Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo is becoming irrelevant. Here's why. Let's fix it.

[Darrell Fuhriman]

This is a perfect example.

All of those are great and wonderful things! The community does great and 
wonderful things. That’ s not my point.

My point is, those activities would happen even if the OSGeo Foundation 
disappeared. I’m not questioning whether we have a large and vibrant community, 
we do. And we still would.

My local chapter existed before it was an OSGeo chapter, and we would keep on 
having meetings and doing fun and exciting things even without the OSGeo 
Foundation.

Put another way: The OSGeo Foundation needs the Open Source Geospatial 
community, but does the Open Source Geospatial community need the OSGeo 
Foundation? I don’t see that it does.

Darrell




> On Sep 26, 2015, at 05:29, Just van den Broecke  wrote:
> 
> Dear Milo,
> 
> That you agree Darrel's statements is your opinion and fine in any open 
> discussion.
> 
> I react here on your phrase: '"empty talkers" from my country run for charter 
> membership'.
> 
> We have 9 Charter Members from the Netherlands, including me. I know each of 
> them, and IMO they are far from "empty talkers". They all spend long 
> voluntary hours in an array of activities that support OSGeo's global and 
> OSGeo.nl local mission and FOSS in general. To name a few:
> Sebastiaan Couwenberg (2015) spends ample time in Debian packaging
> Barend Köbben (2012) helping/speaking at FOSS4G, org academic track
> We all know what Jeroen and Bart have accomplished. I could go on. Not all 
> charter members need to make software, some make things happen like 
> organizing local OSGeo.nl events and acting in the LOC for the upcoming 
> FOSS4G in Bonn.
> 
> So I hope your "empty talkers" phrase came out of a sudden impulse, that we 
> all have from time to time. I had to react to clarify some things. Best,
> 
> Just van den Broecke
> Secretary OSGeo.nl Foundation
> 
> 
> On 26-09-15 00:12, Milo van der Linden wrote:
>> 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
>> 

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[OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo is becoming irrelevant. Here's why. Let's fix it.

[Darrell Fuhriman]

The recent discussion on the board list 
 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 
. 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 
.

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 
 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 

[OSGeo-Discuss] Question(s) for board candidates

[Darrell Fuhriman]

I have a set of inter-related questions for board candidates.

1) What do you see as OSGeo’s purpose today?
1a) What is OSGeo doing today that it shouldn’t be doing?

2) What do you see as OSGeo’s purpose in five years?
2a) What should OSGeo be doing in five years that it *isn’t* doing today?

3) How do we get from (1) to (2)?
3a) How can you help that?

Darrell


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [OSGeo-Conf] Code of Conduct in Real Case

[Darrell Fuhriman]

 On Jun 24, 2015, at 20:35, Darrell Fuhriman darr...@garnix.org wrote:
 
 This is false. Simply false. If people are abused out of a line of work until 
 they quit, that’s not “women choosing other jobs” anymore than me walking 
 into your house, punching you in the face until you leave then claiming “He 
 abandoned it” means it’s not my fault.

BTW, I want to draw attention to the fact that this isn’t news. We’ve known 
this for a long time (the research below is from 2008), The problem is staring 
us the face, and a tremendous number of people in our community remain in 
denial about it. 

Please read:

https://hbr.org/2008/06/stopping-the-exodus-of-women-in-science 
https://hbr.org/2008/06/stopping-the-exodus-of-women-in-science
http://documents.library.nsf.gov/edocs/HD6060-.A84-2008-PDF-Athena-factor-Reversing-the-brain-drain-in-science,-engineering,-and-technology.pdf
 
http://documents.library.nsf.gov/edocs/HD6060-.A84-2008-PDF-Athena-factor-Reversing-the-brain-drain-in-science,-engineering,-and-technology.pdf

Key quotes:

“Our research findings show that on the lower rungs of corporate career 
ladders, fully 41% of highly qualified scientists, engineers, and technologists 
are women. But the dropout rates are huge: Over time 52% of these talented 
women quit their jobs.
[…]
So why do women leave science, engineering, and technology careers The answer 
comes in five parts. First and foremost, the hostility of the workplace culture 
drives them out. If machismo is on the run in most U.S. corporate settings, 
then this is its Alamo—a last holdout of redoubled intensity.”

I realize this study is US focused, but I’ve seen nothing to indicate that the 
US is any way an outlier in these matters.

