Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo
Hey Jeff, can you please at least give the board a chance to form an opinion on this? If it ever gets to the point that a motion is on the table and you have not been persuaded, you can always vote -1. I feel you’re prohibiting the discussions from happening at the board level at all with this kind of e-mail. It’s essentially a board decision IMHO, not the decision of the president only. Thanks for listening. Best regards, Bart On 16 Sep 2014, at 16:38, Jeff McKenna jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com wrote: Hello everyone, To clarify publicly, I have no problem with LocationTech, and in fact I feel that its foundation plays an important role in our ecosystem. The issue actually boils down to OSGeo's only event, FOSS4G. We, as OSGeo, present this event each year and it is a large part of our annual revenue. It is very important to the OSGeo foundation, as it is our flagship event. It was made clear to me that LocationTech is not interested in having their own global event, and that they are in fact interested in our event, FOSS4G. So maybe to remove this stress, or fear, I would prefer to pull back on the throttle, start with an MoU between the two foundations, and then begin to share booths at events, or donate booths at each other's events. In other words, take baby steps, and build the relationship slowly, as we do with every other foundation. I apologize for not bringing this issue to the community sooner. In fact this all really came to a head in Portland, and you can see that now we must deal with this all together. I always try to represent the entire OSGeo community well, if you feel that I have made mistakes please share this here with everyone. I am here to represent you. The last few days have been very hard on me. -jeff OSGeo President On 2014-09-16 11:01 AM, Andrew Ross wrote: Dear All, Discussions started informally back in 2011. By 2012, there were more formal discussions ongoing including a face to face meeting with Michael Gerlek who was appointed by the OSGeo board to represent OSGeo. I wanted to say publicly that Michael's work was extremely professional and I was very impressed. I believe it's fair to say reaction was similar back then. Many people saw many positives in working closely together. Some asked if the two organizations could be one. Like today, there were some who were very fearful. Those that supported working closely together felt it was best not to push too hard. Discussions have continued since then over the past 3-4 years focusing on specific collaboration on a case by case basis. During that time, LocationTech has sponsored and its projects participated in 2 FOSS4Gs. It was asked by an OSGeo board member to organize FOSS4G NA 2015. It has provided discrete feedback to OSGeo projects regarding intellectual property related issues in OSGeo projects so they could be fixed. OSGeo projects were well represented on the 2013 LocationTech tour and again in 2014. I hope these things are seen as a significant positive force. I would like to draw attention to the fact that LocationTech's growth has not taken anything away from OSGeo. In fairness, building upon what Steven Feldman eloquently put, the problems OSGeo faces are problems today were faced before LocationTech existed, and since. It's fair to say there is tension to collaborate more closely since the strengths of OSGeo LocationTech complement each other despite some overlap. LocationTech the Eclipse Foundation are *offering* to help solve some of the problems we've been talking about in OSGeo for many years. It's been 4 years and the offer hasn't been withdrawn nor really pushed despite fearful attempts to portray it as otherwise. Andrew On 15/09/14 20:28, Venkatesh Raghavan wrote: On 9/16/2014 10:48 AM, Richard Greenwood wrote: I don't get it, and my question is moot at this point in time, but why do we need a new foundation? Why couldn't OSGeo have provided what LocationTech purports to provide? Was there any discussion, or awareness, in the OSGeo board prior to the formation of LocationTech? Very pertinent questions form Rich. I hope we will receive some lucid answers. Best Venka Rich On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 4:18 PM, Jeff McKenna jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com wrote: Arnulf, I definitely agree that both foundations fill a role and need to exist. The point I am trying to make is that we have the power to change OSGeo, if we feel some needs are not being met well. I used too strong of words again, I am sorry. -jeff On 2014-09-15 2:59 PM, Arnulf Christl wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Jeff, I believe that Daniel is actually right in what he says - given that I understand the point he is trying to make. There are differences between OSGeo and LocationTech and trying to talk them away will not get us anywhere. And its not bad or goo
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo
Hi Bart, On Wed, 17. Sep 2014 at 09:49:51 +0200, Bart van den Eijnden wrote: can you please at least give the board a chance to form an opinion on this? If it ever gets to the point that a motion is on the table and you have not been persuaded, you can always vote -1. Did an essential piece of information not get into the open yet, did I merely miss it or just missed to see it's importance? Is it just the FOSS4G event organisation that LocationTech apparently wants to help (more?) with or is there more? What pending board decision is causing all this (rather unsettling) irritation? Jürgen -- Jürgen E. Fischer norBIT GmbH Tel. +49-4931-918175-31 Dipl.-Inf. (FH) Rheinstraße 13 Fax. +49-4931-918175-50 Software Engineer D-26506 Norden http://www.norbit.de QGIS release manager (PSC) GermanyIRC: jef on FreeNode signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo
Hi Jurgen, some of the discussions started on the conference e-mail list a while back (http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/) but only recently this discussion moved to the discuss list. That might explain some of the confusion. I don’t think there is any information which is not out in the open as yet. Andrew is best to comment on your other question, but I personally was mostly interested to see how conference organising could benefit from LocationTech’s offer to help. No board decision has happened as yet. Normally after discussion settles in the community, the board might vote on specific motions that are brought to the table, but this step of the process has not yet been reached. Hope this clarifies a bit, and sorry for the unsettling irritation all this has caused. Best regards, Bart On 17 Sep 2014, at 10:21, Jürgen E. Fischer j...@norbit.de wrote: Hi Bart, On Wed, 17. Sep 2014 at 09:49:51 +0200, Bart van den Eijnden wrote: can you please at least give the board a chance to form an opinion on this? If it ever gets to the point that a motion is on the table and you have not been persuaded, you can always vote -1. Did an essential piece of information not get into the open yet, did I merely miss it or just missed to see it's importance? Is it just the FOSS4G event organisation that LocationTech apparently wants to help (more?) with or is there more? What pending board decision is causing all this (rather unsettling) irritation? Jürgen -- Jürgen E. Fischer norBIT GmbH Tel. +49-4931-918175-31 Dipl.-Inf. (FH) Rheinstraße 13 Fax. +49-4931-918175-50 Software Engineer D-26506 Norden http://www.norbit.de QGIS release manager (PSC) GermanyIRC: jef on FreeNode ___ 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
[OSGeo-Discuss] ICA-OSGeo-ISPRS Award for Open Geospatial Science
Dear All, The Big 3 of the Geospatial World (the International Cartographic Association , Open Source Geospatial Foundation and International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing) have joined forces in our common aim to make geospatial education and opportunities available for all. From 2015, we have decided to award ICA-OSGeo-ISPRS Award for Open Geospatial Science at key conferences to students doing excellent research in this area. We have also set up a committee for this. * Prof. Georg Gartner (President, ICA) * Mr. Jeff McKenna (President, OSGeo) * Prof. Chen Jun (President, ISPRS) * Prof. Charlie Schweik (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA) * Prof. Maria Antonia Brovelli (Politecnico di Milano, Italy) * Dr. Xinyue Ye (Kent State University,USA) * Dr. Luciene Delazari (Federal University of Paraná, Brazil) * Dr. Tuong-Thuy Vu (UNMC, Malaysia) * Prof. Venkatesh Raghavan (Osaka City University, Japan) * Prof. Ivana Ivánová (FCT/UNESP, Brazil) * Mr. Jeroen Ticheler (GeoCat) * Dr. Serena Coetzee (University of Pretoria, South Africa) * Prof. Helena Mitasova (North Carolina State University, USA ) * Dr. Suchith Anand (University of Nottingham, UK) Professor Maria Brovelli is organising FOSS4G-Europe 2015 in Como (July 2015) and will be running the third edition of the very successful NASA World Wind Europa Challenge. The aim of this challenge is to inspire ideas for building great applications that serves the INSPIRE Directive and uses NASA's open source virtual globe technology World Wind. Details at http://eurochallenge.como.polimi.it/ So the inaugural ICA-OSGeo-ISPRS Award for Open Geospatial Science will be for the best student winning team at this competition. We will now plan ideas for FOSS4G 2015 (South Korea) and ICC 2015 (Brazil) and also ISPRS conferences. We thank GeoCat for their support for the ICA-OSGeo-ISPRS Award initiative and welcome more sponsors to join us, so we can extend this. We also request the wider community for new ideas to extend this. Best wishes, Suchith This message and any attachment are intended solely for the addressee and may contain confidential information. If you have received this message in error, please send it back to me, and immediately delete it. Please do not use, copy or disclose the information contained in this message or in any attachment. Any views or opinions expressed by the author of this email do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Nottingham. This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an attachment may still contain software viruses which could damage your computer system, you are advised to perform your own checks. Email communications with the University of Nottingham may be monitored as permitted by UK legislation. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo
Dear Bart, Jürgen, All Here's a few thoughts that are probably a good place to start. We started to get into them at Saturday's board meeting. Feedback here is very welcome. 1) The FOSS4G North America 2015 https://2015.foss4g-na.org/ site mentions the event is a collaborative event by OSGeo LocationTech. Is this acceptable? Yes/No For what it's worth, our committees felt the above was totally fine. Just in case not everyone was aware, the Eclipse Foundation's (aka LocationTech's) role in the event is to finance/underwrite, organize logistics like catering/Audio Visual/etc, develop the web sites, handle registration, handle all the on-site details during the event, and business development/ working with sponsors throughout. Our committees (Organizing Program) are made up of people from the FOSS4G community which transcends OSGeo, LocationTech, beyond. They decide the program content at arm's length and have heavy influence over how the conference looks/feels and any special programs we're doing such as diversity, outreach, and social events/aspects of the conference. 2) For future global events where the Eclipse Foundation (aka. LocationTech) provides organizing logistics as described in #1, would the same representation on the website as #1 be acceptable? Yes/No Kind regards, Andrew On 17/09/14 02:29, Bart van den Eijnden wrote: Hi Jurgen, some of the discussions started on the conference e-mail list a while back (http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/) but only recently this discussion moved to the discuss list. That might explain some of the confusion. I don’t think there is any information which is not out in the open as yet. Andrew is best to comment on your other question, but I personally was mostly interested to see how conference organising could benefit from LocationTech’s offer to help. No board decision has happened as yet. Normally after discussion settles in the community, the board might vote on specific motions that are brought to the table, but this step of the process has not yet been reached. Hope this clarifies a bit, and sorry for the unsettling irritation all this has caused. Best regards, Bart On 17 Sep 2014, at 10:21, Jürgen E. Fischer j...@norbit.de wrote: Hi Bart, On Wed, 17. Sep 2014 at 09:49:51 +0200, Bart van den Eijnden wrote: can you please at least give the board a chance to form an opinion on this? If it ever gets to the point that a motion is on the table and you have not been persuaded, you can always vote -1. Did an essential piece of information not get into the open yet, did I merely miss it or just missed to see it's importance? Is it just the FOSS4G event organisation that LocationTech apparently wants to help (more?) with or is there more? What pending board decision is causing all this (rather unsettling) irritation? Jürgen -- Jürgen E. Fischer norBIT GmbH Tel. +49-4931-918175-31 Dipl.-Inf. (FH) Rheinstraße 13 Fax. +49-4931-918175-50 Software Engineer D-26506 Norden http://www.norbit.de QGIS release manager (PSC) GermanyIRC: jef on FreeNode ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo
Jeff, Andrew, Bart, Jürgen, All, My 2 cents: - Give this discussion a fresh restart under a new threadname, since hacking OSGeo is a bit biased ;-) - Especially to Jeff: try to make distinction between your personal opinion and your role as OSGeo president - In the Netherlands we have some discussion on the topic of collaboration with other (both general and commercial-oriented) organisations as well. Despite different feelings on this (both within the Dutch board, as well as in the comunity) we still manage to turn this into a frank and constructive discussion. I bet you all can do this on the topic as well! greeting from the lowlands, Gert-Jan Chairman of the dutch local chapter OSGeo.nl Van: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] Namens Andrew Ross Verzonden: woensdag 17 september 2014 13:46 Aan: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Onderwerp: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo Dear Bart, Jürgen, All Here's a few thoughts that are probably a good place to start. We started to get into them at Saturday's board meeting. Feedback here is very welcome. 1) The FOSS4G North America 2015 https://2015.foss4g-na.org/ site mentions the event is a collaborative event by OSGeo LocationTech. Is this acceptable? Yes/No For what it's worth, our committees felt the above was totally fine. Just in case not everyone was aware, the Eclipse Foundation's (aka LocationTech's) role in the event is to finance/underwrite, organize logistics like catering/Audio Visual/etc, develop the web sites, handle registration, handle all the on-site details during the event, and business development/ working with sponsors throughout. Our committees (Organizing Program) are made up of people from the FOSS4G community which transcends OSGeo, LocationTech, beyond. They decide the program content at arm's length and have heavy influence over how the conference looks/feels and any special programs we're doing such as diversity, outreach, and social events/aspects of the conference. 2) For future global events where the Eclipse Foundation (aka. LocationTech) provides organizing logistics as described in #1, would the same representation on the website as #1 be acceptable? Yes/No Kind regards, Andrew On 17/09/14 02:29, Bart van den Eijnden wrote: Hi Jurgen, some of the discussions started on the conference e-mail list a while back (http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/) but only recently this discussion moved to the discuss list. That might explain some of the confusion. I dont think there is any information which is not out in the open as yet. Andrew is best to comment on your other question, but I personally was mostly interested to see how conference organising could benefit from LocationTechs offer to help. No board decision has happened as yet. Normally after discussion settles in the community, the board might vote on specific motions that are brought to the table, but this step of the process has not yet been reached. Hope this clarifies a bit, and sorry for the unsettling irritation all this has caused. Best regards, Bart On 17 Sep 2014, at 10:21, Jürgen E. Fischer mailto:j...@norbit.de j...@norbit.de wrote: Hi Bart, On Wed, 17. Sep 2014 at 09:49:51 +0200, Bart van den Eijnden wrote: can you please at least give the board a chance to form an opinion on this? If it ever gets to the point that a motion is on the table and you have not been persuaded, you can always vote -1. Did an essential piece of information not get into the open yet, did I merely miss it or just missed to see it's importance? Is it just the FOSS4G event organisation that LocationTech apparently wants to help (more?) with or is there more? What pending board decision is causing all this (rather unsettling) irritation? Jürgen -- Jürgen E. Fischer norBIT GmbH Tel. +49-4931-918175-31 Dipl.-Inf. (FH) Rheinstraße 13 Fax. +49-4931-918175-50 Software Engineer D-26506 Norden http://www.norbit.de QGIS release manager (PSC) GermanyIRC: jef on FreeNode ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G as revenue stream for OSGeo
To act on the suggestion of Gert-Jan, I want to start a new thread about the discussion about collaboration of FOSS4G. I made the topic clear: FOSS4G as revenue stream for OSGeo First I want to mention that the past FOSS4G event in Portland was well organized. I was not personally there, but this is what I picked up here and there, so I think this worth-full to mention. Until now, the best bid was able to organise the 'global' FOSS4G conference, and this mechanism is in place since I think 2006 or 2007. Recently local events are organized in almost every continent of the world, using the same name as umbrella. To organise such an event there are income and costs. OSGeo was always prepared to take the financial risk, as an organisation. The goal is to have a profitable event, and until now a part of the profit is returned to OSGeo.org and a part to the organising committee. (correct me If I'm wrong, because I don't know the details). What I know is that this revenue stream is very important to support the working costs of the OSGeo organisation, and that discussions about how to maintain this and how to cope with this are going on. I think (and this is how the European LOC is evolving to) a bid process where the best wins is the way to go in the future. This bid can then be implemented. I don't think for the event in March 2015 there should be any problem, and I think the board should decide if there is a problem for 2016, but from 2017 on, the process should be clear for everybody how to organize a (local) FOSS4G conference. What are the aspects it makes it a foss4g conference, and how sponsors and supporting organisations can represent themselves. My 2c On 17-09-14 14:18, Gert-Jan van der Weijden wrote: Jeff, Andrew, Bart, Jürgen, All, My 2 cents: - Give this discussion a fresh restart under a new threadname, since hacking OSGeo is a bit biased ;-) - Especially to Jeff: try to make distinction between your personal opinion and your role as OSGeo president - In the Netherlands we have some discussion on the topic of collaboration with other (both general and commercial-oriented) organisations as well. Despite different feelings on this (both within the Dutch board, as well as in the comunity) we still manage to turn this into a frank and constructive discussion. I bet you all can do this on the topic as well! greeting from the lowlands, Gert-Jan Chairman of the dutch local chapter OSGeo.nl *Van:*discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] *Namens *Andrew Ross *Verzonden:* woensdag 17 september 2014 13:46 *Aan:* discuss@lists.osgeo.org *Onderwerp:* Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo Dear Bart, Jürgen, All Here's a few thoughts that are probably a good place to start. We started to get into them at Saturday's board meeting. Feedback here is very welcome. 1) The FOSS4G North America 2015 https://2015.foss4g-na.org/ site mentions the event is a collaborative event by OSGeo LocationTech. Is this acceptable? Yes/No For what it's worth, our committees felt the above was totally fine. Just in case not everyone was aware, the Eclipse Foundation's (aka LocationTech's) role in the event is to finance/underwrite, organize logistics like catering/Audio Visual/etc, develop the web sites, handle registration, handle all the on-site details during the event, and business development/ working with sponsors throughout. Our committees (Organizing Program) are made up of people from the FOSS4G community which transcends OSGeo, LocationTech, beyond. They decide the program content at arm's length and have heavy influence over how the conference looks/feels and any special programs we're doing such as diversity, outreach, and social events/aspects of the conference. 2) For future global events where the Eclipse Foundation (aka. LocationTech) provides organizing logistics as described in #1, would the same representation on the website as #1 be acceptable? Yes/No Kind regards, Andrew On 17/09/14 02:29, Bart van den Eijnden wrote: Hi Jurgen, some of the discussions started on the conference e-mail list a while back (http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/) but only recently this discussion moved to the discuss list. That might explain some of the confusion. I don’t think there is any information which is not out in the open as yet. Andrew is best to comment on your other question, but I personally was mostly interested to see how conference organising could benefit from LocationTech’s offer to help. No board decision has happened as yet. Normally after discussion settles in the community, the board might vote on specific motions that are brought to the table, but this step of the process has not yet been reached. Hope this clarifies a bit, and sorry for the unsettling
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo
Guys, several points: as Bart pointed out, the discussion still continues. I personally am not sure, whether this decision should go to board itself, whether conference committee should be involved in the decision as well. I welcome Andrew's motions, since that is something, we can vote about (more lower): 2014-09-17 13:45 GMT+02:00 Andrew Ross andrew.r...@eclipse.org: Dear Bart, Jürgen, All Here's a few thoughts that are probably a good place to start. We started to get into them at Saturday's board meeting. Feedback here is very welcome. 1) The FOSS4G North America 2015 site mentions the event is a collaborative event by OSGeo LocationTech. Is this acceptable? Yes/No On our Saturday session, we actually agreed on the point 1, related to FOSS4G-NA. It was not written in the minutes, because I've forgotten to write it there (mea culpa - sorry), it was partly due to late afternoon, long talk, forget to take any minutes. Another question is, whether Board has any right to vote on that. As long as the conference is about free and open source software for geospatial, you can do it (but could board prohibit that anyway?). We are thankful, OSGeo has already logo on conference page (you did already significantly more, that other LOCs). Is this related to OSGeo's conference committee? Or NA-Conference-Committee? I agree, that formal agreement from the board side would highly make sense. If it is not too late, we can vote about this on our next meeting (should be latests within month from now). For what it's worth, our committees felt the above was totally fine. Just in case not everyone was aware, the Eclipse Foundation's (aka LocationTech's) role in the event is to finance/underwrite, organize logistics like catering/Audio Visual/etc, develop the web sites, handle registration, handle all the on-site details during the event, and business development/ working with sponsors throughout. I was not following the discussion about FOSS4G-NA organisation, therefore I welcome this summary and I personally am OK with that. Our committees (Organizing Program) are made up of people from the FOSS4G community which transcends OSGeo, LocationTech, beyond. They decide the program content at arm's length and have heavy influence over how the conference looks/feels and any special programs we're doing such as diversity, outreach, and social events/aspects of the conference. No doubt on that. I personally welcome, that communities are getting closer together, rather than splitting. One event for all is IMHO better. 2) For future global events where the Eclipse Foundation (aka. LocationTech) provides organizing logistics as described in #1, would the same representation on the website as #1 be acceptable? Yes/No Again, we addressed this issue in our face2face discussion, but (IIRC) did not come to clear conclusion. Two issues I see there: 1 - since there is no firm organisation committee, you would have to talk to LOC directly (at least for 2015), whether they welcome your help or whether they are on their own (we probably can not force them, since they went for the bit independently on OSGeo). 2 - FOSS4 (global) was always promoted as the OSGeo event. It is one of our most visible events, with highest impact. Not to forget the revenue, which is very important to OSGeo. Therefore we (I on this place, just trying to point some people concerns) would like to see OSGeo is promoted on FOSS4G and people should understand, that OSGeo is *the* organisation, on which behalf the conference is taking place. We provide LOC with seeding money, we give them permission (aka we ask them politely) to organise FOSS4G on our behalf. Of course, if LocationTech is taking significant responsibility for the conference, their appearance on the event shall be significant as well. On Saturday, we discussed about possibility, to form it like Hosted by OSGeo, organised by LocationTech or similar (please, do not take mi literally, it was long day) - AFAIK with no clear conclusion. Right now, OSGeo is providing seed money, selecting the venue, little bit of infrastructure (mailing list, ..). The rest is on LOC (if I'm not completely wrong). OSGeo is expecting certain revenue. As far as I understand it, LocationTech is accepting our selection process, they would like to help with the tasks, we are not able to address and LOC must deal with (catering, audio/video, web sites, registration, sponsors) - shall LocationTech talk to LOC on first place? I can imagine, some might be really glad with some help. How to organise common agreement on daily basis? Should LocationTech people join conference-committee (some might be already in)? Platform for talks between people, who are doing, is IMHO missing (seems, for FOSS4G-Europe, we are going to form one). I just have no idea, how to get things set-up within current conference-global approach. Sorry, this should go to conference-dev mlist, just continuing the thread.
