RE: Review of DASC membership fees

Steven and all,

> > If we really value the contribution of these experts, we
> > should not give them the message "pay up or you are out".
>
> It has always been thus as far as DASC membership privileges. The only
> question is how much do you need to pay. As always, ANYONE can
> participate without paying any money to DASC. They just cannot vote.

Precisely. And without voting privilege, there is no influence
in the direction and no recognition of contribution.

> It is amazing to me how many people fall into one or more of the
> following categories:
>
> 1) Their companies do not reimburse for their DASC membership.
>
> 2) That well compensated engineers cannot afford $60 more per year.

You forgot to mention the categories that also matter:

- not so well compensated people from Academia
- not so well compensated self-employed people
- not at all compensated unemployed people
- not so well compensated people from other countries, e.g. Russia, India, China ...

The point is not just how many or how few people we lose. It is a question
of principle. It is cynical to say that there is a negligible number of people
in the current DASC for which the fee is a burden, so let's just get rid of them.

> 3) That many believe that, in the abstract, DASC should have a budget
> and will spend a certain amount of funds to conduct its business. But,
> they shouldn't have to pay for it, someone else should. Oz presented a
> reduced budget to reflect concerns previously voiced.

Oz also acknowledged that the membership fee would be far from sufficient
to cover the deficit and that a membership dropout is expected.

> The bottom line is that without funds to conduct our business, we go out
> of business. If that is what you desire, then keep voting no.

Again, the membership fee will not make DASC financially self-sufficient.
It will only drain DASC from expert participants - our most valuable asset -
and ultimately provide the justification for eliminating individual ballot
sponsorship altogether. If this is your goal, then say so.

If we deem the individual ballot sponsorship valuable, we have to explore
realistic funding options. One option is to seek support from well-funded
organizations (Accellera, CAG ...). These organizations can take one of
the following positions toward DASC:

1) We are interested in your work and the way your organization is set up.
   Therefore we provide you the funds you need.
or

2) We are interested in your work, but we want more ownership and control
   for the stakeholders. Please move it to entity based (for example)
   and we will fund you as an entity.
or

3) We are not particularily interested in your work. You are on our own.

We have not explored this route. In case of 1) or 2), DASC will come out stronger.
In case of 3), if DASC is still interested in continuing, the budget AND the
required membership fee for a balanced budget needs to be subject to vote.
Not just the membership fee in isolation.

Best regards

        Wolfgang Roethig

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>
> All,
>
> > If we really value the contribution of these experts, we
> > should not give them the message "pay up or you are out".
>
> It has always been thus as far as DASC membership privileges. The only
> question is how much do you need to pay. As always, ANYONE can
> participate without paying any money to DASC. They just cannot vote.
>
> I have seen plenty of emails and once again the discourse has quickly
> jumped to hyperbolic. There are plenty of fallacies to extinguish.
>
> Only 3 WGs for which DASC membership provides value:
> All entity-based WG P&Ps are to be reviewed for the purpose of requiring
> individual participants to be DASC members. This would provide the
> desired orthogonality between entity and individual memberships.
>
> DASC/CAG entity membership:
> The wording is quite clear and there are no ambiguities. We cannot
> force SA to recognize DASC entity members as SA corporate members.
> However, it seemed reasonable to request such mutual recognition. In
> fact, I don't think anyone expects any entity memberships for DASC, but
> we felt it didn't hurt to provide that option (even without SA
> recognition).
>
> It is amazing to me how many people fall into one or more of the
> following categories:
>
> 1) Their companies do not reimburse for their DASC membership.
>
> 2) That well compensated engineers cannot afford $60 more per year.
>
> 3) That many believe that, in the abstract, DASC should have a budget
> and will spend a certain amount of funds to conduct its business. But,
> they shouldn't have to pay for it, someone else should. Oz presented a
> reduced budget to reflect concerns previously voiced.
>
> The bottom line is that without funds to conduct our business, we go out
> of business. If that is what you desire, then keep voting no.
>
> -Steve Bailey
>
Received on Mon Nov 15 17:35:29 2004