Darrell


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [OSGeo-Conf] Code of Conduct in Real Case

[Darrell Fuhriman]

 On Jun 24, 2015, at 23:26, clem...@igonet.fr wrote:
 
 Why don't the women take the place and the power by themselves?

Why don’t the poor take from the rich? Why don’t the weak take from the strong? 
Why don’t the slaves take over the master’s house?

The question should answer itself.

Darrell





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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [OSGeo-Conf] Code of Conduct in Real Case

[Darrell Fuhriman]

I’m not sure who the “we” you are referring to here is, but it certainly does 
not include me.

I am absolutely, 100%, interested in having more women become engaged in FOSS4G.

Please don’t make such sweeping generalizations.

We are a broad community, a global community, but we are not truly reflective 
of the whole world. We are largely white men from wealthy countries.

I *want* people engaged and passionate about FOSS4G. And that means making sure 
have a community where *everyone* feels welcome.  If our FOSS4G community does 
not reflect the entire world, then we are failing to engage all people, or 
worse, chasing some of them away.

A CoC is not a sign that we are dying, a CoC is a sign that we acknowledge that 
we are insufficiently inclusive, and that we as a community will not stand for 
that. It’s a sign that says “We do not want behaviors that drive people away, 
behaviors that make our community *smaller*. We are a welcoming community and 
we want *you* to be part of it.”Is a CoC sufficient to create that community? 
Absolutely not, but it’s a step forwards. A flag in the ground — a flag that 
says, “We welcome you!”

If we’re afraid of that, then we truly are a dying community, and one that 
deserves to meet its quiet, irrelevant end.

Darrell


 We are not interested in more women to become engaged in FOSS4G. We are 
 interested in people engaged and passionate about FOSS4G. We don't care about 
 the sex, the colour, the religious or the operating system. Why are we 
 interested specifically in more women?
 
 There is a large and growing business behind FOSS4G, which is an huge 
 accomplishment of FOSS4G, that we should care and maintain. It is ok to have 
 some grey people with a strange piece of cloth knotted at the throat 
 attending FOSS4G and moving around.

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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [OSGeo-Conf] Code of Conduct in Real Case

[Darrell Fuhriman]

 I don’t think the reason why OSGeo has not so many women are caused by 
 lacking of CoC in OSGeo. According to the statistics National Centre for 
 Education Statistics[0], women have outnumbered men in American colleges for 
 last 35 years.

Great. Why are so few of them in positions of power? Why aren’t  a majority of 
our CEOs women? Why aren’t a majority of our biologists women? Why aren’t a 
majority of our legislators women? We can come up with all sorts of excuses to 
dance around the problem, because we’d rather go through mental contortions 
than admit the obvious: sexism in ubiquitous . (For a related discussion, I 
recommend the book “Racism without Racists” which thoroughly examines how a lot 
of people who don’t think of themselves as racist actually take part in 
behaviors and support structures that are in fact, racist.)

 However women just selected another jobs rather than programming or 
 geospatial. It’s not our fault. I couldn’t recall any decisive moment that 
 lacking of CoC in OSGeo excluded participation of female except recent 
 comments from Kate. 

This is false. Simply false. If people are abused out of a line of work until 
they quit, that’s not “women choosing other jobs” anymore than me walking into 
your house, punching you in the face until you leave then claiming “He 
abandoned it” means it’s not my fault.

It *is* our fault. It’s systemic and it’s pernicious.

And honestly, it doesn’t take much looking to find stories of women who have 
left technical fields because they’re tired of the abuse. But the reality is 
most of them quietly leave, so when people say, “I can’t recall a time that 
happened…” it’s not because it doesn’t happen, it’s because those people aren’t 
paying attention.

 It’s very similar in Korea as well. More than 45% of college students are 
 female. However they *DO* select another jobs instead of selecting 
 programming or geospatial. That’s why only around 10% are female in Korean 
 Chapter. It’s not because lacking of CoC. 

Are you sure? I mean this seriously. Do you have evidence for that, or are you 
just assuming? I’m not fetishizing the CoC itself, obviously having a CoC 
doesn’t magically make an open community, but it’s a symbol that the community 
does take inclusivity seriously.

 If we want to be a broad community, a global community, also truly 
 reflective of the whole world, we’d better discuss how to effectively engage 
 other members from 3rd countries or developing countries. Do you know people 
 in Asia outnumber the other part of the world? Frankly to say I haven’t seen 
 any much effort from OSGeo to try to engage members from developing 
 countries. Ah.. we have travel grants once a year.  
 