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo
All, How would the separation of projects occur between those in OSGeo already vs those wanting to be LocationTech certified as well. I would imagine that some would not feel like they need to be certified by both. What happens in this case? Also, what are the longer term differences between LocationTech and OSGeo with regard to keeping code legally free of proprietary code, what's the followup on the Location tech side? I'm more in tune with OSGeo processes BTW. Bobb From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Jachym Cepicky Sent: Monday, September 15, 2014 4:59 AM To: Jody Garnett Cc: OSGeo Discussions; Daniel Morissette Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo What about speeding OSGeo incubation in a way, that projects, who made it through locationtech, would have to work only at the differences between both incubations, afaik the community aspect and maybe something else, in order to make it to OSGeo project? It would be more easy for them to make it through OSGeo incubation, things would be speeding up a bit I'm I completely wrong? Jachym Send from cellphone -- Jachym Cepicky e-mail: jachym.cepicky gmail com URL: http://les-ejk.cz GPG: http://les-ejk.cz/pgp/JachymCepicky.pgp Give your code freedom with PyWPS -http://pywps.wald.intevation.org On Sep 15, 2014 7:55 AM, Jody Garnett jody.garn...@gmail.commailto:jody.garn...@gmail.com wrote: Good questions/discussion: Going to chime in as I enjoy both working with OSGeo incubation and LocationTech. I am a couple timezones west of Daniel but sleep is on the horizon. TLDR: I am not 100% positive of either organisation, which is why I am trying to make them better. -- Jody Garnett On Sun, Sep 14, 2014 at 4:44 PM, Massimiliano Cannata massimiliano.cann...@supsi.chmailto:massimiliano.cann...@supsi.ch wrote: As you said the final goal is the same: open source Geospatial software affirmation. And this is the best thing I can wish to all of us. Agreed, and I was very heartened by aspects of foss4g this year. Nevertheless what I just have not clear is: what location teach do differently with respect to osgeo? A lot of questions :) The two organisations share the same goals, but have different talents with respect to outreach. I am going to try and do a single Pro/Con for each organisation just so you can see how they differ. I suspect this is a better conversation over beer or coffee since I cannot tell what kind of differences you are interested in? OSGeo Incubation Pro: OSGeo incubation has the advantage of being less formal, and thus able to adapt to the needs of the projects in incubation today. This message gets lots repeatedly, which makes me a bit sad. I usually pick on my own projects, but perhaps the pycsw crew would not mind being used as an example. We have an checklist item about user / developer interaction, with an example provided of user list collaboration around releases. This example is dated and does not fit with an amazing aspect of the pycsw story - pycsw have great downstream projects fulfilling this role (risk mitigation around release based on bug reports, testing, collaboration). OSGeo incubation has the flexibility to recognise this value ... and get on with life. Con: OSGeo incubation has a look but don't touch attitude - we like to leave projects as we found them and not disturb the way each projects is already functioning. This is great low impact approach for when we were taking on fully-fored projects like MapServer, MapGuide and PostGIS. What could possibly be the drawback? We are not in position to offer much guidance to organisations that are new to open source struggling to know where to start. Contrast: We are great at reviewing project viability to try and protect OSGeo users from adopting projects that have gone stale. LocationTech Incubation Pro: LocationTech is a working group in an already established Software Foundation. They have a long history of teaching new projects how to do OpenSource. Many of the conventions we work with in our open source projects (voting +1 to accept a new committer on a project) have been automated into a developer portal. This structure can help those new to open source feel confidence they are doing it right. Cons: The workload associated with checking License/Headers is both harder and easier then OSGeo. There are staff to do the checking, but you need to submit each thing you depend on - even down to the build tools used to compile, build diagrams or generate docs. While I can kind of respect this (protecting potential developers from needing to purchase tools) was not prepared for the workload. Contrast: Eclipse incubation does not say much about if a project is stale. does it somehow overlap with incubation or not? What are the distinctive features? There is an overlap, but differences: * A project graduating out of OSGeo ...would have to do a formal IP check to
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo
Bob, For what it's worth, and it's the same at OSGeo of course, LocationTech the Eclipse Foundation want projects to want to join. It's always optional. It is unlikely for the foreseeable future that OSGeo would invest in the specialized staff, infrastructure, and such to do the kind of rigorous IP review that LocationTech Eclipse Foundation projects receive. This isn't a shot against OSGeo, it just is. There are other services infrastructure that are similar. The good news is, so long as an OSGeo project was comfortable doing the trademark assignment (part of the process), then a project could be dual listed fairly comfortably. I don't think the benefit that OSGeo gets from projects is diminished in this case. If this is comfortable to everyone, I could see LocationTech projects do the same and list at OSGeo. Andrew On 17/09/14 08:08, Basques, Bob (CI-StPaul) wrote: All, How would the separation of projects occur between those in OSGeo already vs those wanting to be LocationTech certified as well. I would imagine that some would not feel like they need to be certified by both. What happens in this case? Also, what are the longer term differences between LocationTech and OSGeo with regard to keeping code legally free of proprietary code, what's the followup on the Location tech side? I'm more in tune with OSGeo processes BTW. Bobb *From:*discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] *On Behalf Of *Jachym Cepicky *Sent:* Monday, September 15, 2014 4:59 AM *To:* Jody Garnett *Cc:* OSGeo Discussions; Daniel Morissette *Subject:* Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo What about speeding OSGeo incubation in a way, that projects, who made it through locationtech, would have to work only at the differences between both incubations, afaik the community aspect and maybe something else, in order to make it to OSGeo project? It would be more easy for them to make it through OSGeo incubation, things would be speeding up a bit I'm I completely wrong? Jachym Send from cellphone -- Jachym Cepicky e-mail: jachym.cepicky gmail com URL: http://les-ejk.cz GPG: http://les-ejk.cz/pgp/JachymCepicky.pgp Give your code freedom with PyWPS -http://pywps.wald.intevation.org On Sep 15, 2014 7:55 AM, Jody Garnett jody.garn...@gmail.com mailto:jody.garn...@gmail.com wrote: Good questions/discussion: Going to chime in as I enjoy both working with OSGeo incubation and LocationTech. I am a couple timezones west of Daniel but sleep is on the horizon. TLDR: I am not 100% positive of either organisation, which is why I am trying to make them better. -- Jody Garnett On Sun, Sep 14, 2014 at 4:44 PM, Massimiliano Cannata massimiliano.cann...@supsi.ch mailto:massimiliano.cann...@supsi.ch wrote: As you said the final goal is the same: open source Geospatial software affirmation. And this is the best thing I can wish to all of us. Agreed, and I was very heartened by aspects of foss4g this year. Nevertheless what I just have not clear is: what location teach do differently with respect to osgeo? A lot of questions :) The two organisations share the same goals, but have different talents with respect to outreach. I am going to try and do a single Pro/Con for each organisation just so you can see how they differ. I suspect this is a better conversation over beer or coffee since I cannot tell what kind of differences you are interested in? OSGeo Incubation Pro: OSGeo incubation has the advantage of being less formal, and thus able to adapt to the needs of the projects in incubation today. This message gets lots repeatedly, which makes me a bit sad. I usually pick on my own projects, but perhaps the pycsw crew would not mind being used as an example. We have an checklist item about user / developer interaction, with an example provided of user list collaboration around releases. This example is dated and does not fit with an amazing aspect of the pycsw story - pycsw have great downstream projects fulfilling this role (risk mitigation around release based on bug reports, testing, collaboration). OSGeo incubation has the flexibility to recognise this value ... and get on with life. Con: OSGeo incubation has a look but don't touch attitude - we like to leave projects as we found them and not disturb the way each projects is already functioning. This is great low impact approach for when we were taking on fully-fored projects like MapServer, MapGuide and PostGIS. What could possibly be the drawback? We are not in position to offer much guidance to organisations that are new to open source struggling to know where to start. Contrast: We are great at reviewing project viability to try and protect OSGeo users from adopting projects that have gone stale. LocationTech Incubation Pro: LocationTech is a working group in an already established Software Foundation. They have a long history of teaching new projects how to do
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 2015 OSGeo Code Sprint in Philadelphia - let us know when
