[OSGeo-Discuss] Project representation at Intergeo
Folks, we have yet again invested lots to make the Open Source Park possible at Intergeo [1] and it is starting to look really good. This year we managed to get sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi)[2]. The date of the Intergeo is nearing quickly but several projects are still not represented well (or not at all). The submission for presentation ends tomorrow but we will extend it until the end of the week. That is Friday. If you are keen on having your project represented please make sure that you get someone savvy to staff our booth or have someone give a presentation. Feel free to spread word, a short English press release[3] text has also been prepared. Best regards, Arnulf. [1] http://www.fossgis.de/wiki/Intergeo_2009/Vortragsprogramm [2] http://www.bmwi.de/English/Navigation/root.html [3] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Intergeo_2009#Press_Information -- Arnulf Christl Exploring Space, Time and Mind http://arnulf.us/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Insurance for contractors?
In the past I've hired some people for contract or consultant work (both open source projects and more general stuff) -- generally these people have been independent, one-man shops found by word of mouth and reputation, as opposed to hiring someone from an agency. I'm getting pushback now from the administrative side of my company saying that any contractor I hire needs to have proof of insurance. I understand the legal reasons for this, but I'm wondering how many of you out there actually have business/contractors insurance? Do companies you work for insist on it, or not? And how many of you are formally set up as LLCs or sole proprietorships or such? [while this is likely a US-centric issue from the hiring side, I'm interested in international responses too since I've hired some foreigners as well over the years] -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Insurance for contractors?
Well, the small business I work for has the professional liability type of insurance. Additionally, the IEEE offers professional liability insurance at a pretty low cost, or so I'm told. I'd imagine many of the members subscribe to that form of insurance, otherwise it wouldn't be offered. I can't speak to the prevalence in the Open Source sector, but in the computer engineering sector this is pretty common. R Michael P. Gerlek wrote: In the past I've hired some people for contract or consultant work (both open source projects and more general stuff) -- generally these people have been independent, one-man shops found by word of mouth and reputation, as opposed to hiring someone from an agency. I'm getting pushback now from the administrative side of my company saying that any contractor I hire needs to have proof of insurance. I understand the legal reasons for this, but I'm wondering how many of you out there actually have business/contractors insurance? Do companies you work for insist on it, or not? And how many of you are formally set up as LLCs or sole proprietorships or such? [while this is likely a US-centric issue from the hiring side, I'm interested in international responses too since I've hired some foreigners as well over the years] -mpg ___ 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] Insurance for contractors?
Michael, I've been toying with the idea of doing some side work in the GIS arena as a sole-proprietor or an S-Corp. In either case, if I move forward with this, I would carry some basic business insurance. Having said that, I can tell you I found it difficult to find a professional liability insurer that understood the GIS world and was willing to insure that type of work. I think typical business insurance would be easier to come by. I can also tell you that insurance requirements are certainly an extra burden for the sub-consultant. I have been in situations where I negotiated with a sub on the insurance coverage for a particular project. (In this case I accepted lower coverage limits.) I have also been in a situation where my company turned down work as a sub because of heavy insurance requirements. As Bobb mentioned, the sub has to pass the cost of that coverage along to the client. You can get a sub with insurance coverage, but you will pay for it. The more coverage you ask for, the more you will pay. Good question. Landon Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268 Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658 From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Bob Basques Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 10:33 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Insurance for contractors? Michael, I've run into this problem for years, and the simple answer is, if you can afford the bother and cost of getting insurance to cover your works and the resulting products, just get it, it really helps with everything across the whole project spectrum. Now, having said that, I've only recently gotten Insurance and this was from the bidders end, as in bidding on a project, the project dictated some fairly heavyhanded (IMO) insurance requirements that we needed to provide, and in the end, the cost was just charged back as a reduction in hours available for working. There was really no way around it in the end. While I'm basically against adding in any unneeded extras, there are times when it's just easier to have the insurance available. I won't lie to you though, it was a rather rigorous task to get the insurnce into place, but it's typically only a one time deal and it's all setup for the next time too. Anote here, there are also options for getting insurance on a project by project basis, but the bidder will need to have an insurance agent in their pocket to be able to execute something in short order when needed. bobb Michael P. Gerlek m...@lizardtech.com wrote: In the past I've hired some people for contract or consultant work (both open source projects and more general stuff) -- generally these people have been independent, one-man shops found by word of mouth and reputation, as opposed to hiring someone from an agency. I'm getting pushback now from the administrative side of my company saying that any contractor I hire needs to have proof of insurance. I understand the legal reasons for this, but I'm wondering how many of you out there actually have business/contractors insurance? Do companies you work for insist on it, or not? And how many of you are formally set up as LLCs or sole proprietorships or such? [while this is likely a US-centric issue from the hiring side, I'm interested in international responses too since I've hired some foreigners as well over the years] -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss Warning: Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against defects including translation and transmission errors. If the reader is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this information in error, please notify the sender immediately.___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Insurance for contractors?
