Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] proposal of new mailing list - graphics
Hi Chris, Your initiative is great and we should definitely combine our efforts. Cytowanie Chris Holmes chol...@opengeo.org: Note also that a bit ago we started 'geosilk', see http://projects.opengeo.org/geosilk http://blog.opengeo.org/2009/05/01/geosilk/ These extend the 'silk' icon set which is widely used on the web, borrowing geospatial icons from the uDig icons: http://udig.refractions.net/confluence/display/DEV/Imagery When I have started this project almost two years ago, silk icons were also considered as base. But their size was not what we needed for GRASS. From my point of view, the most important issue are consistent methaphors, with potential of scalability. If we can elaborate common set, the rest will be easy. Important issue are also (new) standards, like WMS, WFS, etc. I was looking for their symbols without success, so started to propose mine vision. But it should be done after discussion. We're using them in the GeoServer admin console and in GeoExt, and are definitely excited for more people to make use of them and for collaboration. It'd be great to sync up somehow with the gis icons, though it looks like ours are a bit more space constrained. So your goal are 16x16px and mine 24x24px (22x22px). What graphic software do you use? Robert Chris -- Chris Holmes OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org Expert service straight from the developers. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] proposal of new mailing list - graphics
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Robert Szczepanek escribió: Hi, My request for new mailing list 'graphics' is related to ongoing process of visual integration of few projects within OSGeo. At the moment GRASS and QGIS are involved, but gvSIG is also interested in cooperation. Present stage of icons development is at: http://robert.szczepanek.pl/gis-icons-0.1/ I found also that Symbol Registry is under development. But there is still missing one common place for discussion about graphics (symbols, icons, etc.). best regards, Robert Szczepanek ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss I think is a good idea also. In fact, I see it as a natural step after following great Robert's work, witch is going over one project scope. I think Tango project is a reference here, not only by the design guidelines but for the *icon naming conventions*. Sharing a naming convention for our icons would give us portability between icon sets and through different software. Best regards - -- Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas Ingeniero en Geodesia y Cartografía http://es.osgeo.org http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Jorge_Sanz -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJKwxGMAAoJEAOYD75lvHdB1MgH+QE1qtJq4/qGONCdurOQ6Kdv 0A1Zn8foYuDiphvLTm+5uOuBMM8lLOVO9t9DrnzAZF0m4+Qv/g+pFTzMUPDPanfF Wm/kD006VthxScwaqYjOdCxaCZcb7QCosWPMHrqu/x7hmrVhdFeZYZ5NsCoUyPLa /FAhHebq1wHHfVxzxz9D4QutboCaaDWoE/IjSd3hkxtLvqSPU24MiXYVD0Q0/R7L MvI6Cge01UaPpjXt8Cf3e/16OcWJxa9ZCrk6ToOWHrIlXLPgD5aom1Yjk6OHPhav x9PO9b+qxHqX0dp2Cgu4kky6kUtTQkZyPavAiB0A9eTvyziy+r631BEm9ooocwQ= =bAWo -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Pictures from Intergeo
Hey, Intergeo was a great success. There are a few shots available through the osgeohackingevent2009 account (thanks again to Anne Ghisla): http://www.flickr.com/photos/osgeohackingevent2009/sets/72157622486321366/ Regards, -- Arnulf Christl Exploring Space, Time and Mind http://arnulf.us/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Board Election: Markus Neteler
Carissimo! mille scuse per il ritardo e mille complimenti per la rielezione. Sono certa che continuerai a fare un ottimo lavoro per OSGeo ;) a prestissimo anne Il giorno ven, 25/09/2009 alle 22.35 +0200, Markus Neteler ha scritto: Dear charter members and community, I feel honored to be renominated again for the upcoming board election - this election is important to continue the work done for OSGeo and to meet the new challenges. This year we have a great choice between many new nominees and two board member standing for re-election. For those not knowing me: I am one of the founding members of OSGeo and involved in FOSS4G since 1993 (as user) and since 1998 (as developer) with most activities dedicated to the GRASS GIS project. I am very community oriented which means that I try to avoid making OSGeo any kind of elite group or the like. Moreover I work on integration, trying to connect people not knowing each other and trying to lower the barriers to contribute to OSGeo projects, be as ordinary user, be as power user or even more. Growing developers was the motto of one of the FOSS4G conferences which I like very much. If you are interested, you can find the collection of proposals I made in OSGeo, here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Neteler ... some done, some in progress, some more to come :) Important for me is also the fact that most folks here are not native English speakers. Local chapters are important (I was involved in the establishment of the German and the Italian FOSS4G associations which later became OSGeo chapters) and need to be partially better connected to OSGeo-international. Furthermore, software needs to be translated to different languages. Here good progress was done but it needs to become easier to contribute. We'll work on that. Finally, I am interested (and contributed) to OSGeo-Edu and OSGeo-Geodata which I pushed a lot in the very beginning of OSGeo in 2006 to avoid a pure software foundation. I am sure that we could deliver a great portal to the existing community and especially newcomers with a good material collection. For OSGeo-Edu it has been started, for OSGeo-Geodata we may have a catalog in future. In this sense I'll continue to contribute! Best, Markus ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss signature.asc Description: Questa è una parte del messaggio firmata digitalmente ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: [Board] 2009 Board Election Results
