Being a "don't talk, act" member since 2008, entrepreneur and former chairman of a couple of local initiatives, I strongly agree.
Seeing all the "empty talkers" from my country run for charter membership and still not having geoserver, which is the most mature open geospatial product I can think of pas incubation made me completely lose interest in OSGeo. I am disappointed, a little frustrated and plotting a business course that values open source and open knowledge. OSGeo or any in-crowd will have no part in my future. Thank you for your honest and to the point analyses. Milo On Sep 25, 2015 21:58, "Darrell Fuhriman" <darr...@garnix.org> wrote: > The recent discussion on the board list > <https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2015-September/013172.html> that > came out of the question of the 2014 videos has got me thinking about a few > things again, and I want to try to get them out there. > > Grab a mug of your favorite liquid and hunker down, because I put some > time and effort into this, and your own well considered reply is > appreciated. > > Keep in mind that all of these comments are coming from my personal > perspective, which, like everyone’s, is an incomplete picture of the whole. > Much of what I’m going to say has been rolling around my head for a while, > so I’m just going to put it out there. > I will start with a provocative thesis: > > OSGeo lacks visionary unified leadership and without it will become > irrelevant. > > Of course, making such a claim requires support. So let me break down the > statement. > > “Visionary leadership” is really two things, “vision” and “leadership.” I > will address each in turn. > OSGeo lacks vision > I looked at the list of “Goals” for OSGeo > <http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/about.html>. I wonder: when was > the last time these goals were evaluated for both success and relevancy? > > Here is my own opinion of success of some of these goals. (In the > interest of brevity, I haven’t tried to tackle everything. That’s left as > an exercise to the reader.) > > Example 1 > To provide resources for foundation projects - eg. infrastructure, > funding, legal. > > Allow me to break each of those examples down. > Infrastructure > It’s true that OSGeo provides some infrastructure, such as Trac instance, > Mailman, SVN repos. If the budget is to be believed, we pay some $3,500/yr > to OSUOSL for said infrastructure. I wonder if such a service is necessary, > however. Issue tracking and source control are much better provided by > Github, which is free for organization such as ours. > I say this because a) that’s money that could be better spent elsewhere > and b) supporting these services burns precious volunteer time (more on > that below). > > There are clear cost savings available, which are not taken advantage of. > For example, OSGeo could be hosting FOSS4G infrastructure: conference > websites and registration, a central location for conference videos > (regardless of platform/provider). This neglect is especially galling given > that FOSS4G is OSGeo’s sole source of income. > Funding > > OSGeo does not fund projects. It has provided some funds to pay for Code > Sprints — $15k in 2014 according to the budget > <http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Budget_2014>. > Legal > > I see nothing that has been done on this front recently. Please feel free > to correct me. > Conclusion > > OSGeo, where it actually does what it claims, has not adapted in ways that > could save money. > > My grade: D > Example 2 > To promote freely available geodata - free software is useless without > data. > > The geodata working group is dead. As near as I can tell by perusing the > mailing list archives, and the wiki, there has been no meaningful activity > in the past two years (maybe more). > > My grade: F > Example 3 > To promote the use of open source software in the geospatial industry (not > just foundation software) - eg. PR, training, outreach. > > The Board of Directors > <http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_of_Directors#Packaging_and_Marketing> > page says: > Packaging and Marketing > > OSGeo’s marketing effort has primarily been focused around the packaging > and documentation efforts of OSGeo-Live, and to a lesser extend[sic], > osgeo4w. […] It has been entirely driven by volunteer labour, with 140 > OSGeo-Live volunteers, and printing costs have been covered by local events > or sponsors. In the last couple of years, OSGeo has covered local chapter > expenses required to purchase non-consumable items for conference booths > (such as a retractable banner). In moving forward, OSGeo hope to extend > marketing reach by providing co-contributions toward printing costs of > consumable items at conferences, such as toward OSGeo-Live DVDs. > Local Chapters > Much of OSGeo’s marketing initiates are applied at the local level. In > many cases, this is best supported through as little as an email list and > wiki page. OSGeo also supports local chapters by offering to pay for an > Exhibition starter pack for local chapters. Local chapters are also usually > the coordinators of conferences and related events, as mentioned above. > > Exhibition starter packs almost never happen; OSGeo-Live explicitly gets > no support; and OSGeo struggles to staff a booth at its own conference to > say nothing of any other conferences. > > Note: Local chapters certainly do do marketing and outreach, but these > efforts are essentially unsupported by the OSGeo Foundation. In fact, this > goal and the Board of Directors webpage seem to be explicitly > contradictory. > > My grade: F. > Commentary > I could go on with my own personal evaluations, but I’m not sure that’s > necessary. The only place I see that OSGeo has unquestionably succeeded in > the past few years is the final goal, “To award the Sol Katz award for > service to the OSGeo community”. > > So, what’s my point here? It’s simple: there is no longer a coherent > vision for what OSGeo should be. I’ll return to that below, but let me > continue with my