Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
+1 for dues. I would sign up. On Jun 23, 2014, at 10:36 AM, Howard Butler how...@hobu.co wrote: On Jun 23, 2014, at 9:25 AM, Bart van den Eijnden bart...@osgis.nl wrote: Good food for thought Howard, can’t say I disagree with anything you say here. The only thing we need to consider is that for some countries 50 or 70 USD can still be a lot of money Yes. Something equitable could be arrived at. Let the membership committee come up with the membership dues rules. I would assume there's student memberships, grants, etc. GSDI bases membership dues on the gross national per capita income. They do this for organizations, but there's no reason not to do it for individuals. They use the World Bank data for this. See http://www.gsdi.org/fullmemshp for details. Allan ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
On Jun 23, 2014, at 12:40 PM, Mr. Puneet Kishor punk.k...@gmail.com wrote: On Jun 23, 2014, at 6:08 PM, Howard Butler how...@hobu.co wrote: Do you lose a significant benefit by not being a Charter Member? Just the ability to vote for the board and the ability to tout your exclusivity on a vita/resume. Anything else? Lack of membership does not prevent anyone from participating now, and we wouldn't want it to (unlike many other professional organizations). I don't lose anything significant, which implies that everything significant I gain from OSGeo's community is unaffected by my membership. This is one of the reasons I don't attend foss4g anymore (actually, mainly because I can't afford to do so). I will still support all the community ideals and aspirations to the fullest possible. In short, I consider this both my vote for membership dues and the concurrent renunciation of my membership as a result. A membership is two-sided. You might not have a different experience as a non-member, but the organization may suffer. So unless you're upset at the turn of the discussion, it may be premature to renunciate your membership. Allan ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] The OSGeo response to the proposed GeoServices REST API document [was: Would you be concerned ...]
Thanks Adrian for your email with your reasoned explanation. It's not often people take the time to provide such a thorough analysis. On May 9, 2013, at 1:56 PM, Adrian Custer acus...@gmail.com wrote: On 5/9/13 2:33 PM, Tim Bowden wrote: On Thu, 2013-05-09 at 13:20 -0300, Adrian Custer wrote: Hey Cameron, all, ... * The letter is only rejection of the proposal without offering an alternative way forwards. I strongly suspect the proposed standard would have received a much better reception from the broader OSGeo community (with the diverse viewpoints it typically has) if the proposal was more that a take it or leave it (partial?) description of what ESRI has done and is going to do anyway. Undoubtedly. This was as undiplomatic as they could have been. If there was at least some willingness to engage with the broader community on interoperability within the standard (and how do you have interoperability if you aren't willing to budge from a pre-defined position anyway?). And there would have been more participation at the OGC. Lots of folk were excited at the start but gave up when backwards compatibility was set in stone. Perhaps ESRI didn't realise their approach was going to come across with an up you attitude (or maybe they did)? The impression I've got it that many people feel ESRI is treating the OGC as a rubber stamp body (which very much implies arrogant contempt) regardless of the merits of the proposal. Much more likely, ESRI is trying to push through its standard, distinct from expecting the OGC to 'rubber stamp' it. They knew from the get go they were going to face this opposition. The only question is who is stronger. This is a good example of the limits of governance at the OGC. Really, a standard should not pass when there is concerted opposition to it. The process is designed to suspend when there is opposition (2 no votes), in an effort to build consensus. However, the ultimate decision is still a 50% + 1 vote; probably, it should be a super-majority of some kind. Having attended most of the first 50-ish OGC meetings and then a few here and there since, here's my perspective on the limits of governance. The problem is not so much the process (or wasn't, back in the day, it's become much more byzantine since then). The main problem is that most TC members either have no programming/architecture background or their expertise is fairly specialized. That means that for any given proposal, a small percentage of the members really understand it. Then, when it comes to a TC vote you have people voting based not strictly on technical grounds but also on business interests, political interests, even social interests. On top of that, I don't think that member companies are very knowledgeable about the policies and procedures and don't really know how to use their memberships to their best advantage. Taken together, this can lead to some fairly dysfunctional results. I believe that the Architecture Board (or whatever it's called now) was established in part to counter this effect. You'd have a bunch of knowledgable old hands benevolently watching over the output of the process who were going to make sure things hang together from a technical point of view. Perhaps the Architecture Board