Folks, first off a big thanks to our late directors, thanks for all the good work! Thanks Paul for running the elections. I will use Paul's words when I say it was a very large field of really excellent candidates, it's a shame the board isn't bigger! I hope that you will bring in your excellence within OSGeo all the same and I am sure that you will have a close look on how the board is doing and let it know if it goes astray. OSGeo is all about its members, the board should be nothing but its formal extension. Lets get going for a cool FOSS4G and next year. Best regards, Arnulf. On Tue, September 29, 2009 16:53, Paul Ramsey wrote: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Election_2009_Results Here are the final results from the voting for the open seats of the OSGeo Board of Directors. There were five seats open and they have been filled by, in alphabetical order: * Chris Schmidt * Geoff Zeiss * Jeff McKenna * Markus Neteler (re-elected) * Ravi Kumar Thanks to everyone for running, it was a very large field of really excellent candidates, it's a shame the board isn't bigger. The voting participation was middling at 73% and there were no tie scores to arbitrate. Your complete resulting Board is: * Ari Jolma * Arnulf Christl * Frank Warmerdam * Howard Butler * Markus Neteler * Chris Schmidt * Geoff Zeiss * Jeff McKenna * Ravi Kumar http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_of_Directors Yours, Paul Ramsey CRO 2009 ___ Board mailing list bo...@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board -- Arnulf Christl President OSGeo http://www.osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo
Hi, I read these interesting answers and I'd like to bring my point of view. I know, I'm quite new in the OSGEO world (1 year, previously by Autodesk and other porprietary structures), but I'm sorry (and unhappy) to say that the GIS leaders (ESRI, Autdoesk, Intergraph etc...) don't see OSGEO has an important contradictor: from my point of view, this is what needs to be changed in the next 5 years. I see several reasons that explain the current situation: - The majority of OSGEO software are dependent of a few heroic developers or a few heroic companies that have nothing in comparison with the GIS leaders. With the same idea, the OSGEO is depending of a few persons that have another job and do that as extra (how many incubation requests pending ?) - There is almost no marketing (comparing to GIS leaders) done around the OSGEO Software - A large part of the GIS market is not addressed by OSGEO Software. I'm particularly thinking to the industry that need to invest billions of dollars (if you don't believe me, please ask Geoff ;-) and OSGEO has for now no stacks that is able to answer these need. - The OSGEO is very developer centric and probably need more input from management, end user, marketing etc... That's only my analysis of the situation. But I think that if the OSGEO foundation wants to reach its gooal: Created to support and build the highest-quality open source geospatial software. Our goal is to encourage the use and collaborative development of community-led projects., it needs to define a clear direction and make some consequent investments. Sorry if theses comments are crude, only my 2 cents, Cédric On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 8:25 PM, Frank Warmerdam warmer...@pobox.comwrote: Arnulf Christl (OSGeo) wrote: I want to add that for me it is also a goal to limit OSGeo's growth wrt the number of paid staff and budget. We can make good use with 100k more for hardware, services and to have more reserves for the conferences. But I believe that we should not let the budget grow beyond ~half a million - not even in five years. If there is money to make then it should be made by businesses. They in turn are welcome to sponsor OSGeo. By supporting FOSS business development OSGeo automagically supports itself. Arnulf, I also am not keen on a big budget organization, though I wouldn't want to put any specific limit on it. Areas I *would* like to see grow budget wise is project sponsorship as a mechanism for user organizations to share in supporting project development. Of course, that will depend to a large part on the success of projects in soliciting funds and putting them to effective use. One thing I am leery about, but that has been suggested by some, is OSGeo trying to provide professional services as a way of raising money. I think this is best left to the FOSS business community. I feel this way for two reasons. (1) OSGeo does not really have the managerial strength to effectively deliver customer oriented projects. (2) I don't want to compete against our partners in the business community who are already providing so