For what it's worth, I believe IEEE offers a professional liability policy to members. If it's in line with their other insurance, the price will be reasonable (I've carried their life insurance for years, and their medical policy when I was out on my own for a while). I wouldn't be surprise if ACM has a similar offering. -- Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs Traverse Technologies 145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor Boston, MA 02111 mfidel...@traversetechnologies.com 857-362-8314 www.traversetechnologies.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Insurance for contractors?
Well, this is interesting... I've already received a number of private responses from people who do not have insurance but wish to remain anonymous so their potential employers don't ask about it. Feel free to email me directly with your responses to the below questions, and I'll post a summary in a few days with no names attached. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael P. Gerlek Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 10:03 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Insurance for contractors? In the past I've hired some people for contract or consultant work (both open source projects and more general stuff) -- generally these people have been independent, one-man shops found by word of mouth and reputation, as opposed to hiring someone from an agency. I'm getting pushback now from the administrative side of my company saying that any contractor I hire needs to have proof of insurance. I understand the legal reasons for this, but I'm wondering how many of you out there actually have business/contractors insurance? Do companies you work for insist on it, or not? And how many of you are formally set up as LLCs or sole proprietorships or such? [while this is likely a US-centric issue from the hiring side, I'm interested in international responses too since I've hired some foreigners as well over the years] -mpg ___ 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] Open Source Lurkers
Hi, In India, OpenJUMP has a very good following on windows, as it is much simpler than some costly commercial flavors of GIS. They can at best be called as 'passive users', who even do not (care to) know that a list exists on the internet. Some Indian universities have started using OpenJUMP for vector GIS. Ravi Kumar --- On Sat, 22/8/09, Daniel Ames amesd...@isu.edu wrote: From: Daniel Ames amesd...@isu.edu Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source Lurkers To: OSGeo Discussions discuss@lists.osgeo.org Date: Saturday, 22 August, 2009, 10:24 AM Landon, et al. I'm aware of this phenomenon in the MapWindow community as well. It is particularly prominent with non-English speaking folks who, for a number of reasons (mostly described by Bill below) don't feel comfortable joining the conversation and openly participating in the project. I think there is another clear reason for this behavior... they sometimes just don't know that they are welcome/invited. This might be more of a pronounced problem for those of us developing specifically for Windows because Windows users have historically been told that they are not allowed to participate. However it's also a phenomenon of GIS in general. When was the last time that the major GIS software vendor asked it's customers to actively join in writing documentation, answering forum questions and - heaven forbid - fixing bugs. So how do you fix this. Well all I can think is to continually invite invite invite. Everytime someone posts a forum question, give an answer and then invite them to answer other people's questions. When people ask for bug fixes, invite them to fix a big - or to hire someone to do it. Any time you get a personal communication, invite them to do something on the project. This has helped a lot with our project, and I think we've landed some awesome project participants (some of whom are likely reading this now!) by letting them know how much we need them, and inviting them over and over to participate. That's my suggestion anyway, Dan On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 4:53 AM, Bill Thoen bth...@gisnet.com wrote: I've been a moderator for a commercial desktop mapping forum for more than 10 years and this behavior is quite common. I think it has more to do with how people adapt to a social network than it has to do with anything unique in the Open Source world. Like Chris mentioned, the majority of subscribers prefer to lurk below the public visibility horizon in a way that resembles an iceberg where only the tip remains above the waterline while the majority of its bulk lurks below. People lurk for many of the reasons you suggest, but I think the most common one is that they don't feel expert enough to contribute anything useful to a thread, and the risk of saying something stoopid --in public... and worse, thus revealing to their GIS/mapping peers the depth of their ignorance-- is just too embarrassing to contemplate. Especially when compared with the perceived safety of remaining anonymous in the shadows where they can drink in new knowledge like free beer while also being entertained by the interplay of the forum's regularly featured fools and sages. If we assume that Maslow was right about what motivates people (self-interest) then lurking in an open source community and not participating is exactly the wrong thing to do. If your business depends on