has been unable to provide sufficient guidance to the TC in this particular instance. Hopefully I've got it wrong and ESRI really just botched their approach on this one (why do I feel this is naive wishful thinking?). FWIW, I don't believe having an alternate incompatible standard must of itself be a deal breaker, if the proposed standard genuinely represents a viable attempt at interoperability. After all, the wonderful thing about standards is there are so many to choose from. ;) Lets just not pretend it's about genuine interoperability unless that really is the case. I doubt anyone is that naive. In the end, everyone wins if specs are vendor neutral but also allow vendors to differentiate themselves by providing different qualities in their implementations. If a spec is passed that is simply a thin veneer on top of an existing vendor's implementation, then that vendor has a head start over others. If the OGC members are collectively unwilling or unable to push back against this, then this kind of thing is the result. It's really a Darwinian microcosm within a mutually agreed upon set of rules. If the results are irrelevant, confusing, or outrageous, then over time the organization will suffer and become less relevant. Allan Regards, Tim Bowden cheers, ~adrian ___ 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] Re: postgis vs osx sleep
I think this non-sleep is just a Mac issue. I and others I know have experienced it without having PostGIS or any other geo software installed. It's pretty rare. I think it's happened to me twice in the last 2-3 years. The results from this search don't implicate PostgreSQL: http://www.google.com/search?client=safarirls=enq=macbook+doesn't+sleep+when+closedie=UTF-8oe=UTF-8 Allan On May 9, 2010, at 11:49 AM, P Kishor wrote: On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 10:35 AM, William Kyngesburye wokl...@kyngchaos.com wrote: I've had Postgres on my MacBook for years, across 3 system versions, and I haven't had problems with mysterious waking. .. I have been running Pg (since v 8.3.x to the latest) on my Macbook, always compiled from source code. No insomnia problems here as well. On May 9, 2010, at 2:38 AM, Jody Garnett wrote: I was unable to get the indicated installer working; will report back if I learn anything :-( On 09/05/2010, at 5:01 PM, Jody Garnett wrote: I just tried cooking my laptop after working with postgis for a bit. After throwing it into a laptop bag I was surprised to find the bag chirp at me; after 30mins. Turns out postgres was keeping it running; and running in a confined space is not the best idea. After a bit of a cool down I found the following: - http://cutedgesystems.com/weblog/index.php?entry=/Technology/PostgreSQLInstaller.txt Jody -- Puneet Kishor ___ 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] Software Copyright ownership
On Dec 13, 2009, at 7:26 PM, Christopher Schmidt wrote: [...] My private opinion on this issue is pretty clear: Move your Copyright to OSGeo - all of it including trademarks, logos and designs. That is what OSGeo is there for. Get it out of corporate reach, it is none of their business (great analogy, hehe). Is their any advantage of keeping the Copyright under a private property? Depends. There may be more trust in some private properties than others. So far as I'm aware, OGC is a private property, you you argue that putting KML under OGC was a good thing. OSGeo is also a private property. It is a foundation, managed by an elected board -- but so are most companies. (OSgeo isn't even, so far as I know, a registered nonprofit organization at this time.) What makes OSGeo a better steward for code than organizations which have managed code for years -- or in the cases of some projects, decades? What I get back from corporate users of Open Source software these days is the same, they would rather have the Copyright sit with a (real) non-profit like OSGeo than anything else. How is OSGeo a real non-profit? I don't see a strong reason to change the methods of projects that have successfully managed many years of code contributions. The best people to make those decisions are people who have successfully managed those projects. It's great that OSGeo now feels comfortable managing the copyright of projects, but it's not clear to me what that actually means. Who is the person who controls the copyright? Who makes decisions about how it is managed -- and what happens if someone disagrees with those decisions? I think that it would be lovely to create an environment where projects feel that giving copyright over to OSGeo makes their lives -- as project managers -- easier. I'm not convinced that is currently the case; the lack of obvious documentation on how projects should give copyright to OSGeo, and what it means when it happens, seems to me like it creates a void in which projects might feel uncomfortable about giving copyright to OSGeo, for fear of what that might mean. Improving that, through solid documentation, seems a great first step in making projects feel more comfortable with that process; this is certainly true for me as a contributor to OpenLayers. I am not a lawyer. But here's some info I believe is largely correct. Regarding keeping the copyright in a non-profit -- in the US, a 501(c)(3) has no owners, there is no stock, and as such, all the assets of the corporation are retained within the corporation