Cc-europe mailing list

[Tomislav Medak <to-me AT mi2.hr>]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Dear Florian,

I think that everybody agrees that we the CC project leads deserve
acknowledgment and reward for our work. The question "how much CC can
and is willing to spend on rewarding international projects" in no way
is meant to imply that we do not. It is rather meant to imply that CC
should understand that this IS a non-monetary reward for the work CC
leads contribute without asking how much they can and are willing to
contribute.

Furthermore, CC leads' work is contributing directly value to CC's work,
while iCommons is benefiting also from the work of other commons
communities. CC is financially a far more powerful organization than
iCommons. It has more funding opportunities than iCommons. The work of
CC leads around the world is built into its fundraising strategies
(remember Lessig letters). And while one should understand that CC
spends some of its money on financing the international projects
through, the question remains how CC can overcome its financial
limitations to reward CC leads for their voluntary work.

It is also clear that the core work of CC on licenses is already a huge
contribution to the work iCommons. However, iCommons has very limited
means for organizing iSummit. From the experience of last year, I can
assure you that the travel budget for the non-CC participants was
comparable to that of CC participants. So, for iCommons it pretty much
boils down to choice - if it needs to foot the costs of CC participants
on it's own it risks of not being able to foot the rest of participants.

These are principle reasons why this question should be primarily
addressed to CC rather than iCommons. Still, I believe that both
organizations recognize the value of work being done by us and would
prefer to bring every single CC lead to the iSummit. Given the financial
limitations that they have, the question remains how to work around them
and benefit those who deserve it and have least opportunity of finding
funding of their own.

Hopefully everything will work out for the best of the most ;)

