[Ambassadors] Equipment Purchase - Possible Conflict of Interest

[David Nalley]

On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 12:33 PM, Heherson Pagcaliwagan
<herson at azneita.org> wrote:
> I just threw Paul Frields a curve ball earlier this evening and he wisely
> pointed me to ask the list so everybody can refer to it back later. My
> question is (more or less) like this, "Are we allowed to spend a portion of
> our event budget on equipment?" I'm thinking to get our local group a cheap
> inkjet printer to handle our desktop printing needs like sticker
> labels/brochures/flyers/signages for an upcoming event - SFD2009[1].
>
> Now what prompted me to pop the question?
>
> We were not able to get the services of a CD/DVD replicator because of time
> and cost constraints. The genius in me decided to produce the LiveCDs/DVDs
> on our own so we can have them ready before the event. The blanks were quite
> inexpensive and we're left with some surplus on the original item budget -
> around Php 3500 [2]. The production line consists of my personal DVD-writer
> and my brother who volunteered.
> Looking at the blanks, I figured sticker labels will make them better
> looking (though still not as professional as the ones made by replicating
> services) and that we could also use some flyers/brochures/signages. We
> actually have two options - (1) to get a printer do them for us or (2) to
> do-it-on-our-own-way.
> For some stroke of luck, I don't own a printer and I'm a little bit
> squeamish using our office printer for something like this. If a decision
> for a printer purchase is reached for this event, I'll be its custodian
> until someone can take over for me. This is an obvious conflict of interest
> on my part so I posed the question to Paul (as Fedora Project Leader) and
> ultimately to this list.
>
> To add to the first question - has anybody been on the same situation I'm
> now in? Any advice?
>
> [1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents/SFD2009
> [2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents/SFD2009#Event_Dashboard
>
> --
> Heherson Pagcaliwagan
> http://project.azneita.org
> +63.908.885.5428
>
> --
> Fedora-ambassadors-list mailing list
> Fedora-ambassadors-list at redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-ambassadors-list
>
>

We've funded media duplication hardware previously for LATAM.
I am a bit squeamish about inkjet printers, they tend to have a very
high consumables cost in the long term. I'd personally feel more
comfortable with a color laser printer, that's likely 2 or 3 times the
cost of an inkjet but provides better quality and better costs savings
long term.

What kind of volume do you anticipate pushing through this unit?? How
man CDs, stickers, etc? How large of an area are you willing to supply
stickers/media/etc for?

Write up a bit more detail including some of those things so that we
can better weigh it, though I don't have much of an objection in
principle.