OSGeo Folks, I had announced yesterday that the code sprint would be held Mar 2 - 6, based on the previously published Doodle poll. However, some folks noted that the FOSS4G-NA conference is now scheduled for the following week (Mar 9 - 13). For some people, this might be an opportunity to make a single, longer trip to the US and reduce travel time and costs. For others, this may be a hardship to be away from family or work for an extended period. As a result, I'm going to re-open the poll for potential Code Sprint dates. If you've already voted, you may want to consider revising your response. If you haven't already voted, now is the time to get your opinion registered. I'll keep this open until Fri, Sept 26. Thanks, Robert -- Robert Cheetham Azavea | 340 N 12th St, Ste 402, Philadelphia, PA cheet...@azavea.com | T 215.701.7713 | F 215.925.2663 Web azavea.com http://www.azavea.com/ | Blog azavea.com/blogs | Twitter @ http://goog_858212415rcheetham http://twitter.com/rcheetham and @azavea http://twitter.com/azavea *Azavea is a B Corporation http://www.bcorporation.net/what-are-b-corps - we apply geospatial technology for civic and social impact* *while advancing the state-of-the-art through research. Join us http://jobs.azavea.com/.* On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 2:50 PM, Robert Cheetham cheet...@azavea.com wrote: Thank-you all for your input on the Doodle poll regarding the proposed 2015 OSGeo code sprint http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Code_Sprint_2015. Based on the input from the Doodle poll, we have decided on Mar 2 - 6. As details develop, I'll post on the ToSprint list and the wiki page http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Code_Sprint_2015. It was great talking to many of you at last week's FOSS4G in Portland. We'll be aiming to build on past successful code sprints and create an event that will support some great feature and project improvements. Best, Robert -- Robert Cheetham Azavea | 340 N 12th St, Ste 402, Philadelphia, PA cheet...@azavea.com | T 215.701.7713 | F 215.925.2663 Web azavea.com http://www.azavea.com/ | Blog azavea.com/blogs | Twitter @ http://goog_858212415rcheetham http://twitter.com/rcheetham and @azavea http://twitter.com/azavea *Azavea is a B Corporation http://www.bcorporation.net/what-are-b-corps - we apply geospatial technology for civic and social impact* *while advancing the state-of-the-art through research. Join us http://jobs.azavea.com/.* On Sat, Aug 30, 2014 at 7:40 PM, Robert Cheetham cheet...@azavea.com wrote: OSGeo Developers, I sent this out to everyone to the TOSprint list, but we haven't had a lot of responses, so I'm re-sending to Discuss. At this year's code sprint in Vienna, Azavea was asked to consider reviving our proposal to host a code sprint in Philadelphia. We've done some research on venues and have a couple of possibilities. I've revised our 2014 proposal and now have a 2015 proposal page up at *http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Code_Sprint_2015 http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Code_Sprint_2015* While Azavea could potentially host a smaller sprint (up to 40) in our office, we'd like to anticipate the kind of crowd that attended this year's code sprint in Vienna (70 - 80) I would also like to propose that we consider expanding the scope by inviting both OSGeo and the Eclipse Foundation's LocationTech http://www.locationtech.org/ projects (JTS, uDig, GeoTrellis, GeoMesa, Geogig, GeoJini, etc.). There are several developers that work on both OSGeo and LocationTech projects, and we think this would be an opportunity for people to work together. That said, this would also likely require a larger venue and there are likely other considerations before pursuing this idea. I'm interested in your feedback. I'd like to potentially book a block of hotel rooms as well as settle on some dates. If you are interested in attending the code sprint, please register your preferences with the Doodle poll at: http://doodle.com/6krhmqpimxx4pdni Thanks, Robert -- Robert Cheetham Azavea | 340 N 12th St, Ste 402, Philadelphia, PA cheet...@azavea.com | T 215.701.7713 | F 215.925.2663 Web azavea.com http://www.azavea.com/ | Blog azavea.com/blogs | Twitter @ http://goog_858212415rcheetham http://twitter.com/rcheetham and @azavea http://twitter.com/azavea *Azavea is a B Corporation http://www.bcorporation.net/what-are-b-corps - we apply geospatial technology to create better communities * *while advancing the state-of-the-art through research. Join us in creating a better world.* ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo
All, So, I've been following this (these) threads for a while now. I like Darrell's thoughts on moving forward with his FOSS4G Organizing positing, and this seems like an obvious direction to follow up on. An additional thought here, does it make any sense to think of LocationTech as a Marketing agent for OSGeo product? The more stringent legal review etc. all seem to point towards the notion of making the products more viable in the commercial space. This could lead to mandating other promotional aspects like better documentation, etc. OSGeo could be labelled what it's always been, the R D side of GeoSpatial software design, while LocationTech handles more of the practical application side of the equation. I could see this becoming a push / pull type of collaboration where both sides can glean from the other what makes a project thrive, etc. I'm not so sure about the non-desire by OSGeo to invest in specialized staff or infrastructure. But, there does seem to be a divide between what OSGeo want/needs from it's projects vs LocationTech. bobb From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Ross Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2014 9:33 AM To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo Bob, For what it's worth, and it's the same at OSGeo of course, LocationTech the Eclipse Foundation want projects to want to join. It's always optional. It is unlikely for the foreseeable future that OSGeo would invest in the specialized staff, infrastructure, and such to do the kind of rigorous IP review that LocationTech Eclipse Foundation projects receive. This isn't a shot against OSGeo, it just is. There are other services infrastructure that are similar. The good news is, so long as an OSGeo project was comfortable doing the trademark assignment (part of the process), then a project could be dual listed fairly comfortably. I don't think the benefit that OSGeo gets from projects is diminished in this case. If this is comfortable to everyone, I could see LocationTech projects do the same and list at OSGeo. Andrew On 17/09/14 08:08, Basques, Bob (CI-StPaul) wrote: All, How would the separation of projects occur between those in OSGeo already vs those wanting to be LocationTech certified as well. I would imagine that some would not feel like they need to be certified by both. What happens in this case? Also, what are the longer term differences between LocationTech and OSGeo with regard to keeping code legally free of proprietary code, what's the followup on the Location tech side? I'm more in tune with OSGeo processes BTW. Bobb From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.orgmailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Jachym Cepicky Sent: Monday, September 15, 2014 4:59 AM To: Jody Garnett Cc: OSGeo Discussions; Daniel Morissette Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo What about speeding OSGeo incubation in a way, that projects, who made it through locationtech, would have to work only at the differences between both incubations, afaik the community aspect and maybe something else, in order to make it to OSGeo project? It would be more easy for them to make it through OSGeo incubation, things would be speeding up a bit I'm I completely wrong? Jachym Send from cellphone -- Jachym Cepicky e-mail: jachym.cepicky gmail com URL: http://les-ejk.cz GPG: http://les-ejk.cz/pgp/JachymCepicky.pgp Give your code freedom with PyWPS -http://pywps.wald.intevation.org On Sep 15, 2014 7:55 AM, Jody Garnett jody.garn...@gmail.commailto:jody.garn...@gmail.com wrote: Good questions/discussion: Going to chime in as I enjoy both working with OSGeo incubation and LocationTech. I am a couple timezones west of Daniel but sleep is on the horizon. TLDR: I am not 100% positive of either organisation, which is why I am trying to make them better. -- Jody Garnett On Sun, Sep 14, 2014 at 4:44 PM, Massimiliano Cannata massimiliano.cann...@supsi.chmailto:massimiliano.cann...@supsi.ch wrote: As you said the final goal is the same: open source Geospatial software affirmation. And this is the best thing I can wish to all of us. Agreed, and I was very heartened by aspects of foss4g this year. Nevertheless what I just have not clear is: what location teach do differently with respect to osgeo? A lot of questions :) The two organisations share the same goals, but have different talents with respect to outreach. I am going to try and do a single Pro/Con for each organisation just so you can see how they differ. I suspect this is a better conversation over beer or coffee since I cannot tell what kind of differences you are interested in? OSGeo Incubation Pro: OSGeo incubation has the advantage of being less formal, and thus able to adapt to the needs of the projects in incubation today. This message gets lots repeatedly, which makes me a bit sad. I usually pick
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 2015 OSGeo Code Sprint in Philadelphia - let us know when
And in case you missed it earlier in the thread, the Doodle poll is at http://doodle.com/6krhmqpimxx4pdni Robert On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 11:13 AM, Robert Cheetham cheet...@azavea.com wrote: OSGeo Folks, I had announced yesterday that the code sprint would be held Mar 2 - 6, based on the previously published Doodle poll. However, some folks noted that the FOSS4G-NA conference is now scheduled for the following week (Mar 9 - 13). For some people, this might be an opportunity to make a single, longer trip to the US and reduce travel time and costs. For others, this may be a hardship to be away from family or work for an extended period. As a result, I'm going to re-open the poll for potential Code Sprint dates. If you've already voted, you may want to consider revising your response. If you haven't already voted, now is the time to get your opinion registered. I'll keep this open until Fri, Sept 26. Thanks, Robert -- Robert Cheetham Azavea | 340 N 12th St, Ste 402, Philadelphia, PA cheet...@azavea.com | T 215.701.7713 | F 215.925.2663 Web azavea.com http://www.azavea.com/ | Blog azavea.com/blogs | Twitter @ http://goog_858212415rcheetham http://twitter.com/rcheetham and @azavea http://twitter.com/azavea *Azavea is a B Corporation http://www.bcorporation.net/what-are-b-corps - we apply geospatial technology for civic and social impact* *while advancing the state-of-the-art through research. Join us http://jobs.azavea.com/.* On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 2:50 PM, Robert Cheetham cheet...@azavea.com wrote: Thank-you all for your input on the Doodle poll regarding the proposed 2015 OSGeo code sprint http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Code_Sprint_2015. Based on the input from the Doodle poll, we have decided on Mar 2 - 6. As details develop, I'll post on the ToSprint list and the wiki page http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Code_Sprint_2015. It was great talking to many of you at last week's FOSS4G in Portland. We'll be aiming to build on past successful code sprints and create an event that will support some great feature and project improvements. Best, Robert -- Robert Cheetham Azavea | 340 N 12th St, Ste 402, Philadelphia, PA cheet...@azavea.com | T 215.701.7713 | F 215.925.2663 Web azavea.com http://www.azavea.com/ | Blog azavea.com/blogs | Twitter @ http://goog_858212415rcheetham http://twitter.com/rcheetham and @azavea http://twitter.com/azavea *Azavea is a B Corporation http://www.bcorporation.net/what-are-b-corps - we apply geospatial technology for civic and social impact* *while advancing the state-of-the-art through research. Join us http://jobs.azavea.com/.* On Sat, Aug 30, 2014 at 7:40 PM, Robert Cheetham cheet...@azavea.com wrote: OSGeo Developers, I sent this out to everyone to the TOSprint list, but we haven't had a lot of responses, so I'm re-sending to Discuss. At this year's code sprint in Vienna, Azavea was asked to consider reviving our proposal to host a code sprint in Philadelphia. We've done some research on venues and have a couple of possibilities. I've revised our 2014 proposal and now have a 2015 proposal page up at *http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Code_Sprint_2015 http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Code_Sprint_2015* While Azavea could potentially host a smaller sprint (up to 40) in our office, we'd like to anticipate the kind of crowd that attended this year's code sprint in Vienna (70 - 80) I would also like to propose that we consider expanding the scope by inviting both OSGeo and the Eclipse Foundation's LocationTech http://www.locationtech.org/ projects (JTS, uDig, GeoTrellis, GeoMesa, Geogig, GeoJini, etc.). There are several developers that work on both OSGeo and LocationTech projects, and we think this would be an opportunity for people to work together. That said, this would also likely require a larger venue and there are likely other considerations before pursuing this idea. I'm interested in your feedback. I'd like to potentially book a block of hotel rooms as well as settle on some dates. If you are interested in attending the code sprint, please register your preferences with the Doodle poll at: http://doodle.com/6krhmqpimxx4pdni Thanks, Robert -- Robert Cheetham Azavea | 340 N 12th St, Ste 402, Philadelphia, PA cheet...@azavea.com | T 215.701.7713 | F 215.925.2663 Web azavea.com http://www.azavea.com/ | Blog azavea.com/blogs | Twitter @ http://goog_858212415rcheetham http://twitter.com/rcheetham and @azavea http://twitter.com/azavea *Azavea is a B Corporation http://www.bcorporation.net/what-are-b-corps - we apply geospatial technology to create better communities * *while advancing the state-of-the-art through research. Join us in creating a better world.* ___ Discuss mailing list