Tom





Florian Philapitsch wrote:
| Dear Tomislav,
|
| thank you for your explanation.
| I can't say I do not understand, how this 1000$-thing emerged. I also
| fully understand that CC has to contribute something to the iSummit
| from a financial view.
| But, honestly, what I care about is two things - outcome and optics.
| The outcome of that whole arrangement that is relevant to all the
| CCi-people can be described and grasped very easily: There is no
| funding for travelling to Sapporo.
| The optics that make this indubitably thought through arrangement
| appear in the worst of all lights is this: We can afford a summit in
| Sapporo where we invite important (and probably costly) speakers,
| discuss our done and future work, celebrate the success of CC (or, to
| be more precise the CC-license-model) and pat each other's shoulder.
| But since all that costs so much money we can not pay the travel
| expenses for the people who helped making CC a global success. Their
| shoulders wont be pattable at the iSummit.
| The pattable shoulders will be of people from CC-projects with enough
| funding an, let's face it, rich countries.
|
| THAT is what is seen by me and probably not only me. As said, I
| understand the concept of the 1000$. And yet, little do I care about
| it, when I get no funding for the travel to Sapporo (which was a big
| motivation in working on 3.0). This is not about 1000$. It is about
| outcome and optics.
|
| Speaking about the contribution of CC to iCommons. This might be a bit
| self-satisfied, but IMO the licenses are THE contribution by CC to the
| iCommons-project.
| You wrote that the "rewarding" issue is an issue that needs to be
addressed
| primarily to CC. Well, I think we are doing that right now.
| I do not quite understand your point with the question "how much CC
| can and is willing to spend on rewarding international projects". Is
| that really a question? Did the international projects ask themselves
| how much work the can and are willing to spend on the working on the
| licenses? They just did it, creating something the society of the
| information age is using and profiting from. As said in a previous
| mail - no project lead expects payment for their works. But what they
| also did not expect is that they had to pay for travelling to and
| participation in the iSummit.
|
| Finally, I would love to take this discussion to the CCi-list as it
| would only be appropriate to let all the people participate in it who
| are concerned by this matter. Is there a cc-europe digest which can be
| posted there to bring people up to date in the discussion?
|
| best regards from Vienna,
| Florian
|
| Zitat von Tomislav Medak <to-me AT mi2.hr>:
|
| Dear all,
|
| Being both the CC project lead and iCommons board member, let me try
| providing yet another explanation of those $1000.
|
| iCommons started as a daughter organization of CC - over the last year
| and a half two organizations have become separate organizations.
| However, CC partners with iCommons on organizing iSummit, it will hold a
| legal day for CC legal leads and, probably, a number of other sessions
| within the iSummit.
|
| Consequently, as a partner it also foots a part of the costs of
| organizing the conference. The CC has proposed that its contribution
| will not be a fixed sum, but rather per-person contribution equivalent
| to the estimated  per-person cost of the iSummit times number of CC
| participants. So, $1000 is an estimation what the conference will
| actually cost per participant (this does not include the travel costs
| for participants), provided the attendance turns out as expected. Thus,
| it really can't be said that CC's contribution is unfair. It is not a
| taxation on the side of iCommons, but rather the form that CC preferred
| to contribute its partner share. If there's no such contribution by CC,
| it is iCommons who must find money for costs that are covered from there
| and opportunities for that are not abounding.
|
| Now, the issue of how international CCi projects and leads volunteering
| are rewarded for their work - e.g. through scholarships for
| participation in iSummits - is an issue that needs to be addressed
| primarily to CC. It is CC, and not iCommons, who can ultimately go to
| grant-givers, supporters and sponsors and say that they have over 45
| projects porting licenses internationally. The fact that there's a catch
| 22 situation that the more international leads and project members CC
| has in Sapporo the less money it has for scholarships, should be framed
| as a question of how much CC can and is willing to spend on rewarding
| international projects.
|
| This doesn't mean that iCommons's work and its direction shouldn't be
| discussed and questioned, particularly in its relation to public CC
| activities. This should be done - in CC-Europe fora or, better still, in
| the iCommons list and iSummit, but not related to the $1000 question.
| The two organizations are now legally and financially separate, and
| those two questions need to be dealt with separately.
|
| BTW, letter is well worded and CC-hr supports it.
|
| Best,
|
| Tom
|
|
| Henrik Moltke wrote:
| | A few quick comments:
| |
| | On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 11:21 AM, Florian Philapitsch
| | <florian.philapitsch AT wu-wien.ac.at
| | <mailto:florian.philapitsch AT wu-wien.ac.at>> wrote:
| |
| |     Dear Paul, dear All,
| |
| |     you are probably right, this should be adressed on a seperate
| |     occasion, but, as I said, when and where?
| |
| |
| | If we decide to have this discussion in Sapporo, it will be unfair to
| | those that can't go. If we have it on the list, it will be too
| | scattered. If we have it on a wiki, it will go nowhere, unless someone
| | takes the time to draft, maintain and push people to participate. I
| | would personally prefer a face-to-face meeting, and the summit is the
| | only chance to have that, if we want to expand beyond Europe - but
| | unless *someone* finds a mighty big bucket of money very soon - we have
| | a Catch 22.
| |
| |
| |     Since we are already talking about that issue, I'd like to add some
| |     (personal and frustrated) thoughts to Henriks rant.
| |
| |
| | (I sent a few words about my feelings towards iCommons to Florian which
| | I guess would qualify as a rant)
| |
| |
| |     I have been active in the CC-business for a very long time now,
I got
| |     in in the midst of the creation of the first CC-licenses for
Austria.
| |     Since then I have spent quite some time on the CC-issue. Mainly
| |     because as a web-user I liked the idea of the project and as a
jurist
| |     I liked the license-part. I wrote several texts on behalf of CC, I
| |     gave some speeches and I am just finishing the 3.0 licenses for
| |     Austria. For most of these things I did not recieve any money. For
