Invitations
Posted by Jim Jagielski on Monday, November 19. 2007 in Junk Drawer
It appears that Marc Fleury attended ApacheCon this year (for all you out there who have no idea who Marc Fleury is, he was the owner of the JBoss company). In his blog he laments that he had no idea that ApacheCon was in town, and surmises that his invitation to the event was lost in the mail. This surprises me, for a couple of reasons.
First of all, I would assume that someone who became a multimillionaire based on the sale of a company whose products were, for a non-insignificant amount at all, leveraging and bundling ASF codebases, Marc would at least have a passing interest in what was going on within the ASF. It would make sense to me to follow the goings-in within a community that was at least partially responsible for my success... I guess not... And secondly, I don't think his invitation was lost in the mail, because I'm not sure what kind of conference Marc thinks ApacheCon is, that one requires an "invitation" to attend. I've attended lots and lots of conferences without receiving a written invitation to do so; heck, I've always considered the announcement of a conference as an implied invitation. I hate to think now that I've been such a rude conference attendee (and speaker, presenter, etc..) bursting in uninvited! How Borat!
Anyway, since all the above implies that Marc doesn't follow the events of the ASF, he is most likely unaware of the Apache Sponsorship Program. This is a way for corporations, and entities, and people to show their support for the ASF by making non-directed financial donations to the ASF.
So Marc, how about becoming an ASF sponsor? I figure that the Platinum Sponsor (at $100,000) is the right level. The donation would only be a bit over 0.06% of what you personally made off the JBoss deal, which is an amount I hope you could afford. If money is tight (and with the holiday season right around the corner, that's perfectly understandable), then maybe the Gold level ($40,000) is the right fit, at just 0.026%. Please don't hesitate to contact the ASF's fundraising team if interested. Heck, you can even contact me directly if you like. In fact, I'll even mail out a written invitation to sweeten the deal.