he wont be able to come
> > anyway because he did not find a sponsor.
> ^^
> A sponsor for what Christoph?

Ask Kushal please, I can only tell you what he wrote me. His exact words
were: "Sorry but can not make it this time. Couldn't arrange any
sponsor."

> AS "responsible" for Linuxtag organisation I promise you, that every
> Ambassador who is willing to attend Linuxtag will have EXACT the same
> amount reserved for LinuxTag. And I decided to propose the accomodation
> and asked Max for it, to put these costs into the budget at least to be
> fair to everyone!

I never challenged that you are trying your best to make it possible for
everyone to join.

> Maybe you should pay his flight ticket from India to Europe with EUR 1000 :-)

I cannot laugh about this kind of humor, because you are making jokes on
people (both me and Kushal) because of their financial situation. This
also is why I did not respond to your last mails.

> Let's show another way to be fair to everyone: RED HAT should pay every
> participant the EUR 1000 for travel plus Hotel (now we take a cheaper one
> with let's say EUR 50/day) so we have with 24 attendees right now a
> calculation of
> 
> 24 x EUR 1000 Travel (because we're all valuable contributors)
> 24 x 5 nights x 50 Euro
> -----------------------
> TOTAL == EUR 30.000,-

Please don't exaggerate: Most of the attendees are from Europe and don't
have travel costs of 1000 EUR. And most of the people who are from
Europe can afford to pay the travel themselves, for example I always
paid my costs myself.

I also wanted to cut down the costs by not staying in the hotel all the
time. And guess who criticized me for that... ;)

> So going ahead and take the 10 EUR from membership you are willing to
> spend for Fedora EMEA e.V. we have 10 members (atm) x 10 Euro/year == 100
> Euro

Excuse me: When/Where did I say that I was willing to spend only
10EUR/Year? It was Francesco who wrote that, please don't blame me for
something I never said.

> Now please have a look again, how big is the sponsorship Fedora EMEA can
> do ...

You forgot to mention that the EMEA also gets money from sponsors and
not only from it's members. You also forgot to mention how small the
member fee is compared to the budget. EMEA was founded to raise money
from commercial sponsors in first place, not from ambassadors.

> It is really important that we discuss things on the round table maybe
> also in native language German ...
> 
> Just my (last) 5 Cents
> 
> Gerold

I'm looking forward to discuss this on LT too.

Christoph