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo
Hi Bart, Sort of off topic, the timing was good for me to get into my truck and drive 5 hours by myself this morning at 5am, to a meeting in cute small island province, Prince Edward Island (http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/46.25739/-63.13748). In other words, I had lots of time to think. I am happy to grab a wifi spot to respond now. I think my actions recently offended several leaders in our geo community, including Andrew, Daniel, Arnulf, yourself Bart, and likely others. I did not mean this to happen. I am sorry and embarrassed of my actions and words. I can see Bart and Daniel's points well now. My comments or feelings were not helping OSGeo grow. I love seeing the ideas and questions coming now from community members such as BobB. And I think these questions and discussions will help the Board see the best way forward. I am also pondering of suggesting to the Board, later when we get to that point, of possibly querying the Charter Members, in a referendum of sorts. Not sure, I'm just speaking openly here. I care deeply about the community, of OSGeo and FOSS4G. Sometimes my passion gets in the way. I am getting better, but I need to improve. I will improve. I also would like Bart to come back onto the Board, and act as the LocationTech liason, and help us work together and make Open Source geospatial grow and thrive. If some feel that I need to take more drastic steps, than just my heartfelt apology, please say so here. But I am dedicated to help OSGeo and FOSS4G, and to work with all communities in our ecosystem. Yours, -jeff On 2014-09-17 4:49 AM, Bart van den Eijnden wrote: Hey Jeff, can you please at least give the board a chance to form an opinion on this? If it ever gets to the point that a motion is on the table and you have not been persuaded, you can always vote -1. I feel you’re prohibiting the discussions from happening at the board level at all with this kind of e-mail. It’s essentially a board decision IMHO, not the decision of the president only. Thanks for listening. Best regards, Bart On 16 Sep 2014, at 16:38, Jeff McKenna jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com wrote: Hello everyone, To clarify publicly, I have no problem with LocationTech, and in fact I feel that its foundation plays an important role in our ecosystem. The issue actually boils down to OSGeo's only event, FOSS4G. We, as OSGeo, present this event each year and it is a large part of our annual revenue. It is very important to the OSGeo foundation, as it is our flagship event. It was made clear to me that LocationTech is not interested in having their own global event, and that they are in fact interested in our event, FOSS4G. So maybe to remove this stress, or fear, I would prefer to pull back on the throttle, start with an MoU between the two foundations, and then begin to share booths at events, or donate booths at each other's events. In other words, take baby steps, and build the relationship slowly, as we do with every other foundation. I apologize for not bringing this issue to the community sooner. In fact this all really came to a head in Portland, and you can see that now we must deal with this all together. I always try to represent the entire OSGeo community well, if you feel that I have made mistakes please share this here with everyone. I am here to represent you. The last few days have been very hard on me. -jeff OSGeo President On 2014-09-16 11:01 AM, Andrew Ross wrote: Dear All, Discussions started informally back in 2011. By 2012, there were more formal discussions ongoing including a face to face meeting with Michael Gerlek who was appointed by the OSGeo board to represent OSGeo. I wanted to say publicly that Michael's work was extremely professional and I was very impressed. I believe it's fair to say reaction was similar back then. Many people saw many positives in working closely together. Some asked if the two organizations could be one. Like today, there were some who were very fearful. Those that supported working closely together felt it was best not to push too hard. Discussions have continued since then over the past 3-4 years focusing on specific collaboration on a case by case basis. During that time, LocationTech has sponsored and its projects participated in 2 FOSS4Gs. It was asked by an OSGeo board member to organize FOSS4G NA 2015. It has provided discrete feedback to OSGeo projects regarding intellectual property related issues in OSGeo projects so they could be fixed. OSGeo projects were well represented on the 2013 LocationTech tour and again in 2014. I hope these things are seen as a significant positive force. I would like to draw attention to the fact that LocationTech's growth has not taken anything away from OSGeo. In fairness, building upon what Steven Feldman eloquently put, the problems OSGeo faces are problems today were faced before LocationTech existed, and since. It's fair to
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo
On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Jeff McKenna jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com wrote: I am also pondering of suggesting to the Board, later when we get to that point, of possibly querying the Charter Members, in a referendum of sorts. Not sure, I'm just speaking openly here. Please do. As I gently indicated in an earlier email, all these discussions are very new to me, so it is reasonable to assume they are new to many other Charter Members around the world as well. Given that most of this thread seems to be driven by FOSS4G, a conf I have little fondness for anymore, the conversation sounds very alien to me. Esp. so since it hints at changing the nature of OSGeo. Getting the input of Charter Members worldwide will be noisy and difficult, but that is how communities are. Whoever wants to provide an input should have a visible and welcome opportunity to do so. Plus, it will be a good chance to use the Charter Members for something other than just voting, for a change ;) -- Puneet Kishor ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Fixing FOSS4G (was: Hacking OSGeo)
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
Hi Jachym, Andrew and others, Most of what you wrote below Jachym sounds good. I've written an email [1] about the FOSS4G trademark to the board and conference list and feel that the way the FOSS4G NA 2015 now uses the FOSS4G trademark, with OSGeo and LocationTech as equal collaborators, does indeed injustice to this. It should IMO indeed be something like Hosted by OSGeo, organised in collaboration with LocationTech. My vote at this stage(!) would be No and No to Andrews questions. That said, I'm convinced the two entities are very complimentary and can learn a lot from each other and collaborate intensively. OSGeo should serve its business supporters better, LocationTech could do with a stronger community atmosphere. If both do a good job, the whole community will benefit tremendously. It could result in a global annual event and many local ones that serve the different communities from grassroots to corporate (Sounds silly to separate people in groups though). Thanks, Jeroen 1[ http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2014-September/012113.html ] On 17 sep. 2014, at 16:06, Jachym Cepicky jachym.cepi...@gmail.com wrote: --- See his email on the list :-) --- ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo
Puneet, I agree with you, this is an hot decision that cannot be taken by a small group of people without at least have heard about what the *OSGeo community* think about. In this tread I have learnt a lot on LocationTech and on motivation that pushed some OSGeo members to embrace also LocationTech. I can really feel the desire to help and foster geospatial open source software from those guys. BTW, I also believe that FOSS4G is the OSGeo event. For this reason I believe that if OSGeo want to change things and *share* it with LocationTech (not just let them organize it in the name of), we need a deep OSGeo internal discussion at all level: Local Chapters, Charter members, Committees and finally the Board which has the responsibility to vote on this. So, my proposal is: 1) Have a formal proposal from LocationTech which explain terms of collaboration, commitments and guarantees 2) Publish publicly this proposal for a period (let's say 2 week) for people to look into this proposal 3) Call for a vote from charter members 4) Call for a letter of position letter from each committee and local Chapters 5) Publish publicly the results 6) Discuss it on the next board meeting and finally have a vote and a letter of motivation from the Board BTW, the FOSS4G-EUROPE website (http://foss4g-e.org/) states clearly at the home page: OSGeo's European Conference on Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial. I hope this doesn't hurt anyone, and brings positive point of discussion. It is just my personal thought as a new board member, and sorry if I've lost some best practice currently in place. Maxi 2014-09-17 19:14 GMT+02:00 P Kishor punk.k...@gmail.com: On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Jeff McKenna jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com wrote: I am also pondering of suggesting to the Board, later when we get to that point, of possibly querying the Charter Members, in a referendum of sorts. Not sure, I'm just speaking openly here. Please do. As I gently indicated in an earlier email, all these discussions are very new to me, so it is reasonable to assume they are new to many other Charter Members around the world as well. Given that most of this thread seems to be driven by FOSS4G, a conf I have little fondness for anymore, the conversation sounds very alien to me. Esp. so since it hints at changing the nature of OSGeo. Getting the input of Charter Members worldwide will be noisy and difficult, but that is how communities are. Whoever wants to provide an input should have a visible and welcome opportunity to do so. Plus, it will be a good chance to use the Charter Members for something other than just voting, for a change ;) -- Puneet Kishor ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- *Massimiliano Cannata* Professore SUPSI in ingegneria Geomatica Responsabile settore Geomatica Istituto scienze della Terra Dipartimento ambiente costruzione e design Scuola universitaria professionale della Svizzera italiana Campus Trevano, CH - 6952 Canobbio Tel. +41 (0)58 666 62 14 Fax +41 (0)58 666 62 09 massimiliano.cann...@supsi.ch *www.supsi.ch/ist http://www.supsi.ch/ist* ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Polling charter members