much of the important push for free geospatial software development and deployment. I would like to see growing sponsorship funds to help support educational, promotional and community oriented efforts by OSGeo. Quite a bit of this can be effectively done at the local level by local chapters. Local Chapters should grow by themselves, in most cases an small initial stub created from within OSGeo Global is enough to get going. And as Howard said - the life of OSGeo is within the local chapters. I think local chapters are important, but I'm not sure I'd go as far as you on this. I think global project, and osgeo special interest group mailing lists can also be where a good deal of the life of OSGeo is. My next 5 years list might look something like: - A broad set of quality software projects under the OSGeo banner that feel they are getting good value from OSGeo in terms of promotion, branding and systems support. Furthermore that the developer and user communities feel they have a fair (equal opportunity) environment to contribute and effect their projects. - Educational support resources sufficient to be deployed directly for post-secondary educational organizations wanting to roll out a GIS/geospatial program based on free software *and* a significant number of organizations who have done so and are publically involved in supporting further improvements to the materials. - Lots of local chapters pursuing a diversity of local initiatives with lots of inter chapter, chapter-project, and chapter-osgeo linkages. Hopefully local chapters will be hot-beds of innovative activities even when OSGeo is somewhat slow moving. - OSGeo facilitated delivery of vetted, integrated software stacks ready to use for user organizations, and considered enterprise ready. Think of
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo
2009/9/30 Cédric Moullet cedric.moul...@camptocamp.com: .. - The OSGEO is very developer centric and probably need more input from management, end user, marketing etc... .. noo! Let our work, and not marketers and management, speak for us. -- Puneet Kishor http://www.punkish.org Carbon Model http://carbonmodel.org Charter Member, Open Source Geospatial Foundation http://www.osgeo.org Science Commons Fellow, http://sciencecommons.org/about/whoweare/kishor Nelson Institute, UW-Madison http://www.nelson.wisc.edu --- Assertions are politics; backing up assertions with evidence is science === Sent from Madison, WI, United States ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo
Christopher Schmidt wrote: On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 04:28:20PM +0200, Cédric Moullet wrote: I'm sorry (and unhappy) to say that the GIS leaders (ESRI, Autdoesk, Intergraph etc...) don't see OSGEO has an important contradictor: from my point of view, this is what needs to be changed in the next 5 years. If someone wants to compete with ESRI -- that's fine. We should support them insofar as we can with community resources, shared userbases, and feedback. But it is not the job of OSGeo to make these projects successful -- only to help them succeed based on their own efforts. Especially, when one or two of the mentioned companies have supported OSGeo Foundation a lot. A holy war is something that should be avoided at most. It should not be about how to compete and win the market, but about how to effectively collaborate in wide range of areas. Best regards, -- Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo
I agree, we don't want to compete directly with anyone nor do we want to take an adversarial political stance. However, I'd offer that while the level of awareness of open source GIS offerings has much improved over the past couple years, it still has a ways to go and OSGeo can be a force for good in that area. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss- boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Mateusz Loskot Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2009 7:58 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo Christopher Schmidt wrote: On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 04:28:20PM +0200, Cédric Moullet wrote: I'm sorry (and unhappy) to say that the GIS leaders (ESRI, Autdoesk, Intergraph etc...) don't see OSGEO has an important contradictor: from my point of view, this is what needs to be changed in the next 5 years. If someone wants to compete with ESRI -- that's fine. We should support them insofar as we can with community resources, shared userbases, and feedback. But it is not the job of OSGeo to make these projects successful -- only to help them succeed based on their own efforts. Especially, when one or two of the mentioned companies have supported OSGeo Foundation a lot. A holy war is something that should be avoided at most. It should not be about how to compete and win the market, but about how to effectively collaborate in wide range of areas. Best regards, -- Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo
Jacolin Yves wrote: Hello Cédric, I think more people think same as you relating this point of view :) : Le Wednesday 30 September 2009 16:28:20 Cédric Moullet, vous avez écrit : The OSGEO is very developer centric and probably need more input from management, end user, marketing etc... Folks, I would instead express this as OSGeo needs end users (including their managers), and those interested in it's marketting (which I would prefer to call promotion) to get more actively involved and contribute. What we developers don't necessarily want is a bunch of others telling us what to do. Best regards, -- ---+-- I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, warmer...@pobox.com light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam and watch the world go round - Rush| Geospatial Programmer for Rent ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo
Rafal Wawer wrote: Hi Frank, For your end-users I see a lot of opportunities in developing countries, Rafal, So do I, particularly because I think in those countries people will see that some elbow grease and investment in their own knowledge can give them what they need for a low cost, and providing future opportunities. where the cost of software licenses is far to high for the budgets thay have. Naturally, some of the users use cracks, but it won't be that easy enymore, especially in the domain of web services. OSGeo could support education in FOSS4G in those countries - with active marketing, sending information letters to the bodies responsible for mapping and environment. I am a big believer in folks pulling up their own socks in this regard. I am dubious about OSGeo trying to seed into countries without local advocates, but there are things we can do to help support locals who want promotional and training materials, and some introduction into international circles. Hopefully we can also provide an aura of deserved respectability for our projects that will make it easier for decision makers to take them seriously. OSGeo could also participate in dvelopment projects - like those small grants of GSDI, providing FOSS solutions, not mentioning European FP7 projects addressing Africa. For know the quite steep learning curve to get into FOSS4G is very often keeping the potential users away. There are things we can do, but to a large extent the benefits will go to those users who realize some investment in learning is worthwhile. Is OSGeo targeting those users now? If you look onto the map of registered members: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Category:OSGeo_Member, well, not everyone added himself to the map, but enyway, Africa, Asia and South America look quite empty (-; There are things we are doing now, including holding FOSS4G in South Africa last year, and making an effort to involve geographically diverse folks in the charter membership and board. We have also been supportive (though perhaps we could be more so) of local chapters where they are established by local advocates. But, clearly we still have had only modest success getting folks in the developing world actively involved in the global OSGeo activities. Best regards, -- ---+-- I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, warmer...@pobox.com light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam and watch the world go round - Rush| Geospatial Programmer for Rent ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo
On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 7:44 AM, Christopher Schmidt crschm...@crschmidt.net wrote: For this reason, efforts like Marketing are (in my opinion) less important than, for example, setting up a test server for running buildbot, or other things that help software become successful. I agree with Chris, and I think it's important to stress what while marketing activities are *less* important than support activities for the development of the software, that does not mean that marketing activities are *unimportant*. Just that, in the hierarchy of things OSGeo should concern itself with, keeping the development lights on is number one. Once that's taken care of, all power to marketing! Because without software, the marketing doesn't have much purpose. P ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo
- Christopher Schmidt crschm...@crschmidt.net wrote: Speak to whom? Decision makers with no real knowledge of the thing they are signing off on, being advised by lazy people who have some understanding but want to ensure they cover their back and don't have to try too hard rather than implement the best solution for the least money? No, to the lazy people. If your code is good enough, then the right way -- even the lazy way -- will be the Open Source way. In order to really succeed, You've not been hanging with enough lazy people. Laziness is taking the path of least resistance; in IT that means using the brand most people know about regardless if it is the best tool for the job. You think people went to NT Server because it was better than Netware? It wasn't. People chose MS SQL Server because it was better than its competitors, open or closed source? It wasn't (and in so many ways still isn't). Marketing. Branding. Lots of ferrying decision makers to shiny demo labs and glossy events and making them feel good about the product, regardless of the fact that driving sports cars around race tracks has nothing to do with the promo'd products effectiveness (although such events should provide some pointers about value for money...). Laziness is going with the solution most people have heard of; in particular not having to look at lots of options and not having to come up with a real defence in the event of issues arising from the choices made. No one ever got fired for buying IBM was a line in the 80s regarding computing solution purchases; in GIS right now I guess you all know the products in the typical organisational