You will not get an argument for me. I’ve been arguing for a long time that 
there needs to be concerted and honest outreach to the rest of the world.  So 
far the OSGeo model has been “build it and they they will come” (to use a 
Hollywood reference). This is, of course, hogwash. I’ve had a number of 
conversations about how OSGeo should be sponsoring workshops around world. 
Spending the money produced by FOSS4G to put on “FOSS4G East Africa” even if it 
loses money. I want there to be FOSS4G Ouagadougou, FOSS4G Kuala Lampur, FOSS4G 
Vietnam, FOSS4G Uruguay.

That’s the world I want.

 You said, If our FOSS4G community does not reflect the entire world, then we 
 are failing to engage all people, or worse, chasing some of them away.” 
 Great! And then what is the real relation between your phrase and CoC. Do you 
 really believe that imposing CoC automatically make OSGeo more welcomed 
 organisation to 3rd countries or developing countries members? 

No, of course not. CoC’s aren’t magic, but they’re a statement of belief in 
higher ideal.


 I feel that CoC is for white women in advanced countries. I know I might be 
 wrong. However whenever we talk about CoC, it’s all about sexy image or 
 something like that. It’s not about how to engage 2/3 of world population. 
 

Well, with the exception of the “white” part, I actually mostly agree with this 
(ignoring the status of minorities, which are common in the advanced world). 
However, I would also point out that women, globally, are 51% of the 
population. Why *not* make them feel safer?

But if the argument is essentially, “we’re not making better for everyone, then 
what’s the point of doing it for some” then I reject that. Because again, this 
is merely a step, and every journey requires many steps.

So my question to you is this: if a CoC is insufficient for building a globally 
diverse community (which I agree it is), in what way is it actively harmful to 
that cause? Would *not* having a CoC further the goals of creating a better 
community? If so, how?

Darrell


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[OSGeo-Discuss] Fixing FOSS4G (was: Hacking OSGeo)

[Darrell Fuhriman]

FWIW, what I want to ensure happens is that the issue of partnering with 
LocationTech does not get conflated with fixing how FOSS4G is managed.

What is clear is that things cannot continue to go on as they have, especially 
if OSGeo is serious about expanding FOSS4G, both in size and scope. I believe 
the organization it at a cross-roads with FOSS4G, and it’s a choice between 
expanding the conference with the help of a professional, or letting the 
conference stagnate (and hence OSGeo stagnate). It is simply as large as it can 
get under the current structure. And given that there’s already been one flame 
out, arguably already too big. 

Unless things change, and change soon, there will be another failure like 
Bejing. It’s that simple. It’s past time to grow up and start acting like the 
conference(s) are OSGeo’s lifeline — which they are.

Though one proposed path to adulthood for FOSS4G involves LocationTech, it’s 
not the only possible solution.

I see three ways to do this, each with advantages and disadvantages:

1) Contract an outside PCO on an ongoing basis
2) Hire a staff person to be the organizer
3) Partner with LocationTech

I’ll address each of these in turn :

1) Contract an outside PCO

This is the easiest thing to do. In fact, and this is very important to 
understand: OSGeo already hires an outside PCO, they just do so from scratch on 
an annual basis, in the most inefficient way possible.

If you want the really easy way out, hire the one we used this year. They did a 
good job at a reasonable price. They were already discussing with the Korea 
team about continuing the contract with them.

If you want to be more formal, solicit bids and choose one that way.

However you choose, choose with the assumption that the contract is an ongoing 
one as long as both parties are satisfied.

Disadvantages:
The only real objection I’ve heard to doing it this way is that it’s good to 
have someone with local knowledge. My response is that this is simply false. In 
fact, we chose our PCO in part based on that assumption. We were wrong. Heck, 
one of them even commented to me that it was a nice change to do a conference 
in Portland, since they hadn’t done so in years.
Some lack of flexibility: if OSGeo wants to expand the role (see below), then 
it requires a renegotiation of the contract, and a general PCO may not be the 
right choice for that role.
Advantages:
Institutional knowledge. The conference knowledge carries on in the 
organization, and is hopefully not entirely imbued in one person. 
Simplicity. We’re already doing it — just poorly.