other point. > > OSGeo lacks leadership > Again quoting the Board of Directors’ page: > > The board’s primary responsibility is to efficiently and effectively make > strategic decisions related to the running of OSGeo. > > I won’t bore you with the details, but a perusal of the board meeting > minutes would indicate that strategy is rarely, if ever, a part of the > meetings. > > The emphasis on consensus-based decision making often leads to no > decisions being made. I can’t count the number of discussions that have > come up on the board list only to devolve into a morass of nit-picking and > eventual lack of action when everyone tires of the discussion. What action > that is taken is often to “delegate” to a (possibly inactive) > sub-committee, then never follow up. > > Instead what we have is a great deal of inertia, little interest in > changing things, and no clear indication of what the Board’s priorities are. > > If priorities do exist, they’re lost in a maze of confusing, incomplete > and often contradictory information on the wiki. (Wikis — like abandonware > for documentation.) > On pending irrelevancy > I encourage you to ask some random people in the open source geospatial > community what OSGeo means to them. I would make a bet that the most common > answer is a blank stare. > > I would ask the board members to come up with three things, other than > FOSS4G, where the OSGeo membership has shown its importance to the > community as a whole in the last two years. Something where people say, > “Did you hear about [exciting thing] OSGeo is doing on X?” To be clear, I > don’t mean just things that OSGeo has a finger in, but things that need > OSGeo. If OSGeo disappeared tomorrow, would any of these projects be > significantly affected? > > I don’t think it can be done. The OSGeo Foundation is sliding into > irrelevancy — and it may already be there. > > If anything should be seen as strategic for OSGeo, it’s FOSS4G, the > foundation’s primary (sole?) source of income. Even regarding its flagship > public event, the board is largely absent. Rather than provide adequate > resources and planning, they instead rely on burning out volunteers, then > make post-hoc demands on the way they should have done it, provide no > future support for organizers to heed those demands, rarely follow up, then > go on to repeat the same mistakes the following year. Honestly, it’s > surprising that FOSS4G has failed only once. (I think this is a reflection > of the demand for the conference, not the blazing competence of OSGeo.) > > Michael Gerlek brought this up > <https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2015-July/014521.html> on the > osgeo-discuss list in July, and probably has a more generous spin on it. He > essentially argues that it’s time to declare mission accomplished and shut > down or rebooted. I agree with his points, and I’m arguing that OSGeo can > have something to offer, but it will require a major re-think of its > mission. > > Fixing things > I hinted at this in my recent questions to the board candidates, but I > want to be explicit here: OSGeo needs to evolve or die. > > Here’s how I would do it: > > > 1. > > The board needs to evaluate all of its goals, as defined on the About > page, to decide if they are still truly goals. Define any new goals. > 2. > > Ask the question: “What does it mean to succeed at this goal?” > > If the goal is vague, or ongoing, give a timeline: “What does success look > like for this goal one year from now?” > > > 1. > > Create measureable objectives for achieving those goals. Ask the > question, “How will we know if we’ve succeeded?” > 2. > > Prioritize the goals. > 3. > > Allocate resources to the goals. > > Obviously this is a tricky one, but I think we can look at this a balance > between Importance and Effort. > > > Spend money to reduce to the effort required, more money if the goal is > more important — this might be the hardest cultural shift. Volunteer time > is precious and easily discouraged. Make sure that you make it as efficient > as possible by spending money when you can. > > > For example, many of the infrastructure services OSGeo provides can be > easily outsourced to more featureful services that are more responsive and > rely less on volunteer labor. > > > 1. > > Close the loop on tasks. When a task is delegated to a committee or > individual, track its progress, both to know that it is or isn’t happening, > and to be able to acknowledge and incorporate the work when it’s done. > Failing to acknowledge people’s labor or to use the results of that labor > will virtually guarantee that the volunteer does not continue to help. > 2. > > Evaluate success and failure. GOTO 1. > > Aside: none if this will happen without a strong executive. Whether that > position is paid or not is up to the board, but it’s clear that there needs > to be someone who can make decisions without endless rounds of fruitless > discussions. The board as currently constituted is not dysfunctional, but > it is mostly afunctional. > > I’m will go so far as to suggest this: Fly every board member who is > available to a two or three day retreat. Get everyone in the same room, a > professional facilitator to speed the process, then figure out what OSGeo > is going to be and how to get there. Don’t fret excessively about the > expense — this isn’t about saving money, it’s about saving OSGeo. > > If you ask me, irrelevancy is a fate worse than death. Be bold! It’s > better to try to do something big and new then fail than to simply fade > away and be forgotten. > Though my comments above may sound harsh, they are sent with the very best > of intentions. I want OSGeo to succeed, but OSGeo is never going to succeed > if it doesn’t know what it’s try to succeed at. Without real reform, I > don’t see success happening, just irrelevance. Here’s hoping this gets the > ball rolling. > > Darrell > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@lists.osgeo.org > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss >
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