Subject: Re: Comdex post-mortem
To: None <netbsd-advocacy@netbsd.org>
From: Perry E. Metzger <perry@wasabisystems.com>
List: netbsd-advocacy
Date: 04/08/2001 15:55:25
"Charles M. Hannum" <abuse@spamalicious.com> writes:
> On Sun, Apr 08, 2001 at 10:53:31AM -0700, Greywolf wrote:
> > Some Wasabi people run it in a non-Wasabi capacity?
> 
> I think you (and other people) are seriously missing the point.  This
> has nothing to do with people running the thing, or even about
> producing CDs.  Neither of these is the majority of the cost.  Even if
> Wasabi were to do both of these things, the rest of the costs would
> still be ~the same.
> 
> For some reason it seems that Perry *wants* to take this over -- which
> I don't fully understand -- but it's an irrelevant discussion.

Why would I prefer that it be run professionally? Because I want to
see NetBSD's image improve. There are advantages to having people
who are doing it for a living involved. I can instruct my secretary to
make arrangements for booth space, for instance, and if he doesn't do
it he can't just come back and pretend to me he's a volunteer. If it
is all done by volunteer labor, it is hard to do things quite as
well.

There are other issues here. If I have an $80k or $100k business
marketing expense a year named "NetBSD booths" that's easy to justify
to the IRS. Personal donations to Charles Hannum are, to my knowledge,
not tax deductible, and so far as I know the NetBSD Mission is just
you and isn't a 501(c)3. If I'm donating that much money a year, it is
also nice to have enough control to know it is being spent efficiently.

I didn't want to start a flame war. I wanted to offer to expend
resources helping the project out. If you don't want it, don't flame
me -- just don't take it. You're under no obligation to accept the
offer.

--
Perry E. Metzger		perry@wasabisystems.com
--
Quality NetBSD CDs, Support & Service. http://www.wasabisystems.com/