2) Hire a staff person to be the organizer

This is more risk, but also offers more potential.

Advantages:

Having a staff person allow OSGeo to be more flexible in organizing 
conferences. Is there a budding regional conference that needs some assistance? 
We can help with that. Would OSGeo like to foster growth in regions without a 
local FOSS4G event? OSGeo can do that. 

Disadvantages:

You would only have one staff person, which means more risk of losing 
institutional knowledge if that person leaves.
Potential for no being seen as less of/no longer a volunteer led organization. 
(Personally, I think this fear is overwrought, but that doesn’t make it any 
less real. OSGeo already outsources jobs which its membership isn't qualified 
to do, for instance lawyers, accountants, and yes even PCOs.)
Hiring is hard, and takes time, especially to find a good autonomous person to 
take on this role

3) Partner with LocationTech

Obviously in the current context, this is a loaded proposition. I appreciate 
that there’s fear of take over or of “losing” FOSS4G and its income. I believe 
that can be allayed with a properly written contract. There seems to be a lot 
of speculation about what a partnership means, and not a lot of facts. 

I see this partnership as starting with LocationTech serving as a PCO and 
nothing more.  If both parties later want to expand that relationship, that can 
be done, but start with the PCO and treat it as no different than the proposal 
in (1).

Advantages:
LocationTech works in the same space, has contacts, and the Eclipse Foundation 
already runs conferences
Potential for future, deepened partnerships
Disadvantages:
LocationTech works in the same space, has contacts, and the Eclipse Foundation 
already runs conferences, so there’s a potential for conflicts of interest
If it doesn’t work out for whatever reason, future partnership opportunities 
might be lost

===

Those are a few of my many thoughts on the topic, and on my thoughts for the 
future of OSGeo, but I think it’s important to stay focused on bite-sized 
chunks for right now. If possible, let’s try to keep this (sub-)thread focused 
on the issue of FOSS4G and not on the larger questions about OSGeo.

Darrell


On Sep 16, 2014, at 07:38, Jeff McKenna jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com wrote:

 Hello everyone,
 
 To clarify publicly, I have no problem with LocationTech, and in 

Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo

[Darrell Fuhriman]

The video under question is here: https://vimeo.com/106232256

We’ve got about 50% of the videos up, but the remainder will have to wait a 
week since we’ve hit our weekly upload limits on vimeo.

Darrell

On Sep 15, 2014, at 13:37, Kristin Bott bo...@reed.edu wrote:

 Kathleen Danielson's talk can be found here: 
 http://kathleen.getcourse.com/embed.html?course=74708aa8-d180-4482-bdff-da740e27eec9#/
 
 Recorded sessions aren't up yet, but I know Darrell is working on it.
 
 -k.bott
 
 On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 1:28 PM, Jody Garnett jody.garn...@gmail.com wrote:
 Crap - I guess this means I better set up another incubation committee 
 meeting :)
 
 There was a great talk at foss4g about burnout (anyone got a link?). I always 
 try and respect the volunteers I am working with ...
 
 Rant: Please remember that YOU are a volunteer you are working with, respect 
 your time appropriately.
 --
 Jody
 
 Jody Garnett
 
 On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 2:07 PM, Jeff McKenna jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com 
 wrote:
 Jody, your response is perfect.  I do get upset too often (or actually, I 
 take quite a lot, but eventually am set off).  I apologize for this, I will 
 try to be better.  I am slowly improving.  But I could be better.
 
 To get myself back on track, I decided a few minutes ago (mentioned on the 
 Board list) by doing some little things for OSGeo right now.  And you'll be 
 happy to hear that one of them is Incubation-related: give a push with the 
 pycsw team for the next steps (code review etc), as I am their mentor.
 
 Thanks again for being the voice of reason Jody.  Let's all do as Jody says, 
 and I am sure these tricky points will work themselves out.
 
 -jeff
 
 
 
 On 2014-09-15 4:57 PM, Jody Garnett wrote:
 Well I don't like you get upset Jeff, you are correct that patches
 speak louder than emails.
 
 If I could put a plug in for the incubation committee - we would really
 love some more volunteers. We have a couple projects waiting to get in
 and all we need is a mentor to be a friendly voice/email contact.
 
