Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [Board] Incubation, osgeo-EU and FOSS4G

[Jody Garnett]

Small clarification on LocationTech:

> OSGeo is about mutually sharing experiences, ideas, solutions not building
> business. For this LocationTech which is a community of companies /
> entities I understood is more suited.
>
I have very much joined LocationTech as an individual and have the pleasure
of working with a diverse range of people from a range of organizations.

Specifically LocationTech is focused on open source software and outreach.
The organization does very well at supporting those who are new to open
source (providing a governance model to follow) and provides excellent
resources and support for projects that join.

* You may be surprised that OSGeo has more of a business focus - during
incubation we check if a project is viable in the business sense as we are
risk adverse to project our members.
* By contrast LocationTech lets market forces (ie popularity) determine
which projects succeed and fail and does not consider this factor when
evaluating a project.

Neither foundation provides business development, although events such as
foss4g or the locationtech tour can certainly provide sponsorship
opportunities and an opportunity to meet community members (and customers).
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [Board] Incubation, osgeo-EU and FOSS4G

[Jody Garnett]

Thank you for your thoughts.

> Sorry for cross-posting but these recent topics (which took place on
> different lists) took myself to reflect about our foundation.
>
It is awkward to reply to cross posed emails, simply because I am not on
all the lists.

> DISCUSSION: only a small number of people take part to the discussions,
> why?
>
Either because we are doing the things, or our opinion is already
represented. Email discussions are not the most value that can be offered
to the community, participating in many of the initiatives (from incubation
to geoforall) often provides a higher work/discussion ratio.

> INCUBATION: we care about high quality, long term sustainable and reliable
> solutions, who cares of governance models?
>
I very much do - anyone who has experienced vendor lock-in, or witnessed a
customer frustrated after being left with a fork does. The safe guards we
have in place around incubation are difficult to meet, but are their to
protect our user community. I expect you will gradually find that open
collaboration (the governance model) is the important freedom that we
celebrate in our open source community. Open source without open
collaboration is one of those free vs freedom distinctions which are
central to our identity as an organization.

The freedom offered by open collaboration is the common theme that is found
in our larger "take back the GIS" movement of open source / open data /
open standards.

We try not to emphasis it too much because governance is boring - but it is
what we are on about.

> BUSINESS AND OSGEO(EU): we are a foundation of people not of companies, we
> don't have to do business!
>
We wish to include everyone in our community, from businesses and education
through to government and humanitarian relief and municipalities and ...
Specifically OSGeo is setup as a not-for-profit organization in part so it
can take on some roles we are unable to do as individuals or as members of
our respective organization. OSGeo (or any foundation) is setup to provide
this key point: a vender/organization neutral playing field to allow
collaboration - indeed this is the governance requirement that comes up in
incubation.

> FOSS4G CONFERENCES: fees are a barrier, we are building exclusive events
> rather then being inclusive, who care about revenue!
>
Very much agreed. FOSS4G is a tool for outreach - conference fees are a
barrier to entry. We should also recognize that conference fees are not the
main cost associated with the event - travel, accommodation and lost
productively to attend all out strip conference fees.

- Sponsors have been very generous to both foss4g global and the regional
foss4g events and this has helps reduce conference fees.
- The profit from these events often returns to OSGeo for use by members of
our community committees and projects.

While the board has outlined how much cash to keep in reserve, and provided
an operational budget for the year - sensible decisions on marketing and
outreach could take place between the marketing (and conference committee)
about how best to meet our outreach goals. But if you want to make changes
here join the marketing or conference committee; rather than hope someone
agrees with you on this email discussion (I know I am joining the marketing
committee).

Do you have any stats on how much conference fees have grown?

> MAY THE FOSS BE WITH YOU !
>
And also with you!
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [Incubator] Should OSGeo accept "benevolent dictator" projects into OSGeo?

[Johan Van de Wauw]

On Wed, May 11, 2016 at 10:56 AM, Peter Baumann
 wrote:
> Hi Jonathan,
>
> while OSGeo and rasdaman share the strive for quality we come from different
> approaches: OSGeo believes in the power of committees and strong regulation
> whereas rasdaman has a culture of unbureaucratic, technocracy based
> collaboration. In other words: good ideas are always welcome - we live this
> daily, based on humanistic ideals, not on law enforcement.

I disagree with this conclusion. Both allowunbureaucratic and
technocracy based collaboration, as proven in many projects such as
QGis, OSGeo live, ...

It is only when a large part of the PSC has a different opinion then
the benevolent dictator that a difference between both arise.
If such occasions arise the project definitely has a problem, and I
don't think having one person deciding the way forward as the default
option is a good one.