| |     most of these things I did not _expect_ any money.
| |
| |
| | I too put a lot of time into CC on a number of levels, and feel that I
| | get a lot out of it too (inspiration for my work as a journalist and
| | documentary maker, network, friends, good times etc etc) - but there are
| | some things about money, iSummit attendance etc that need to be adressed
| | and made more transparent. Basically, you do this kind of stuff because
| | it is fun, and because you want recognition. When you are told that your
| | projects or ideas cannot be carried out because there is no money, and
| | you see others spending or suggesting spending money spent on things you
| | deem completely irrelevant, you become a sad panda (thanks for that
| | wording, Florian!).
| |
| | Here is another catch 22 because, if you decide to leave your formal
| | affiliation with CC, someone else might take over and get credit for
| | your work. On the other and, the step from spending a little free time
| | now and then to several hours a week, sometimes full days or most of
| | weeks - is difficult to draw (this has been the case for me this year
| | prior to the KODA / Tone / new cc dk website release). But if you don't
| | attend to these things, people will never hear about CC even if they´d
| | be inclined to think in this way.
| |
| |
| |     Personally, I am no big fan of iCommons. It feels like a generic
| |     movement, a forced good-will-organisation and the uptight and
| |     disilliusioned jurist in me despises the world-hugging
| |     copyright-hippie direction this "movement" has taken (the idea of a
| |     "greener" iSummit still makes me go *rrrraaaaahhh*). But hey, I
do not
| |     have to like iCommons to work on CC which IMO is still a
| |     copyright-project.
| |
| |
| |     Paul, you are right, the decision about the lump sum has been made -
| |     but this does not make it indiscussable. With the chosen
solution, the
| |     optics are extremely poor. I regard it almost as a personal insult,
| |     when I invest unpaid time and work into CC, and then CCi (which I do
| |     not wish to blame for anything here) pays iCommons a sum for my
| |     participation and ultimately (and in the worst case scenario) I have
| |     to pay for my trip to Sapporo and the stay there.
| |     This will result in fewer people travelling to Sapporo, therefore
| |     saving CCi some money but it also will result in some people
(like me)
| |     severely considering if they want to further want to invest time and
| |     work when they end up paying for their trips themselves.
| |
| |     To sum this up in an over-simplifying way - personally, I do not
want
| |     to have to do with iCommons.
| |
| |
| |
| |     As a copyright jurist I am interested in
| |     the CC-licenses and the many interesting legal questions they bring
| |     on. Thinking that, ultimately, iCommons is getting money for the
work
| |     I do, is making me a sad Panda :)
| |
| |
| | I feel exactly the same, but there are so many things that I am
| | uncertain about, and have vague doubts or mixed  feeling about. From
| | where does iCommons get funding - now and in the past? How is the summit
| | handled financially, between CC and iCommons, before and now? Who
| | decides who gets to go, and who doesnt, based on which criteria? Who
| | decides who gets appointed to which positions, and is the value I have
| | helped generate channeled into these paid positions?
| | As much as I love Larry, I find it ironic having these feelings towards
| | the organisation he built up.
| |
| | I would love to continue but have to hurry to make my nightshift at my
| | IRL, paid work, tee hee - sorry for spelling and harsh wordings in case
| | there are any
| |
| | Henrik
| |
| |
| |     kind regards from Vienna,
| |     Florian
| |
| |     Zitat von Paul Keller <pk AT kl.nl <mailto:pk AT kl.nl>>:
| |
| |      > On 23 Apr 2008, at 10:03, Florian Philapitsch wrote:
| |      >
| |      >> I totally agree with this letter and will be happy to sign it.
| |      >> The issue with the seperation between iCommons and CC is
| raised, but
| |      >> not really elaborated upon.
| |      >
| |      > dear Florian,
| |      > thanks for your reponse....
| |      >
| |      >> In my opinion this will be one of the
| |      >> major issues in the future. If I think of the mentioned 1000 USD
| |     paid
| |      >> by CCi for the participation of (voluntary working)
CCi-members to
| |      >> iCommons, thereby nuking the sponsorship for travels, I feel
that
| |      >> clear and clean borders have to be drawn here.
| |      >
| |      > i do not think that we should adress this issue in the letter
| |      > (disclosure: i am on the board of icommons) for the simple reason
| |     that
| |      > this decision has been made and we are beyond the point that it
| |     can be
| |      > changed. i agree with many of you here that the way the
| |     contribution by
| |      > CC to icommons is structured is not the most obvious or elegant
| one,
| |      > but in the end it does not really matter if icommmons pays a lup
| |     sum of
| |      > USD xxxx to icommons or if that sum is expressed as xx *
nomber of
| |      > participants send to the summit by CCi. i do agree with you that
| |     there
| |      > need to be clear and clean borders and i think that our letter
| |      > underlines this.
| |      >
| |      > best regards, paul
| |      >
| |      >> This HAS to be addressed and discussed, however, I am not
sure, if
| |      >> this letter is the right place. On the other hand - what is?
| |      >
| |      > --
| |      > Kennisland | Knowledgeland
| |      > t: +31 20 5756720 | m: +31 6 41374687
| |      > www.kennisland.nl <http://www.kennisland.nl> |
| |     www.knowledgeland.org <http://www.knowledgeland.org>
| |
| |
| |
| |     _______________________________________________
| |     Cc-europe mailing list
| |     Cc-europe AT lists.ibiblio.org <mailto:Cc-europe AT lists.ibiblio.org>
| |     http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-europe
| |
| |
| |
| | ------------------------------------------------------------------------
| |
| | _______________________________________________
| | Cc-europe mailing list
| | Cc-europe AT lists.ibiblio.org
| | http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-europe
_______________________________________________
Cc-europe mailing list
Cc-europe AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-europe
|>
|>

| _______________________________________________
| Cc-europe mailing list
| Cc-europe AT lists.ibiblio.org
| http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-europe
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFIEeiBkbN024ZV0z0RAhZRAJ9t2qKzpzxt9wmeC6+/qUP9zxCdPACaAvuz
9qtjpjoBwagPdQKoRjPP/KI=
=epv+
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----