Before we get to the stage of polling charter members and local chapters, it would be helpful if more of the charter membership and local chapters chipped in with their opinions. Many seem to have been very quiet, i am sure they must have a view __ Steven On 17 Sep 2014, at 20:00, conference-europe-requ...@lists.osgeo.org wrote: From: Massimiliano Cannata massimiliano.cann...@supsi.ch Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo Date: 17 September 2014 19:22:24 BST To: P Kishor punk.k...@gmail.com Cc: OSGeo Discussions discuss@lists.osgeo.org Puneet, I agree with you, this is an hot decision that cannot be taken by a small group of people without at least have heard about what the OSGeo community think about. In this tread I have learnt a lot on LocationTech and on motivation that pushed some OSGeo members to embrace also LocationTech. I can really feel the desire to help and foster geospatial open source software from those guys. BTW, I also believe that FOSS4G is the OSGeo event. For this reason I believe that if OSGeo want to change things and share it with LocationTech (not just let them organize it in the name of), we need a deep OSGeo internal discussion at all level: Local Chapters, Charter members, Committees and finally the Board which has the responsibility to vote on this. So, my proposal is: 1) Have a formal proposal from LocationTech which explain terms of collaboration, commitments and guarantees 2) Publish publicly this proposal for a period (let's say 2 week) for people to look into this proposal 3) Call for a vote from charter members 4) Call for a letter of position letter from each committee and local Chapters 5) Publish publicly the results 6) Discuss it on the next board meeting and finally have a vote and a letter of motivation from the Board BTW, the FOSS4G-EUROPE website (http://foss4g-e.org/) states clearly at the home page: OSGeo's European Conference on Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial. I hope this doesn't hurt anyone, and brings positive point of discussion. It is just my personal thought as a new board member, and sorry if I've lost some best practice currently in place. Maxi ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Polling charter members
My guess is, just as I do, most Charter Members find this entire thread very alien. For us who don't go to FOSS4G, OSGeo means something completely different (here is where I disagree with an earlier email—I think it was Jo Cook—that folks know OSGeo products but not OSGeo). To suddenly hear of all this chatter about FOSS4G being used as a football between OSGeo and LocationTech (an org I heard about for the first time also in this thread) is like waking up at night to find a bunch of strangers chatting in your living room. Definitely, involving Charter Members would be a very sound and nice thing to do. On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 1:32 PM, Steven Feldman shfeld...@gmail.com wrote: Before we get to the stage of polling charter members and local chapters, it would be helpful if more of the charter membership and local chapters chipped in with their opinions. Many seem to have been very quiet, i am sure they must have a view __ Steven On 17 Sep 2014, at 20:00, conference-europe-requ...@lists.osgeo.org wrote: *From: *Massimiliano Cannata massimiliano.cann...@supsi.ch *Subject: **Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo* *Date: *17 September 2014 19:22:24 BST *To: *P Kishor punk.k...@gmail.com *Cc: *OSGeo Discussions discuss@lists.osgeo.org Puneet, I agree with you, this is an hot decision that cannot be taken by a small group of people without at least have heard about what the *OSGeo community* think about. In this tread I have learnt a lot on LocationTech and on motivation that pushed some OSGeo members to embrace also LocationTech. I can really feel the desire to help and foster geospatial open source software from those guys. BTW, I also believe that FOSS4G is the OSGeo event. For this reason I believe that if OSGeo want to change things and *share* it with LocationTech (not just let them organize it in the name of), we need a deep OSGeo internal discussion at all level: Local Chapters, Charter members, Committees and finally the Board which has the responsibility to vote on this. So, my proposal is: 1) Have a formal proposal from LocationTech which explain terms of collaboration, commitments and guarantees 2) Publish publicly this proposal for a period (let's say 2 week) for people to look into this proposal 3) Call for a vote from charter members 4) Call for a letter of position letter from each committee and local Chapters 5) Publish publicly the results 6) Discuss it on the next board meeting and finally have a vote and a letter of motivation from the Board BTW, the FOSS4G-EUROPE website (http://foss4g-e.org/) states clearly at the home page: OSGeo's European Conference on Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial. I hope this doesn't hurt anyone, and brings positive point of discussion. It is just my personal thought as a new board member, and sorry if I've lost some best practice currently in place. Maxi ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Puneet Kishor Manager, Science and Data Policy Creative Commons ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Polling charter members
Just noting, discussion about relationship between LocationTech and OSGeo is here since 2012 (IIRC). That many people did not pain attention to it (actually including myself up to certain time), is not fault of OSGeo .. or LocationTech. It's just actually boring topic. We are community of (mostly) developers and users of FOSS4G (not conference, but software in this case). This sounds like politics .. who would pay attention? So, now we are here, things are happening, we can finally talk to whole community, because of this IMHO *is* important topic - two big organisations are trying to find a way, how to cooperate in the future for better free and open source software for geospatial! This is good. If for nothing else, then for clarifying OSGeo's position. Jachym 2014-09-17 22:42 GMT+02:00 P Kishor punk.k...@gmail.com: My guess is, just as I do, most Charter Members find this entire thread very alien. For us who don't go to FOSS4G, OSGeo means something completely different (here is where I disagree with an earlier email--I think it was Jo Cook--that folks know OSGeo products but not OSGeo). To suddenly hear of all this chatter about FOSS4G being used as a football between OSGeo and LocationTech (an org I heard about for the first time also in this thread) is like waking up at night to find a bunch of strangers chatting in your living room. Definitely, involving Charter Members would be a very sound and nice thing to do. On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 1:32 PM, Steven Feldman shfeld...@gmail.com wrote: Before we get to the stage of polling charter members and local chapters, it would be helpful if more of the charter membership and local chapters chipped in with their opinions. Many seem to have been very quiet, i am sure they must have a view __ Steven On 17 Sep 2014, at 20:00, conference-europe-requ...@lists.osgeo.org wrote: From: Massimiliano Cannata massimiliano.cann...@supsi.ch Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo Date: 17 September 2014 19:22:24 BST To: P Kishor punk.k...@gmail.com Cc: OSGeo Discussions discuss@lists.osgeo.org Puneet, I agree with you, this is an hot decision that cannot be taken by a small group of people without at least have heard about what the OSGeo community think about. In this tread I have learnt a lot on LocationTech and on motivation that pushed some OSGeo members to embrace also LocationTech. I can really feel the desire to help and foster geospatial open source software from those guys. BTW, I also believe that FOSS4G is the OSGeo event. For this reason I believe that if OSGeo want to change things and share it with LocationTech (not just let them organize it in the name of), we need a deep OSGeo internal discussion at all level: Local Chapters, Charter members, Committees and finally the Board which has the responsibility to vote on this. So, my proposal is: 1) Have a formal proposal from LocationTech which explain terms of collaboration, commitments and guarantees 2) Publish publicly this proposal for a period (let's say 2 week) for people to look into this proposal 3) Call for a vote from charter members 4) Call for a letter of position letter from each committee and local Chapters 5) Publish publicly the results 6) Discuss it on the next board meeting and finally have a vote and a letter of motivation from the Board BTW, the FOSS4G-EUROPE website (http://foss4g-e.org/) states clearly at the home page: OSGeo's European Conference on Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial. I hope this doesn't hurt anyone, and brings positive point of discussion. It is just my personal thought as a new board member, and sorry if I've lost some best practice currently in place. Maxi ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Puneet Kishor Manager, Science and Data Policy Creative Commons ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Jachym Cepicky e-mail: jachym.cepicky gmail com URL: http://les-ejk.cz GPG: http://les-ejk.cz/pgp/JachymCepicky.pgp Give your code freedom with PyWPS - http://pywps.wald.intevation.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Polling charter members
yup, you nailed it. In fact, if the conversation is only about FOSS4G, I couldn't give a rip. Otoh, if the conversation is about OSGeo, its nature and what it stands for, I am all ears, and I do believe many other Charter Members would also want to be included. On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 1:51 PM, Jachym Cepicky jachym.cepi...@gmail.com wrote: Just noting, discussion about relationship between LocationTech and OSGeo is here since 2012 (IIRC). That many people did not pain attention to it (actually including myself up to certain time), is not fault of OSGeo .. or LocationTech. It's just actually boring topic. We are community of (mostly) developers and users of FOSS4G (not conference, but software in this case). This sounds like politics .. who would pay attention? So, now we are here, things are happening, we can finally talk to whole community, because of this IMHO *is* important topic - two big organisations are trying to find a way, how to cooperate in the future for better free and open source software for geospatial! This is good. If for nothing else, then for clarifying OSGeo's position. Jachym 2014-09-17 22:42 GMT+02:00 P Kishor punk.k...@gmail.com: My guess is, just as I do, most Charter Members find this entire thread very alien. For us who don't go to FOSS4G, OSGeo means something completely different (here is where I disagree with an earlier email--I think it was Jo Cook--that folks know OSGeo products but not OSGeo). To suddenly hear of all this chatter about FOSS4G being used as a football between OSGeo and LocationTech (an org I heard about for the first time also in this thread) is like waking up at night to find a bunch of strangers chatting in your living room. Definitely, involving Charter Members would be a very sound and nice thing to do. On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 1:32 PM, Steven Feldman shfeld...@gmail.com wrote: Before we get to the stage of polling charter members and local chapters, it would be helpful if more of the charter membership and local chapters chipped in with their opinions. Many seem to have been very quiet, i am sure they must have a view __ Steven On 17 Sep 2014, at 20:00, conference-europe-requ...@lists.osgeo.org wrote: From: Massimiliano Cannata massimiliano.cann...