On 1/3/08, Andrew Turner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Jan 3, 2008 1:41 PM, P Kishor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Andrew, > > > > Perhaps you don't care too much about the relations between the open > > source community and the "super elite and private VGI-dubbing" group > > that met at Santa Barbara, but, if you do, please note that statements > > like this are needlessly alienating. > > > > The meeting was well announced in various forums, including, I > > believe, on Geowanking. The meeting was open to everyone who submitted > > a position paper and application and got selected -- they had about > > 35-40 folks from all over the spectrum -- private industry (ESRI, > > Teleatlas, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo...), academia (too many to list), > > open source (myself, Steve Coast...), government (well, at least US > > govt. -- CIA, NGIA, CERL, Los Alamos National Labs), non-profit > > (National Geographic...). I don't consider myself super elite nor > > private, yet I was there. This was indeed the first, afaik, attempt by > > academia to recognize this "phenomenon" that we, in the open source > > community, have been living for the past many years. Nevertheless, it > > just seems bad form to disabuse or denigrate this initiative in any > > way whatsoever. Glib criticism is just that, nothing more. > > I apologize, my query was mis-interpreted. It was semi-tongue-in-cheek > jibing - at least in the specific words used. I was asking for an > summary, but I will offer the alluded to, non-glib criticism. > > I did think of the workshop as fairly 'exclusive' as opposed to > 'inclusive', being that it was limited in audience size and required > approval by a committee (of 2?) to attend. This does in fact make it > 'private'. I can understand reasons why this may be beneficial, at > least to promote a quality meeting, but at least admit that was the > reason.
Sorry, but I will not admit to any such thing. Any meeting has to be limited in size. A hotel or any other venue can only accommodate so many people. Even FOSS4G had some kind of a limit no? This was meant to be a "meeting" not a "conference." Anymore than 30-40 folks and it would have become too difficult to orchestrate. Committee of 2 versus committee of 20 doesn't make any difference. First, I don't know for a fact who was on the approval committee (besides Mike Goodchild), so I won't resort to hearsay. Second, how does that matter? The event was advertised to everyone, it was open to everyone with the same rules -- submit a position paper and a CV, and attend if accepted. Fair enough. There was a well advertised deadline, that you admit that you missed. > It was my own fault in submitting after the deadline and being > told the workshop was full. > > And not super-elite? Look at the list of attendees you summarized, > bunch of super-dupers in Geo world! :) (and not in a bad way). And > every participant is affiliated with a large institution (yes, even > Steve with OSM) I am flattered to be grouped in with the super-elite. I do hope some will start thinking that I am that... maybe I can monetize my eliteness and become richer. Steve with OSM -- as far as I know, OSM is a rag-tag group of volunteers, and Steve represented his own company, Cloudmade, which, as is evident from their website, is made up of about 3 employees. Well, I should let Steve speak for himself. Anyway, let's move on to some constructive discussion of what next. > > > > > Here is my summary of the two days of meeting. I hope this helps > > capture what happened in that "VGI-dubbing" session -- > > > > I really do appreciate the very comprehensive summary. So far, the > endeavor had felt kind of like a "academia now deigns to acknowledge > this emergent behavior" (as you inferred) and, at least speaking with > in my experience in academia, seeks to affix a new label to it. Other > articles/blogs have issued the same sentiment. Was there any > discussion of the differences between "Volunteered" and > "User-Generated" GI, because they are not the same thing, but there is > meaning in the distinction. > > I hope and look forward to more open discussion and presentation > around this topic and products from the workshop (and not just a $32 > per digital copy article from GeoJournal. :) - We don't all belong to > research institutes or large companies that have unlimited access. ) > > Anyways, I'll curtail my glibness in future criticisms ;) > Andrew > -- Puneet Kishor http://punkish.eidesis.org/ Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/ Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) http://www.osgeo.org/ Summer 2007 S&T Policy Fellow, The National Academies http://www.nas.edu/ _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
