GoDaddy sponsorship

[Paul W. Frields]

On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 02:44:07PM -0400, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 12:58:49PM -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> > One of the sponsorships being pursued by our volunteers is with
> > GoDaddy[1], a fairly well-known hosting/VPS/services company.  Some
> > concerns have been raised about GoDaddy as a sponsor, primarily
> > because the perception of some of their advertising may have an
> > unintended adverse effect on FUDCon.
> > 
> > We want the proceedings to be as welcoming to everyone as possible,
> > since after all FUDCon is free and open to everyone.  (In fact, AFAIK
> > there is no argument whatsoever that we are overjoyed to have GoDaddy
> > employees attending.)  However, if associating our event with GoDaddy
> > through a direct sponsorship results in a misunderstanding of Fedora's
> > inclusivity, then that sponsorship wouldn't be to our benefit.
> > 
> > I'm not offering any opinion on the values or actions of GoDaddy.
> > That's not why I'm writing about this issue.  I simply think we run a
> > substantial risk of creating a mistaken impression about inclusivity
> > in the Fedora Project with such a sponsorship.  With so many other
> > rewarding and valuable ways to spend our valuable resources, time, and
> > attention, I think it behooves us to find sponsorships with less
> > potential for divisiveness in the free software community.
> > 
> I'm not coming out for or against GoDaddy here either but... didn't we have
> a similar discussion when some people thought that Arizona itself might send
> the wrong message about how the Fedora project views people from countries
> outside the United States?  The answer then was that you can find something
> wrong with any venue if you're looking for what could potentially offend
> someone and I kinda think that similar thinking could be applied here....

One key difference being, sponsorships are optional, but a venue
location isn't.  Tempe was the only location where Fedora contributors
raised a hand to help plan and execute a FUDCon, so for all intents
and purposes they got the nod automatically.  Although it's true we
could find something to argue against any venue, in this case the key
and overriding factor was that contributors in the locale wanted to
work on the event, and that's what drove the decision.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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