I should add that the benevolent dictator style is not always
succesful, also in important projects. See eg glibc [1]. I do think it
can be succesful if the "BDFL" shows leadership and I think it is a
good model to avoid some bikeshedding. But in every sucessful BFDL
open source project you see that there is in fact a larger group of
people involved (similar to a PSC), and I don't know any examples
where the BDFL chose a direction which was opposite of this groups
opinion and where this worked out well.

Kind Regards,
Johan
[1] eg 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_C_Library#Debian_switches_to_EGLIBC_and_back
"In March 2012, the steering committee voted to disband itself and
remove Drepper in favor of a community-driven development process"
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [Incubator] Should OSGeo accept "benevolent dictator" projects into OSGeo?

[Mateusz Loskot]

On 11 May 2016 at 10:56, Peter Baumann  wrote:
> Hi Jonathan,
>
> while OSGeo and rasdaman share the strive for quality we come from different
> approaches: OSGeo believes in the power of committees and strong regulation
> whereas rasdaman has a culture of unbureaucratic, technocracy based
> collaboration.

Then, I don't understand why rasdaman entered the incubation in the first place.
It sounds like a complete waste of efforts.

http://www.osgeo.org/faq
"PSC should operate openly and with a consensus based approach(...)
A benevolent dictatorship is not considered a suitable open and
consensus based approach to governance."


Best regards,
-- 
Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [Incubator] Should OSGeo accept "benevolent dictator" projects into OSGeo?

[Peter Baumann]

Hi Jonathan,

while OSGeo and rasdaman share the strive for quality we come from different
approaches: OSGeo believes in the power of committees and strong regulation
whereas rasdaman has a culture of unbureaucratic, technocracy based
collaboration. In other words: good ideas are always welcome - we live this
daily, based on humanistic ideals, not on law enforcement.

Scientific evidence? No, unfortunately not - we concentrate on technology, and
that IMHO is more a field for social scientists to explore. Likely a research
gap there, but I may miss something existing.

cheers,
Peter


On 05/09/2016 02:17 PM, Jonathan Moules wrote:
> Hi Peter,
> It seems you're concerned that the decisions made by a PSC vote wouldn't
> necessarily be as good scientifically/technologically good as those of a
> benevolent dictator (in this case yourself).
>
> I realise this may be an ironic question, but do you have any scientific
> basis for that claim - I'm sure social science must have investigated this
> sort of thing? I believe the purpose of the OSGeo incubator is to get the best
> outcome for a project, so if there's evidence that that's done via the
> benevolent dictator model it would make sense that OSGeo accept such a model
> where it's desired.
>
> Cheers,
> Jonathan
>
>  On Mon, 09 May 2016 12:39:14 +0100 *Peter
> Baumann* wrote 
>
> Hi Marc,
>
> I understand your position, and I appreciate your thoughtful 
> deliberations.
> Still, these are all on meta level, not fact level. This is where 
> voting-based
> decisions, rather than scientific/technologically sound decision can lead 
> to a
> failure indeed.
>
> -Peter
>
>
> On 05/09/2016 11:28 AM, Marc Vloemans wrote:
> > Peter
> >
> > Voting is not the issue for success, acceptance and traction are.
> >
> > And as my suggestions seem to upset you, then at least read Jeroen
> Ticheler's message.he's been there, done it and boasts several
> T-shirts by now.
> >
> > Vriendelijke groet,
> > Marc Vloemans
> >
> >
> >> Op 9 mei 2016 om 09:30 heeft Peter Baumann
> >
> het volgende geschreven:
> >>
> >> Marc-
> >>
> >> bright minds do not need votes to get heard here, there's no obstacle.
> >>
> >> Servus,
> >> Peter
> >>
> >>
> >>> On 05/08/2016 04:56 PM, Marc Vloemans wrote:
> >>> Peter,
> >>>
> >>> I did certainly not realise there was such a cultural gap between
> academia and open source.
> >>>
> >>> Also, I gather that bazar style negotiation is not to your liking not
> efficient. You perhaps rather have a single representative
> speaking/negotiating on behalf of the OSGeo Foundation? Unfortunately,
> nobody has that remit within OSGeo. So you need to be more convincing.
> Presently, a take-it-or-leave-it attitude has not helped your cause.
> >>>
> >>> In order to grow 'your' project you are at the end of the day
> dependent on additional skills and genius. Not for money, but for free (as
> in beer). Just 'open sourcing' your project under the wings of OSGeo to do
> so requires some careful consideration of your audience and joint planning
> in stead of blunt negotiation. Laying down the law and emphasising how you
> want things will IMHO not gain you followers, developers or others to do
> the hard Dev work, the (easier, but still volunteer work) management,
> promotion etc.
> >>>
> >>> So I invite you to be more appealing to all the bright minds in our
> community. Because, as far as this discussion goes I see no crowd jumping
> up and say 'I want'
> >>>
> >>> To give you another pointer; perhaps a route to a mutually beneficial
> solution could be found in the area of license-policy(please, give it
> a thought. It would take a new look at things that could work for all).
> >>>
> >>> And in case no consensus is arrived at, then consider Cameron and I
> and anyone joining in (pro/neutral/contra) as activists for that matter.
> >>> Personally, I sometimes tear my hairs out of impatience, when I see
> that building consensus takes so long. But during various recent online
> discussions I learned a lot as well. From people I consider bright and
> skilful even though I do not agree with them. And they give me room to
> work on what I think is best, even though they do not agree with a lot I
> am saying and doing. That's both courageous of them and humbling for me.
> So ... the top-down alternative is flat-out horrifying to me.
> >>>
> >>> Vriendelijke groet,
> >>> Marc Vloemans
> >>>
> >>>
>  Op 8 mei 2016 om 14:48 heeft Peter Baumann
> >
> het volgende 