under the control of the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors can either (a) disposes of the assets or (b) dissolve the Corporation. Disposing of the assets must be done in a way that doesn't benefit individual directors, their families, or close associates. (OSGeo has this spelled out in its Certificate of Incorporation in Article X [1]) Dissolving the Corporation must be done as spelled out in either the Bylaws or the Articles of Incorporation (in something known as a dissolution clause) and essentially involves turning the assets over to another 501(c)(3). (OSGeo has such a clause in Article IX [1]) Disposing of assets could take the form of a sale to a private party, with the proceeds going to the Corporation. But I would think that the Board of Directors would have to document how that advances the non-profit purpose of the Corporation. Now back to opinion. In any case, I suspect that there's plenty of room for a Board of Directors to do the wrong thing with any asset (copyrights, property, cash, etc), either intentionally or unintentionally without getting in trouble, simply because no one notices. If someone disagrees with a decision taken by the Board, I don't think there is any recourse as long as the Board didn't do anything illegal. If someone thinks the Board is about to do something he or she disagrees with, that person would have to try to influence that action by following the rules in the Bylaws [2] to either change the composition of the Board, remove one or more Board members, or get enough support to make the Board think either of those things might happen and thus decide not to do something that would cause the individual to take action. (Assuming, of course that simply appealing to the Board to not take the action didn't work). This is the stuff of boardroom dramas that you read about in the news... with any luck at all, OSGeo noodles along as one big happy family. But it's good to know what the legal parameters are. Allan [1] http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/incorporation/osgeo_certificate.pdf [2] http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/incorporation/bylaws.html ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Software Copyright ownership
Oops. One more bit about this. On Dec 14, 2009, at 1:06 PM, Allan Doyle wrote: On Dec 13, 2009, at 7:26 PM, Christopher Schmidt wrote: [...] My private opinion on this issue is pretty clear: Move your Copyright to OSGeo - all of it including trademarks, logos and designs. That is what OSGeo is there for. Get it out of corporate reach, it is none of their business (great analogy, hehe). Is their any advantage of keeping the Copyright under a private property? Depends. There may be more trust in some private properties than others. So far as I'm aware, OGC is a private property, you you argue that putting KML under OGC was a good thing. OSGeo is also a private property. It is a foundation, managed by an elected board -- but so are most companies. (OSgeo isn't even, so far as I know, a registered nonprofit organization at this time.) What makes OSGeo a better steward for code than organizations which have managed code for years -- or in the cases of some projects, decades? Once again - I'm not a lawyer... OSGeo is a non-profit by virtue of the way it was incorporated. The IRS ruling that's in progress is not to decide whether or not it's a non-profit. It's to decide whether it's a public charity or a foundation, each being specific legal terms that affect the rules under which it operates. If the organization fails to secure an IRS ruling after a certain amount of time, I think it defaults to foundation unless its annual income is under $25,000. But both forms are 501(c)(3), and in any case, it is bound to operate under the provisions of the certificate of incorporation and the bylaws. Allan ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] OGC geospatial rights mgt. summit
On Jun 1, 2009, at 12:20 PM, Landon Blake wrote: Doesn't the USGS already release a ton of data in the public domain? I also thought an organization interested in standards for geospatial data might be interested in geospatial data licensing. They seem like parallel tracks. OSGeo, OGC, GSDI, and probably other organizations all present different views into dealing with data. Aligning with any of these has its pluses and minuses. I think it boils down to where the inertia is. If there seems to be a current lack of intensity, then one interpretation is that there hasn't been enough critical mass in any one place to achieve the intensity. Depending on the organization, some of the energy put into moving the topic forward may have to be used to counter other interests within that organization. Thus, one approach is to assess where to best apply positive energy without having to counter lots of resistance. Maybe that place is within Science Commons itself. Allan Landon Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268 Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658 -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Ian Turton Sent: Saturday, May 30, 2009 1:53 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Cc: punk...@eidesis.org Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] OGC geospatial rights mgt. summit On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 7:09 PM, Landon Blake lbl...@ksninc.com wrote: How about OGC support for the Science Commons work on a public domain or creative commons type license for geospatial data. That's not going to happen. OGC has many national mapping agencies as members and USGS and OS are never going to allow this. Plus it isn't any of the OGC's business as to what sort of licenses are used on data. Ian ___ 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 -- Allan Doyle Director of Technology MIT Museum | http://web.mit.edu/museum | +1.617.452.2111 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] End of life for Community Mapbuilder