some FOSS tool, then it's in your self-interest to expand the environment in which it operates as much as possible. Because if what you sell depends on tools like OpenJUMP, you want OpenJUMP well supported with a lively user group, a good supply of free data, technologically competitive, and actively being developed. This is the key to making money out of bits instead of atoms. If you sell services, give away the software and the infrastructure of the environment it runs in. This expands the market for your services and since the tools are free, the more people who download them the bigger your market share gets. If you sell software, give away services that leverage it. But if you lurk and don't contribute to its development or the development of the environment in which it operates, then you're sort of stepping on your own air hose. - Bill Thoen Landon Blake wrote: I would like to get some comments on a phenomenon I have discovered among the OpenJUMP community. I know for sure of one (1) company that maintains a separate fork of OpenJUMP, but which monitors our mailing list and likely grabs patches form our source code repository. They never participate in the forums or make known their use of OpenJUMP in any other public manner. I think there is at least one other company that does this. I only learn of these companies when I am contacted by private e-mail to work for them on OpenJUMP development, usually by some
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Insurance for contractors?
I've been on all three sides of this issue in Canada as well. 1 - Hiring requirements due to a funding source required insurance prior to letting a contract - so the one man shop we had previously hired had to get insurance to remain working with us (prior to OSGeo, I might add). 2 - I've been on the contractor side in a large firm where we _did_ have insurance, so it wasn't issue then, but I knew other companies who couldn't bid on similar work because of it. 3 - I also bid on a project before as an independent contractor only to find this restrictions as a showstopper (there was no guarantee of the work, so I wasn't going to spend the money). At the end of the day, it certainly *felt* like the issue being addressed was less about professional insurance and more about keeping independent contractors out of the bidding market. Sorry to hear you are hitting it. Tyler On Mon, 2009-08-31 at 14:00 -0700, Michael P. Gerlek wrote: Well, this is interesting... I've already received a number of private responses from people who do not have insurance but wish to remain anonymous so their potential employers don't ask about it. Feel free to email me directly with your responses to the below questions, and I'll post a summary in a few days with no names attached. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael P. Gerlek Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 10:03 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Insurance for contractors? In the past I've hired some people for contract or consultant work (both open source projects and more general stuff) -- generally these people have been independent, one-man shops found by word of mouth and reputation, as opposed to hiring someone from an agency. I'm getting pushback now from the administrative side of my company saying that any contractor I hire needs to have proof of insurance. I understand the legal reasons for this, but I'm wondering how many of you out there actually have business/contractors insurance? Do companies you work for insist on it, or not? And how many of you are formally set up as LLCs or sole proprietorships or such? [while this is likely a US-centric issue from the hiring side, I'm interested in international responses too since I've hired some foreigners as well over the years] -mpg ___ 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 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FW: Insurance for contractors? [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
Michael, When I ran my consultancy as a limited liability company, we kept the normal range of insurance policies, including professional and public liability insurance policies. If you wish to be treated as a professional and work for the big end of town, these are a necessary business expense. Mind you, we didn't need to utilise the policies, which to my mind is a good thing. Bruce -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael P. Gerlek Sent: Tuesday, 1 September 2009 3:03 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Insurance for contractors? In the past I've hired some people for contract or consultant work (both open source projects and more general stuff) -- generally these people have been independent, one-man shops found by word of mouth and reputation, as opposed to hiring someone from an agency. I'm getting pushback now from the administrative side of my company saying that any contractor I hire needs to have proof of insurance. I understand the legal reasons for this, but I'm wondering how many of you out there actually have business/contractors insurance? Do companies you work for insist on it, or not? And how many of you are formally set up as LLCs or sole proprietorships or such? [while this is likely a US-centric issue from the hiring side, I'm interested in international responses too since I've hired some foreigners as well over the years] -mpg ___ 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