@supsi.ch Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo Date: 17 September 2014 19:22:24 BST To: P Kishor punk.k...@gmail.com Cc: OSGeo Discussions discuss@lists.osgeo.org Puneet, I agree with you, this is an hot decision that cannot be taken by a small group of people without at least have heard about what the OSGeo community think about. In this tread I have learnt a lot on LocationTech and on motivation that pushed some OSGeo members to embrace also LocationTech. I can really feel the desire to help and foster geospatial open source software from those guys. BTW, I also believe that FOSS4G is the OSGeo event. For this reason I believe that if OSGeo want to change things and share it with LocationTech (not just let them organize it in the name of), we need a deep OSGeo internal discussion at all level: Local Chapters, Charter members, Committees and finally the Board which has the responsibility to vote on this. So, my proposal is: 1) Have a formal proposal from LocationTech which explain terms of collaboration, commitments and guarantees 2) Publish publicly this proposal for a period (let's say 2 week) for people to look into this proposal 3) Call for a vote from charter members 4) Call for a letter of position letter from each committee and local Chapters 5) Publish publicly the results 6) Discuss it on the next board meeting and finally have a vote and a letter of motivation from the Board BTW, the FOSS4G-EUROPE website (http://foss4g-e.org/) states clearly at the home page: OSGeo's European Conference on Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial. I hope this doesn't hurt anyone, and brings positive point of discussion. It is just my personal thought as a new board member, and sorry if I've lost some best practice currently in place. Maxi ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Puneet Kishor Manager, Science and Data Policy Creative Commons ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Jachym Cepicky e-mail: jachym.cepicky gmail com URL: http://les-ejk.cz GPG: http://les-ejk.cz/pgp/JachymCepicky.pgp Give your code freedom with PyWPS - http://pywps.wald.intevation.org -- Puneet Kishor Manager, Science and Data Policy Creative Commons ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Polling charter members
Hi all, I'm also sure all local chapters charter members have a view, but after the discussion (or discussions?) over the last days it's not quite clear what's the topic anyway. is is about: - collabaration with any other organisation in general? - collaboration with LocationTech specifically? - outsourcing tasks (such as organizing large events, e.g .FOSS4G) - outsourcing on a local or on a global scale I agree with Puneet and Massimiliano (and probably serveral others who dropped out of this discussion anyway) to sort of moderate this discussion to make sure we're all discussing the same topic. In several boards (not specifically osgeo-related, by the way) I have seen to may discussions/polls/votes that seemed to have ended in an agreement, but after which the question arose OK, we've agreed, but ... agreed on what? Seems like a nice taks (for the board, iI guess) to decipher this spaghetti-like discussion into small, manageble (and preferably appetising) pieces. That will encourage Charter Members local chapters to (re-)join this valuable discussion. kinds regards, Gert-Jan Van: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] Namens Steven Feldman Verzonden: woensdag 17 september 2014 22:32 Aan: discuss@lists.osgeo.org; osgeo-board List; conference Onderwerp: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Polling charter members Before we get to the stage of polling charter members and local chapters, it would be helpful if more of the charter membership and local chapters chipped in with their opinions. Many seem to have been very quiet, i am sure they must have a view __ Steven On 17 Sep 2014, at 20:00, conference-europe-requ...@lists.osgeo.org wrote: From: Massimiliano Cannata mailto:massimiliano.cann...@supsi.ch massimiliano.cann...@supsi.ch Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo Date: 17 September 2014 19:22:24 BST To: P Kishor mailto:punk.k...@gmail.com punk.k...@gmail.com Cc: OSGeo Discussions mailto:discuss@lists.osgeo.org discuss@lists.osgeo.org Puneet, I agree with you, this is an hot decision that cannot be taken by a small group of people without at least have heard about what the OSGeo community think about. In this tread I have learnt a lot on LocationTech and on motivation that pushed some OSGeo members to embrace also LocationTech. I can really feel the desire to help and foster geospatial open source software from those guys. BTW, I also believe that FOSS4G is the OSGeo event. For this reason I believe that if OSGeo want to change things and share it with LocationTech (not just let them organize it in the name of), we need a deep OSGeo internal discussion at all level: Local Chapters, Charter members, Committees and finally the Board which has the responsibility to vote on this. So, my proposal is: 1) Have a formal proposal from LocationTech which explain terms of collaboration, commitments and guarantees 2) Publish publicly this proposal for a period (let's say 2 week) for people to look into this proposal 3) Call for a vote from charter members 4) Call for a letter of position letter from each committee and local Chapters 5) Publish publicly the results 6) Discuss it on the next board meeting and finally have a vote and a letter of motivation from the Board BTW, the FOSS4G-EUROPE website ( http://foss4g-e.org/ http://foss4g-e.org/) states clearly at the home page: OSGeo's European Conference on Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial. I hope this doesn't hurt anyone, and brings positive point of discussion. It is just my personal thought as a new board member, and sorry if I've lost some best practice currently in place. Maxi ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] free software for transport planning
Hi everyone, I would appreciate any reference about free software solution that covers the range of transport planning - from strategic planning to traffic engineering and simulation. What I am really looking for is an alternative to PTV Vision for a national level use case. Thank you very much, Ricardo Pinho ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] free software for transport planning
Ricardo, The tools of which I'm aware are focused on transit planning (rather than more transportation in general) and include: * World Bank Open Transit Indicators - https://github.com/WorldBank-Transport/open-transit-indicators - this is a project Azavea is developing under contract with the World Bank - we expect the initial version to be complete by the end of December * Open Trip Planner Analyst - a project that began at OpenPlans and is now led by Conveyal - http://www.opentripplanner.org/analyst/ Best, Robert -- Robert Cheetham Azavea | 340 N 12th St, Ste 402, Philadelphia, PA cheet...@azavea.com | T 215.701.7713 | F 215.925.2663 Web azavea.com http://www.azavea.com/ | Blog azavea.com/blogs | Twitter @ http://goog_858212415rcheetham http://twitter.com/rcheetham and @azavea http://twitter.com/azavea *Azavea is a B Corporation http://www.bcorporation.net/what-are-b-corps - we apply geospatial technology for civic and social impact* *while advancing the state-of-the-art through research. Join us http://jobs.azavea.com/.* On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 6:46 PM, Ricardo Pinho rpinho_...@yahoo.com.br wrote: Hi everyone, I would appreciate any reference about free software solution that covers the range of transport planning - from strategic planning to traffic engineering and simulation. What I am really looking for is an alternative to PTV Vision http://vision-traffic.ptvgroup.com/en-uk/products/ptv-visum/use-cases/ for a national level use case. Thank you very much, Ricardo Pinho ___ 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] Fixing FOSS4G (was: Hacking OSGeo)
Nice summary IMHO, thanks Jachym 2014-09-17 19:41 GMT+02:00 Darrell Fuhriman darr...@garnix.org: 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,
[OSGeo-Discuss] Fwd: Hacking OSGeo
IMO Hi Jeff, I don't believe that this public 'Mea Culpa' is warranted. You are a respected member of the community and are entitled to a personal view. I understood from what I read that your comments were personal. Perhaps using an 'official OSGeo email address' might make it clear when the email content is more formal in future. I'm personally very glad that you chose to speak up as you are echoing the disquiet that I and I'm sure many others are feeling with regards this conversation. @All, We are at a turning point within our community, and this is no time for rushing to a particular course of action. I echo the comments of those such as Steve, Cameron and Jo who are asking for a bit of respect for all view points and for time to reflect and consider how we want to move forward as a community. We have a robust community and can work through the issues if we remember that others are entitled to their views. I agree with Massimillo, Puneet and others that this discussion has become so convoluted that we need to separate out the threads into managable pieces to work through. The LocationTech issue is really a surprise to me, particularly that the conversation has been continuing in private within OSGeo circles for a number of years. To be honest, the organisation was not even on my radar. I'm personally not that interested in LocationTech that I want every second OSGeo email that I read to be about it. Perhaps we can tone down the advocacy? I have read some vigorous comments from community members who I respect in support of LocationTech. What I took out of these comments is that it is hard trying to run a business that is trying to make money out of Open Source and that people have already decided that this particular organisation offers something to them. Other business operators are tackling the problem in a different way and are working within the OSGeo-Industry mailing list to discuss the issue in a constructive manner. I'm seeing some very good leadership there from Dirk and Peter. I ran my own consultancy in the past for ~ten years and understand how difficult entrepreneurial work can be. There were many times when I didn't know where income to support my next weeks rent and meals was coming from. We just need to remember in our discussions that OSGeo is more than just developers, and business. We have a growing number of people from a range of fields who are working with us, e.g. Government, Not for Profits, Acadaemia and Research. In my day job, I'm starting to see interest in a number of peer organisations around the world to collaboratate within open source communities to develop the functionality that we require. We may not have funding to pay businesses to get work done, but we do often have developers, testers etc. We are just very mindful at this stage that we are not seen as trying to 'take over' the communities that we are interested in collaborating with. As to the comments on FOSS4G, this needs to be handled very carefully. As a former member of the FOSS4G-2009 LOC, the work in organising such an event is not as difficult as some are trying to make out. Particularly so if you have a good team who collaborate and pull their own weight as we did; you have LOC members who were on previous FOSS4G; and when you have a good local professional conference organiser who understands your city and culture with appropriate experience in International events to help you with the day to day work. Cameron initiated the FOSS4G 'Lessons Learned' wiki to ensure that learnings are passed on to future LOC. I suggest making sure that it is used and updated. I'd encourage anyone interested in FOSS4G to 'give it a go'. You will find it a very satisfying professional development exercise. As the time pressure that people are expressing seems to be on the bid of FOSS4G-2016, I suggest that we continue with our current processes and request bids. I'd be happy to see LocationTech put in a bid. I'm also very happy to see a potential bid from Switzerland for the 10th anniversary. Are there any other potential bids out there? Bruce From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Jeff McKenna [jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com] Sent: Thursday, 18 September 2014 2:26 AM To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo Hi Bart, Sort of off topic, the timing was good for me to get into my truck and drive 5 hours by myself this morning at 5am, to a meeting in cute small island province, Prince Edward Island (http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/46.25739/-63.13748). In other words, I had lots of time to think. I am happy to grab a wifi spot to respond now. I think my actions recently offended several leaders in our geo community, including Andrew, Daniel, Arnulf, yourself Bart, and likely others. I did not mean this to happen. I am sorry and embarrassed of my actions and words. I can see Bart and Daniel's
