[steering-discuss] Publicity and Promotions in Malta

To whome i may concearn,

I (Warren Camilleri) am currently looking for sponsors to assist me in
promoting OSS in malta, since i am a loyal Libreoffice.org user and
member (Maltese translator & marketing lead) i am currently working on
the following TDf projects:

mt.libeoffice.org and the Maltese Libreoffice DVD for distribution for
windows computers 90% popular in Malta.

Since marketing here is expensive and i am volunteering to your project
on behalf of my community which we are currently are gearing up to
promote and support Open source software and other Open-source projects
we where asked by few companies that would accept our request to
programing the discs for windows, mac and Linux,duplicating the dvds
with labels and printing of adverts if we could add thier logos to the
site as for example

"Mt.Libreoffice.org is brought to you with the help of
OSSMALTA (my group) Brand A, Brand B, Brand C

which will link to their site, looking at a legal marketing perspective
this keeps my group and the document foundation out of any legal battles
that would infringe local tax and VAT laws, since the work was done on a
sort of a barter platform.

In the Maltese islands, my community is and has always been ready to
represent your project libreoffice.org that was founded off the
openoffice.org community, which i was apart of as the Maltese MarCon.

i would also like to point out that since the local goverment just
signed an agreement with microsoft. Microsoft has brought the BSA, allot
of local companies are looking for open and "free" alternatives which
makes it the ideal time for us to promote.

which brings me closer to concluding this respest with the following
facts:

Malta is a small nation of 400,000 - 500,000 inhabitants, located south
of Sicily and north of Libya, most local companies where involved in
libya's econom. With Libya's current civil war soon to be over, we are
ready to assist them in setting up a community and in joining the
libreoffice.org project prior to Microsoft's move to Libya.

Making a move in Malta on behalf of the foundation it will strengthen
the TDF in libya aswell as the libyan population are very respectful of
the Maltese nationals as we have helped them in the past and present on
numerous occasions.

From my end as always looking at the marketing perspective I believe

that this will be a great win for the document foundation with cutting
costs for promotions, and local companies would benefit from being named
by a large community.

I am not here to sell the companies to the document foundation but
rather request permission to place their logos on the localized site,
dvd, fliers

should any one have any question i am ready to answer them by
e-mail/skype. As for those of you who are wondering if I'll be attending
the paris conference or not, sadly I won't due to the fact that I can't
afford it personally (unless it is sponsored), if i am granted
permission for placing companies logo's on the thanks page / sub footer
i would ask a local airline(one based or flys to and from the island)
if they would help.

best regards,
Warren Camilleri

Hi Warren,

we discussed this a bit internally, and as long as we have no real Foundation (this is work in progress), things are a bit more complicated.

The best thing to do is that you collect money via a local NGO. You may use the LibreOffice logo for that, given the money you collect is used for LibreOffice-related work and purposes. However, it must be clear that

1. the money is collected by and for the local NGO and not the German association/Foundation

2. there will be *no* advertisment on our websites, that cannot be part of any deal

Does this help?

Thanks for your engagement!
Florian