list - how many open source ones are on it? Is it because the open source products can't do the job? For sure OSGeo and most open source products will never have big marketing budgets, so no sports cars, F1 practice days, Grand Prix tickets, WSB tickets (to name a few I've recently been offered as a decision-maker); but there are other kinds of marketing and that we can, should and do engage in. And the next time I meet a typical peer at an IT management conference and he has gvSIG on his desktop GIS shortlist and his SDI components are all open source or at least open standards compliant, I'll know the marketing is paying off! NB In my case laziness is probably avoiding learning to be a developer (and GIS person) while still wanting to be of use... -- Files attached to this email may be in ISO 26300 format (OASIS Open Document Format). If you have difficulty opening them, please visit http://iso26300.info for more information. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo
That kind of high-touch approach will have to be left to those (like, hopefully OpenGeo) who are building and monetizing products around the core software. The non-profit core organization can't do that unless it's willing to become much more vendor-like, which is something OSGeo has repeatedly shied away from (perhaps because OSGeo has many members who work for companies, that, like OpenGeo, are monetizing open source). As Alaric the Visigoth once said Rome wasn't sacked in a day. P. On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 9:24 AM, Chris Puttick chris.putt...@thehumanjourney.net wrote: Marketing. Branding. Lots of ferrying decision makers to shiny demo labs and glossy events and making them feel good about the product, regardless of the fact that driving sports cars around race tracks has nothing to do with the promo'd products effectiveness (although such events should provide some pointers about value for money...). ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo
Frank Warmerdam wrote: I would instead express this as OSGeo needs end users (including their managers), and those interested in it's marketting (which I would prefer to call promotion) to get more actively involved and contribute. Education activities are, of course, one form of promotion. There is some discussion in the Education group to try and develop a core curriculum around OS Geospatial technologies. For example, what knowledge/skills are needed for future OS Geo developers? What are needed for end users of OS Geo technologies? I don't think we should be competing with general GIS or GIScience curriculum, but rather focus specifically on OS Geo related knowledge and skills. I can imagine the software developers are working flat-out. But is it possible that over the next 6-12 months there can be an effort between the OSGeo edu group, along with the software groups and the local groups together to try and establish some kind of specification of what we think a core curriculum or core competencies in OS Geo might be and then work toward developing open educational content that teaches these concepts? If this resonates with others email me and I'll build an interest list. -- Charlie Schweik attachment: cschweik.vcf___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo
Local OSGeo chapters are great, but how about existing non-OSGeo groups? Does OSGeo have a strategy to build communication with them? You mean groups like local ESRI chapters, ASPRS chapters, GIS professionals, etc? I'd encourage the local chapters to find such non-OSGeo local groups and offer to crash^H^H^H^H^Hattend one of their meetings and do a presentation on what OSGeo has to offer. -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo
On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 04:24:37PM +, Chris Puttick wrote: - Christopher Schmidt crschm...@crschmidt.net wrote: Speak to whom? Decision makers with no real knowledge of the thing they are signing off on, being advised by lazy people who have some understanding but want to ensure they cover their back and don't have to try too hard rather than implement the best solution for the least money? No, to the lazy people. If your code is good enough, then the right way -- even the lazy way -- will be the Open Source way. In order to really succeed, You've not been hanging with enough lazy people. Laziness is taking the path of least resistance; in IT that means using the brand most people know about regardless if it is the best tool for the job. Sometimes brand is all that matters. In that case, I don't think that a successful marketer changes the equation. Sometimes more than the brand matters; especially when the person who is going to be implementing any potential solution has a say in the way the solution is developed. I maintain that *Those* cases are the ones to target first: When OSGeo software projects are succeeding at those regularly (not a done deal yet, in my mind) then we (as a community) can turn to outreach as a next step. You think people went to NT Server because it was better than Netware? It wasn't. People chose MS SQL Server because it was better than its competitors, open or closed source? It wasn't (and in so many ways still isn't). And the reasons for those are not ones that would be swayed by any marketing argument that an OSGeo representative could make. If the fact that our software is better, cheaper, and more fully featured, and