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Polling charter members
I agree it is a bit strange P Kishor: I helped organise a very small foss4g-au unconference in 2012 with Nathan. A couple weeks ago Rob Emanuele asked if I could help out with foss4g-na - not sure what I will be doing yet. Rob is a passionate scala developer, and it is great to see that enthusiasm directed towards holding an event. I would rather make use of this time to hear tips and tricks for running a successful regional foss4g event. So if we are playing with a football, at least we are on the same team. Cheers, Jody Jody Garnett On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 2:42 PM, P Kishor punk.k...@gmail.com wrote: My guess is, just as I do, most Charter Members find this entire thread very alien. For us who don't go to FOSS4G, OSGeo means something completely different (here is where I disagree with an earlier email—I think it was Jo Cook—that folks know OSGeo products but not OSGeo). To suddenly hear of all this chatter about FOSS4G being used as a football between OSGeo and LocationTech (an org I heard about for the first time also in this thread) is like waking up at night to find a bunch of strangers chatting in your living room. Definitely, involving Charter Members would be a very sound and nice thing to do. On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 1:32 PM, Steven Feldman shfeld...@gmail.com wrote: Before we get to the stage of polling charter members and local chapters, it would be helpful if more of the charter membership and local chapters chipped in with their opinions. Many seem to have been very quiet, i am sure they must have a view __ Steven On 17 Sep 2014, at 20:00, conference-europe-requ...@lists.osgeo.org wrote: *From: *Massimiliano Cannata massimiliano.cann...@supsi.ch *Subject: **Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Hacking OSGeo* *Date: *17 September 2014 19:22:24 BST *To: *P Kishor punk.k...@gmail.com *Cc: *OSGeo Discussions discuss@lists.osgeo.org Puneet, I agree with you, this is an hot decision that cannot be taken by a small group of people without at least have heard about what the *OSGeo community* think about. In this tread I have learnt a lot on LocationTech and on motivation that pushed some OSGeo members to embrace also LocationTech. I can really feel the desire to help and foster geospatial open source software from those guys. BTW, I also believe that FOSS4G is the OSGeo event. For this reason I believe that if OSGeo want to change things and *share* it with LocationTech (not just let them organize it in the name of), we need a deep OSGeo internal discussion at all level: Local Chapters, Charter members, Committees and finally the Board which has the responsibility to vote on this. So, my proposal is: 1) Have a formal proposal from LocationTech which explain terms of collaboration, commitments and guarantees 2) Publish publicly this proposal for a period (let's say 2 week) for people to look into this proposal 3) Call for a vote from charter members 4) Call for a letter of position letter from each committee and local Chapters 5) Publish publicly the results 6) Discuss it on the next board meeting and finally have a vote and a letter of motivation from the Board BTW, the FOSS4G-EUROPE website (http://foss4g-e.org/) states clearly at the home page: OSGeo's European Conference on Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial. I hope this doesn't hurt anyone, and brings positive point of discussion. It is just my personal thought as a new board member, and sorry if I've lost some best practice currently in place. Maxi ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Puneet Kishor Manager, Science and Data Policy Creative Commons ___ 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
[OSGeo-Discuss] How to join geo4all initiative and ICA-OSGeo-ISPRS research and education labs network
Thanks to all who have expressed interest in joining the geo4all initiative and ICA-OSGeo-ISPRS reserach and education labs network. As promised at FOSS4G 2014 here is more info posted to this list, to make sure it can reach all members. You can find information about the initiative on its website http://www.geoforall.org/ and a wiki with all the current labs http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Edu_current_initiatives#sortable_table_id_0 Here is how to join: - check whether you qualify on How to join webpage http://www.geoforall.org/how_to_join/ note, that you can build the website within a year after you join, but you should have some expertise in open source geospatial science and/or technology already. - send an email with a description of your open source geospatial activities to the contact assigned to your region If everything looks OK you will recieve an official invitation describing the next steps, Helena Helena Mitasova Professor at the Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences and Center for Geospatial Analytics North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC 27695-8208 hmit...@ncsu.edu http://geospatial.ncsu.edu/osgeorel/ All electronic mail messages in connection with State business which are sent to or received by this account are subject to the NC Public Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties.” ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Fwd: Hacking OSGeo
Hi Bruce, I think, this discussion is not about LocationTech vs. OSGeo, or about FOSS4G. It's all about OSGeo itself. Many people have pointed out, that we are now on the edge and we are looking where to go. If we are not sure, what we are and where are we heading, we can not clarify our position to any competing/complementary organisation, including LocationTech. If there would be no LocationTech today, there would be something else tomorrow. Task one to all charter members: Have a look at our goals [1] Task two: Talk together (we are doing it right now), maybe the Board should prepare questioner to find out from charter members and projects? Task three: Update goals And finally go go go go go! Jachym [1] http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/about.html 2014-09-18 3:30 GMT+02:00 Bruce Bannerman bruce.bannerman.os...@gmail.com: IMO Hi Jeff, I don't believe that this public 'Mea Culpa' is warranted. You are a respected member of the community and are entitled to a personal view. I understood from what I read that your comments were personal. Perhaps using an 'official OSGeo email address' might make it clear when the email content is more formal in future. I'm personally very glad that you chose to speak up as you are echoing the disquiet that I and I'm sure many others are feeling with regards this conversation. @All, We are at a turning point within our community, and this is no time for rushing to a particular course of action. I echo the comments of those such as Steve, Cameron and Jo who are asking for a bit of respect for all view points and for time to reflect and consider how we want to move forward as a community. We have a robust community and can work through the issues if we remember that others are entitled to their views. I agree with Massimillo, Puneet and others that this discussion has become so convoluted that we need to separate out the threads into managable pieces to work through. The LocationTech issue is really a surprise to me, particularly that the conversation has been continuing in private within OSGeo circles for a number of years. To be honest, the organisation was not even on my radar. I'm personally not that interested in LocationTech that I want every second OSGeo email that I read to be about it. Perhaps we can tone down the advocacy? I have read some vigorous comments from community members who I respect in support of LocationTech. What I took out of these comments is that it is hard trying to run a business that is trying to make money out of Open Source and that people have already decided that this particular organisation offers something to them. Other business operators are tackling the problem in a different way and are working within the OSGeo-Industry mailing list to discuss the issue in a constructive manner. I'm seeing some very good leadership there from Dirk and Peter. I ran my own consultancy in the past for ~ten years and understand how difficult entrepreneurial work can be. There were many times when I didn't know where income to support my next weeks rent and meals was coming from. We just need to remember in our discussions that OSGeo is more than just developers, and business. We have a growing number of people from a range of fields who are working with us, e.g. Government, Not for Profits, Acadaemia and Research. In my day job, I'm starting to see interest in a number of peer organisations around the world to collaboratate within open source communities to develop the functionality that we require. We may not have funding to pay businesses to get work done, but we do often have developers, testers etc. We are just very mindful at this stage that we are not seen as trying to 'take over' the communities that we are interested in collaborating with. As to the comments on FOSS4G, this needs to be handled very carefully. As a former member of the FOSS4G-2009 LOC, the work in organising such an event is not as difficult as some are trying to make out. Particularly so if you have a good team who collaborate and pull their own weight as we did; you have LOC members who were on previous FOSS4G; and when you have a good local professional conference organiser who understands your city and culture with appropriate experience in International events to help you with the day to day work. Cameron initiated the FOSS4G 'Lessons Learned' wiki to ensure that learnings are passed on to future LOC. I suggest making sure that it is used and updated. I'd encourage anyone interested in FOSS4G to 'give it a go'. You will find it a very satisfying professional development exercise. As the time pressure that people are expressing seems to be on the bid of FOSS4G-2016, I suggest that we continue with our current processes and request bids. I'd be happy to see LocationTech put in a bid. I'm also very happy to see a potential bid from Switzerland for the 10th anniversary. Are