 The stuff we do at OSGeo can be very intimidating (starting a steering
 committee - gasp!) or require sensitivity (trade mark conflict). Having
 a mentor to email or Skype can be of great assistance.
 --
 Jody Garnett
 
 On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 12:02 PM, Jeff McKenna
 jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com mailto:jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com
 wrote:
 
 Why is there this sudden need to point out things like this?  This
 is the part that makes my heart drop.  (and the underlying meaning
 of the subject of this email) Instead of pointing out issues, maybe
 those making these noises can spend that time on the marketing
 committee, or tackling on the membership issue.
 
 I personally have no problem with LocationTech, in fact I agree they
 play a very important role for businesses.  I do have a problem
 however with pointing out problems with OSGeo and our baby, FOSS4G;
 instead of pointing out problems, I feel those same people could be
 diving into helping OSGeo grow and pick up the ball themselves.
 
 -jeff
 
 
 
 
 
 On 2014-09-15 2:56 PM, Bart van den Eijnden wrote:
 
 Why is this not true? I think you are misinterpreting here Jeff.
 
 Membership in OSGeo is a single person. Yes this person can
 belong to a company or run their own company, but membership is
 still personal.
 
 Bart
 
 Sent from my iPhone
 
 On 15 sep. 2014, at 19:45, Jeff McKenna
 jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com
 mailto:jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com__ wrote:
 
 On 2014-09-15 1:22 PM, Daniel Morissette wrote:
 the members in OSGeo are individuals and the members in
 Eclipse/LocationTech are businesses
 
 
 
 Daniel this statement is not true, regarding OSGeo.  OSGeo
 members are made up of all walks of life, and many are
 running private businesses all around the world.  I have
 visited their organizations/offices myself in my FOSS4G
 travels throughout the years.
 
 However I cannot change how you feel.
 
 This part is unfortunate, these strong statements made
 publicly, which I feel are made to divide our community.
 
 Let me reinforce: our OSGeo community and our FOSS4G events
 (of all sizes) are geared for everyone and anyone, with no
 sole focus on one type of community.  And as the President
 of OSGeo, I am happy to represent all of the members, of any
 kind :)
 
 -jeff
 
 
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 Discuss mailing list
 Discuss@lists.osgeo.org
 http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
 
 
 
 -- 
 Kristin Bott 
 

[OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G Early Bird Discount ends soon

[Darrell Fuhriman]

Just a quick reminder that the FOSS4G early bird discount ends on June 15th at 
11:59 GMT-7. Get registered now!

And when you register, don’t forget to donate to our travel grant fund to help 
strengthen the diversity of the conference. 

Darrell

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[OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G Update: Keynotes, Travel Grants, Volunteer Discounts

[Darrell Fuhriman]

** Two new keynote speakers added to 2014 lineup


We are delighted to announce Sarah Novotny of NGINX and Al Shaw of ProPublica 
as keynote speakers for FOSS4G 2014. They join Mike Bostock of the New York 
Times in this year's lineup.

Novotny is a technical evangelist and community manager for NGINX, founder of 
Blue Gecko, and is currently a program chair for O’Reilly Media’s OSCON. Shaw 
is a news applications developer at ProPublica and the creator of an award 
winning series of interactive maps documenting FEMA's response to Hurricane 
Sandy.


** Travel Grant Program


To make sure that as many deserving people as possible can attend FOSS4G, we 
have created a travel grant program with funds to help cover registration, 
lodging, and travel costs. If you are excited about open source geospatial work 
but have economic barriers to attendance, we strongly encourage you to apply. 
Applications are due May 30th, and awardees will be notified mid-June.

Our travel grants are community funded; your donations help bring more of your 
colleagues to the conference. Consider an additional donation when you register 
for the conference or as a stand-alone contribution. If every attendee gave 
just $20, we could bring an additional 20 people to the conference.


** Volunteer Discounts


We will also have a limited number of volunteer positions available; in 
exchange for a full day of work, volunteers will be eligible for a discounted 
rate of $125. Students will be given preference for these volunteer positions 
until July 1st. More details on the volunteer program and travel grants.


** Important Conference Dates


See the full calendar (https://2014.foss4g.org/about/calendar/) for more 
details.
* June 15th: Early bird registration ends
* Sept 8th-9th: Workshops
* Sept 10th-12th: Main Conference
* Sept 13th: Code Sprint

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[OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G Workshop Proposal Reminder and Opening Keynote Announcement

[Darrell Fuhriman]

A few updates to round out your week.