people still want to use ESRI -- as is often the case -- then why fight them? What is the point in spending your effort to force your way into a community that is fighting against you, rather than -- for example -- expanding into a developing market that doesn't have the same preconceptions? The latter will have way more chance of improving the projects through more contributions, etc. in the end, in my opinion. Marketing. Branding. Lots of ferrying decision makers to shiny demo labs and glossy events and making them feel good about the product, regardless of the fact that driving sports cars around race tracks has nothing to do with the promo'd products effectiveness (although such events should provide some pointers about value for money...). Again, if people are making decisions based on irrational things, then OSGeo software isn't going to convince them. I do not think that OSGeo should attempt to compete with the 'big boys' in terms of dollars and effort spent on advertising. That would be a mistake, because those dollars could almost universally be better spent -- by the organization -- in supporting a developer attending a conference or sprint, in getting better project hosting together, or other things like that. Sure, if money, time, and energy were infinite, marketing in the same way that the Big.Co.s do would make sense, but they're not. With that in mind, I think that OSGeo should not be about trying to push out other software: We should document what projects are, what they do, how they do it *better* -- and if people don't want better, that's all there is to it. (Note that this does not apply to companies using OSGeo software, or doing contracting, or anything else like that. They are well-suited for that type of 'convincing', whereas OSGeo is positioned poorly for it.) Laziness is going with the solution most people have heard of; in particular not having to look at lots of options and not having to come up with a real defence in the event of issues arising from the choices made. No one ever got fired for buying IBM was a line in the 80s regarding computing solution purchases; in GIS right now I guess you all know the products in the typical organisational list - how many open source ones are on it? Actually, to be honest, I don't. I do know that the products in my organization's list are MapServer, GDAL, and OpenLayers, and have been since before my time. I'm sure that there are many companies out there that are like this. Changing companies that aren't -- rather than documenting what exists and allowing them to make the choice -- is (at least at this point, and in my opinion for the forseeable future) not worth the effort when it could be easily spent better. For sure OSGeo and most open source products will never have big marketing budgets, so no sports cars, F1 practice days, Grand Prix tickets, WSB tickets (to name a few I've recently been offered as a decision-maker); but there are other kinds of marketing and that we can, should and do engage in. And the next time I meet a typical peer at an IT management conference and he has gvSIG on his desktop GIS shortlist and his SDI components are all open source or at least open standards compliant, I'll know
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo
On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 09:36:35AM -0700, Paul Ramsey wrote: That kind of high-touch approach will have to be left to those (like, hopefully OpenGeo) who are building and monetizing products around the core software. The non-profit core organization can't do that unless it's willing to become much more vendor-like, which is something OSGeo has repeatedly shied away from (perhaps because OSGeo has many members who work for companies, that, like OpenGeo, are monetizing open source). (And Paul says in a paragraph what I say poorly in 10.) Regards, -- Christopher Schmidt Web Developer ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: [Qgis-user] GDAL Tools icons
Robert Szczepanek ha scritto: http://robert.szczepanek.pl/gis-icons-0.1/#request At the same time I have started drawing icons for your plugin. I will update them there. Hi Robert. We added your icons - thanks! A few are still missing: - proximity - near black - warp - grid - clip All the best. -- Paolo Cavallini: http://www.faunalia.it/pc ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo
Jacolin Yves yjaco...@free.fr wrote: Hello Cédric, I think more people think same as you relating this point of view :) : Le Wednesday 30 September 2009 16:28:20 Cédric Moullet, vous avez écrit : The OSGEO is very developer centric and probably need more input from management, end user, marketing etc... Thanks for the great discussion, I can relate to Yves and Cédric's comments. Cédric's comment is the primary feedback I get from end users, local chapters and developers alike. They ask for more information and material to share with others at events or meetings, etc. They don't tend to point out technical barriers to their projects success, they already know and love a project and just want to tell others about it. Of course we all have our software feature wishlists of functionality but I don't think most of us expect OSGeo to be the venue for developing them. Like Frank says, don't tell the projects what to do ;-) Not to say there aren't some powerful synergies to be gained at more technical levels through OSGeo and some projects are certainly getting