Official OSGeo Conference Policy

Description
The purpose of this document is to outline rules that must be followed for an OSGeo conference event (meaning any event using the OSGeo name).

Additional Resources
The following are of interest to the conference policy:


 * Conference committee homepage
 * Board notes regarding Conference policy

Policy
The following guidelines apply to all OSGeo conference events. The terms "conference events" apply to: 1) the annual FOSS4G event, 2) an event hosted by an OSGeo local chapter, 3) a 3rd party event that uses the OSGeo name, and 4) any other event that uses the OSGeo name.

A. Mission -- any event using the OSGeo name must contribute positively to the OSGeo Mission, which is essentially to support the development of open source Geospatial Software, and promote its widespread use. B. Program -- any event using the OSGeo name must have program content that is predominantly related to Open Source geospatial software. C. Value  -- any event using the OSGeo name must offer reasonably good "value for money" to paid participants, so as to not reflect poorly on OSGeo.

D. Infrastructure -- any event using the OSGeo name must have a respectable infrastructure (materials, presentation, facilities, and instructors) of good quality so as to not reflect negatively on OSGeo.

E. Acceptance -- any event using the OSGeo name must be approved by OSGeo's Board of Directors. The exact process is as follows:
 * 1) event organizer must distribute plan to the osgeo-discuss list for community discussion
 * 2) event organizer must distribute a formal plan to the Conference Committee through the conference_dev list
 * 3) Conference Committee must vote on the acceptance of the event (abiding by OSGeo's  conflict of interest policy)
 * 4) if accepted, the Conference Committee recommends the event to OSGeo's Board of Directors, through an email to the board list
 * 5) Board of Directors must vote on the recommended event (abiding by OSGeo's  conflict of interest policy)