** Opening Keynote Speaker


We are pleased to announce that Mike Bostock (http://bost.ocks.org/mike/) will 
be featured as the opening keynote speaker for FOSS4G 2014.

Bostock designs interactive graphics for The New York Times. He is also the 
author of D3.js (http://d3js.org) , a popular open-source library for 
visualizing data using web standards, and TopoJSON 
(https://github.com/mbostock/topojson) , an extension to GeoJSON that encodes 
topology.

D3.js is one of the most exciting visualization technologies to appear 
recently, and we're very excited to have Mike at FOSS4G. You can see some of 
his work at his website (http://bost.ocks.org/mike/) and be sure to check out 
his numerous elegant D3.js examples at http://bl.ocks.org/mbostock.


** Workshop Proposal Reminder

Workshop Proposals are due March 15th, just a couple of days away. We've had 
lots of great submissions, but would love to have yours, too. Workshops are 
always very popular, and are a great way to introduce people to your work. No 
project or idea is too small to be worth submitting.

Read the Call for Workshops 
(https://2014.foss4g.org/calls-for-papers/workshop-proposals/)  or go right to 
the submission page (https://2014.foss4g.org/submit-workshop/) .


** Upcoming Dates


Workshop Proposals Due - March 15th
Registration Begins - April 1st
Academic Track Papers Due - April 15th
Presentation Submissions Due - April 15th
Workshops - Sept 8th-9th
Main Conference - Sept 10th-12th
Code Sprint - Sept 13th





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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] MS Geospatial programs focused on FOSS4G

[Darrell Fuhriman]

It doesn't focus exclusively on FOSS4G (no sane program would), but the  Penn 
State program makes fairly extensive use of FOSS tools, especially in the 
programming classes.

Darrell


On Dec 6, 2013, at 07:54, maning sambale emmanuel.samb...@gmail.com wrote:

 Dear everyone,
 
 A couple of colleagues are asking me this.  Are there any
 MS/scholarship GIS programs that focuses on the use of FOSS4G?
 
 -- 
 cheers,
 maning
 --
 Freedom is still the most radical idea of all -N.Branden
 wiki: http://esambale.wikispaces.com/
 blog: http://epsg4253.wordpress.com/
 --
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G 2013 Nottingham archiving

[Darrell Fuhriman]

The Cookbook,  Lessons Learned, and the recent 2013 summary have been  the most 
valuable for us.

The archive may have some value as a historical artifact, but that kind of 
higher level stuff is far more valuable. The day to day discussion threads 
simply do not matter.

And I'm with Steven, wikis suck as a project management tool. At best they're 
good as somewhat organized record of what was done (e.g. meeting notes). For 
actually getting work done, there are far better tools out there.

Darrell


On Dec 5, 2013, at 03:04, Steven Feldman shfeld...@gmail.com wrote:

 Jeff
 
 You have raised the topic of our use of basecamp several times. I believe the 
 LOC has the right and the need to choose the internal comms tool that works 
 best for it. We chose basecamp and it worked well for us, much much better 
 than dysfunctional mailing lists or a wiki. Those who follow on can make 
 their own choices.
 
 Re the archiving of logo file, discussions etc. We have committed to doing 
 this and will deliver in a way that may be useful to others although I doubt 
 that Portland or anyone following will ever look at this stuff, I know we 
 never looked in the SVN at previous years' archives



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[OSGeo-Discuss] Suggest a keynote/invited talk speaker for FOSS4G 2014

[Darrell Fuhriman]

Greetings denizens of osgeo-discuss,

I hope you're having a great fall. 

We here on the FOSS4G 2014 Committee are looking for a few good women (or men) 
to speak in our invited speaker slots. We know who we know, but the collective 
knowledge of community is so much broader. We need you to let us know who you 
know!

Have you seen someone give a great talk, and think they deserve a bigger 
audience? Is there an unsung hero, who deserves a platform to talk about their 
work? Or is there someone you'd just really like to see speak? Don't assume we 
already know about them – unless it's Paul Ramsey. We know who he is. You can 
even suggest yourself! (Unless you're Paul Ramsey.)

Take 30 seconds and tell us about her (or him)! 

We've created form to track your suggestions:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1uhZR4hW7h43c8cQq1_eY2-lhfbCj8M14gn_0x7D9VuE/viewform

We look forward to hearing your ideas.

Darrell Fuhriman
Organizing Committee Chair, FOSS4G 2014


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