used to depending on OSGeo services, but aside from requests to our systems admin group, I rarely hear end users, advocates or even developers say OSGeo needs to do anything further at a technical level (except maybe more benchmarking, live demo disks or binary package development). I'm sure there will be some more good discussion over the upcoming months as to focus and effort. I see the education side as an obvious common goal, and marketing as well, but I'm curious to hear more about some of the more 'developer centric' ideas people have in mind. I'm keen to hear further ideas along Cédric's line of thinking too. By the way, the Marketing Committee has a mailing list, all are welcome to join to share ideas and volunteer. It's been pretty quiet lately, so don't be shy and come and share your thoughts: http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing Best wishes, Tyler ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Pictures from Intergeo
and some more: http://www.flickr.com/photos/osgeohackingevent2009/sets/72157622365217951 and again thnx to Anne Ghisla. Marco Arnulf Christl (OSGeo) schrieb: Hey, Intergeo was a great success. There are a few shots available through the osgeohackingevent2009 account (thanks again to Anne Ghisla): http://www.flickr.com/photos/osgeohackingevent2009/sets/72157622486321366/ Regards, ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [California] RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Los Angeles
Ragi! Good to see you online. Are you independent now? e-me direct. (we both did time at esri. me: 11 years.) The webmapsocial meetup group Ragi links to is exactly the kind of thing I'd like to see happen in Los Angeles. Monthly talks, free open-source desktop seminars all that would be great, but I'm content with starting out at the local pub. I know Portland has a bustling community ( http://groups.google.com/group/pdx-osgis 82 members!). I found an LA openstreetmap meetup group last week, hoping to meet some new faces there. I'm all for helping to build the CA osgeo chapter, but more to the point, I'm trying to get a local community brewing. LA is a huge city, I can't be the only evangelist. Perhaps the esri kool-aid is thicker than I realize since we are in their backyard after all. David On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 3:49 PM, Ragi Y. Burhum r...@burhum.com wrote: Man, Blake, I guess I get no love even though I work the CA OSGeo booths a lot lately ha ha ha. Oh well. Anyway, I am also interested in working in a CA-based project... put me down in your list. On another note I am doing a presentation @ Google on PostGIS and OSGeo for one of the local meetup on Oct 6th if any of you bay area people are interested check it out http://www.meetup.com/webmapsocial/ David: long time no see... we should go visit Juan one of these days :) - Ragi On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 9:00 AM, california-requ...@lists.osgeo.orgwrote: Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:02:42 -0700 From: Landon Blake lbl...@ksninc.com Subject: [California] RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Los Angeles To: OSGeo Discussions discuss@lists.osgeo.org Cc: califor...@lists.osgeo.org Message-ID: 0d544207876cda428f17dd7ea448c19201580...@bailey.domain.ksninc.pvt Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii David, Sorry for the delayed response. I believe we have a few lurkers in the Southern California area, but not anyone really active that I can think of. I do remember someone from Southern California that listened into one of our meetings. (His first name was Joe?) Most of the activity in our chapter is coming out of the UC Davis Campus. Alex Mandel is taking the lead there. We've also got someone from the Sacramento area that works at the California Geological Survey, if I am not mistaken. Brian Hamlin is also quite active, and I believe he hangs his hat in the Bay Area. I'm in the Central Valley. The size of our state is a challenge to organizing OSGeo activities. We've talked about organizing smaller regional chapters in the state, but I don't think we have the support for that yet. Personally, I would like us to think about how we can draw more OSGeo enthusiasts from California together via online means. Alex has focused a lot on getting an OSGeo presence at California conferences, which is great, but I'm personally interested in seeing what we can do as a group on the software front. Our chapter is home to Silicon Valley, after all. :] I've been meaning to bring this up, but haven't had the time to put together an intelligent e-mail. I will try to make time to do so this week. Landon Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268 Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658 From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of David Bianco Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 2:57 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Los Angeles I'm looking to meet up with fellow Los Angeles based osgeo people.I put a call out in the California chapter email list but did not get a response.Perhaps you all are lurking here on the main list? I work in downtown LA.Let me know where you at! David Bianco http://groups.google.com/group/lax-osgis ___ California mailing list califor...@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/california ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
