I believe that narrative B best fits what I know about LocationTech and their interactions with OSGeo.
Note that this is my personal opinion. ---- Michael Smith OSGeo Foundation Treasurer [email protected] From: Discuss <[email protected]> on behalf of Rob Emanuele <[email protected]> Date: Monday, November 16, 2015 at 7:59 PM To: Mateusz Loskot <[email protected]> Cc: OSGeo Discussions <[email protected]> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo/LocationTech relationship Resent-From: Michael Smith <[email protected]> > I think there's two narratives that are at conflict in this entire thread. I'm > going to try to try to spell them out as I see them: > > A. LocationTech is a newer-than-OSGeo organization that is trying to make a > name for itself, capture market share, promote it's brand, in general act in a > way that makes itself grow. The intention behind LocationTech's actions in > offering services as a professional conference organizer is mostly for it's > own gain; LocationTech wants to smoothly slide into becoming a part of OSGeo's > annual conference for the profit and promotion of itself, to the potential > loss of OSGeo. For that reason, it is best for the OSGeo community to protect > itself from LocationTech, keep measured distance between the organizations, > not allow it to become part of the FOSS4G international event, or at least to > be suspicious of it's stated good intentions in offering itself to be PCO. The > real story is that LocationTech's intentions are primarily about the profits > and higher visibility it will gain from being part of FOSS4G, and the help it > is offering plays a secondary role. > > B. LocationTech is an organization that was created out of intentions to help > parts of the community that were perhaps not best served by OSGeo at the time. > It has it's own governance and ways of doing things, which include being > backed by small and large companies looking to contribute financial support to > the open source community, which allows for things like paid staff. The model > is different than OSGeo, the structure is different than OSGeo, and the aims > are similar but have differences. One differences is that it's parent > organization is the Eclipse Foundation, who have professional conference > organizers on staff and a lot of experience running successful conferences. > Seeing this is a valuable thing that the open source geospatial community can > take advantage of, LocationTech offers it's services as a professional > conference organizer to the FOSS4G NA regional conferences, and now has > offered it's services to the international conference in 2017. While certainly > not eschewing the increase in visibility in the community that being part of > the conferences would afford LocationTech, that plays a secondary role to the > earnest desire to help the open source geospatial community. > > Have I captured these narratives correctly or incorrectly? They are based on > impressions and implicit opinions that I've tried to understand from these > conversations. I think perhaps explicitly stating them would be useful, so if > I have failed to do so correctly please correct me. > > I obviously have a preference for believing that narrative B best fits the > reality of the situation. Self promotion surely must play some role in > LocationTech's actions, but is it naive to think that the intentions of > LocationTech are for the community first and itself second? Perhaps. I don't > think so though. The alternative is certainly not how I operate when I > participate in LocationTech. > > I prefer the narrative of openness and trust vs the narrative of mistrust and > suspicion that sounds like bad politics. I hope that this community that I > choose to participate in is not such a political mess that breeds that sort of > selfish market share power plays, and instead it is a community of people and > organizations that take actions based on how they can contribute to an overall > good. > > On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 6:23 PM, Mateusz Loskot <[email protected]> wrote: >> On 16 November 2015 at 23:11, Jody Garnett <[email protected]> wrote: >>> > If I was to sum up the difference in outlook between the two organizations >>> > today it would more be along the lines of LocationTech being "developer >>> > focused" and OSGeo being "user focused'. I think that is more a reflection >>> > of where the projects involved are in their incubation process that any >>> > strategic difference. >> >> Jody, >> >> I have to admit, to me as OSGeo member as developer (+SAC supporter), >> this whole thread has not clarified almost nothing. >> >> As much as I appreciate (and carefully read through) all your inputs, >> that summary leaves me with even more questions. >> >> And, BTW, I agree with you about the FAQ, it also reads naive and silly >> (e.g. comparing Apache vs Mozilla, two different scopes, to >> LocationTech vs OSGeo, >> two with clear overlap). >> >> Putting all the emotional cream whipped so far aside and objectively, >> clearly, that it is all about potential, capacity and market share. >> >> OSGeo has proved its potential, it is capable to paddle its own canoe >> for a decade or more, >> via large self-organized community and successful projects. >> >> LocationTech is a fairly new player with huge & rich organization behind, >> that has to prove it's capable to secure market share, and its position. >> Otherwise, the parent organization will simply shut it down as any >> failed project. >> >> Best regards, >> -- >> Mateusz Loskot, BlockedBlockedhttp://mateusz.loskot.netBlocked >
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