[OSGeo-Discuss] Incubation, osgeo-EU and FOSS4G

[Massimiliano Cannata]

Sorry for cross-posting but these recent topics (which took place on
different lists) took myself to reflect about our foundation.


Summary of the long mail below (for those who don't have time go trough :-D
)

=

DISCUSSION: only a small number of people take part to the discussions, why?

INCUBATION: we care about high quality, long term sustainable and reliable
solutions, who cares of governance models?

BUSINESS AND OSGEO(EU): we are a foundation of people not of companies, we
don't have to do business!

FOSS4G CONFERENCES: fees are a barrier, we are building exclusive events
rather then being inclusive, who care about revenue!


More explanation of my thoughts (for those who have time to spend and go
deeper :-o )

==

I'm an environmental engineer and thus far from being a rigorous
informatics or an economist or a social science expert. Nevertheless in
these last 20 years (from Bangkok to Seoul without missing a single one) I
had the opportunity to met those words, make some experience and learn a
bit.
That's to say that i do not have the truth in my pockets and I'm open to
change my view.

DISCUSSIONS
First a small consideration, those topics are discussed by a small number
of people with respect of the total members of our community. It means that
A) the arguments are not of high interest B) silent people are shy and do
not feel to be in the position to add value to the conversation C) people
think it is a waste of time.
This is often happening and my impression is that people just don't care to
much of these 'political' issues but only of technical matters.

INCUBATION
My understanding is that OSGeo trough the incubation process aims at
guarantee high quality, long term sustainable and reliable solutions to
show that FOSS Geospatial technology is valuable and credible. In this view
the governance model adopted (PSC, dictator or whatever) is of secondary
importance to me as long as the software respond to the above mentioned
requisites. I personally prefer clear process rather then open-in-words but
fake-in-fact rules.

BUSINESS AND OSGEO(EU)
OSGeo is an organisation of people. Not of sectors or groups or parties. Of
course people belong to categories and this tend to influence the way they
see the world. For this reason people tend to contribute to the community
for their competence and interest within committees or working groups. It
is not the mandate of OSGeo making lobbies or acquire mandates. To
me OSGeo should get together great projects and people to offer the world
the possibility of advance and improve the life of people. I know It is a
bit exaggerated but when i think of open source i see it as a mean of
equity: like making  accessible food and sanitation and drinking water and
medicine to everyone in the world. Making tools for a better governance
available to all.
OSGeo is about mutually sharing experiences, ideas, solutions not building
business. For this LocationTech which is a community of companies /
entities I understood is more suited.
So my vision is OSGeo focused on people not on companies or groups.
Splitting the community is not an advancement but a loss of value.

FOSS4G CONFERENCES
This is the momentum. Here i have always get inspiration from listening
talks, discussing with people, talking with friends. It used to be a very
inclusive event: the peak of the FOSS4G iceberg. I'm saying "it use to be"
because prices are year by year growing so much that today they represent a
barrier. I would have liked to came with 5 people from my group but this is
simply not economically sustainable: as a result the younger will lose this
opportunity to join the community and breath the breeze of Open innovation.
If i compare FOSS4G prices (rate per day) with other comparable events they
are higher. I personally don't need fancy locations and I am more
interested in involving more people rather then having high revenue for the
foundation. I want to meet students, people from low income countries,
small companies, start-up. Let's find a way to be Open..


MAY THE FOSS BE WITH YOU !
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