Architect Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Commercial Support for Geospatial Open Source Solutions http://www.lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts.html ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Allan Doyle Director of Technology MIT Museum | http://web.mit.edu/museum | +1.617.452.2111 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo Fundraising
Regarding the income side of the budget, I recommend looking at IRS form 8734 [1], which will have to be filled out at the end of the 5th year of being a 501(c)(3) organization. OSGeo will have to pass the public support test of getting at least 33% of its support from public sources. That 33%, if I recall correctly must be made up of donations of $5000 or less. That means $35,000 in chunks smaller than 5K for the budget shown. I think this is why Creative Commons had that huge donation push a couple of years ago, when they realized they were about to bump into that. It can be far harder to get a lot of little donations than a few big ones. If OSGeo fails the test, it can cause some major tax and reporting headaches. Better to think about it now and build it into the fundraising. Allan [1] http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i8734.pdf and http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8734.pdf On Jun 16, 2008, at 12:19 PM, Frank Warmerdam wrote: Landon Blake wrote: Another thing I've been curious about is how any funds raised will be spent or dispersed. I know we need to pay Tyler's salary. What other things do we need to pay for? Do we help fund the FOSS4G conference? Do we fund work/infrastructure for specific projects? I'd like to learn more about this. I think a web page geared towards potential contributors with a concise explanation of how duns are spent would be an aid to fundraising efforts, if we will ever have any. Landon, The 2008 budget might help you see what we plan to spend money on. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Budget_2008 Hopefully the 2007 annual report will be finished soon, and it will include a financial report on spending during 2007. Best regards, -- --- +-- I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, [EMAIL PROTECTED] light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam and watch the world go round - Rush| President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Allan Doyle Director of Technology MIT Museum +1.617.452.2111 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] GeoJSON 1.0 Release Announcement
http://wiki.geojson.org/Users On Jun 16, 2008, at 3:49 PM, Guillaume Sueur wrote: Hi Chris, Would you have a list of the 20 applications ? thanks ! Guillaume Christopher Schmidt a écrit : The GeoJSON Authors are proud to announce the finalization of the GeoJSON 1.0 Specification. Representing more than a year's worth of community discussion and development, the GeoJSON specification describes an easy to use, extensible format for transferring geographic data over the web. With support in more than 20 different applications, GeoJSON is already quickly becoming a de facto standard for transferring geographic data in a JSON format. The finalization of the spec represents the final step in formalizing the GeoJSON format for encoding this data. More information on GeoJSON can be found at http://geojson.org/ , or from the GeoJSON mailing list at http://lists.geojson.org/listinfo.cgi/geojson-geojson.org . Regards, ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Allan Doyle Director of Technology MIT Museum +1.617.452.2111 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Voting for new OSGeo Charter Members open until6th June 2008
Same here. I can't see leaving three out in the cold. By the way, I think it may be time for me to retire from Charter Member status since my geo-being has changed to the point where I'm pretty far removed from the OSGeo mainstream (no, I'm not using proprietary software!). Allan On May 30, 2008, at 4:32 PM, Steve Lime wrote: Looking at the list I was thinking the exact same thing and would support a blanket invitation as well... Steve On 5/30/2008 at 3:16 PM, in message [EMAIL PROTECTED], P Kishor [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 3:41 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: dear all, The list of nominations for new OSGeo Charter Members is here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/New_Member_Nominations_2008 From today until the end of Friday 6th June 2008, votes for 15 new Charter Members are being accepted at [EMAIL PROTECTED] This is a great list. Each one of those listed would be (well, already is) a great asset to the OSGeo cause and community. There are only 18 on that list, so that means 3 will be left out. My vote? Charter-ify all 18 of them. * Only Charter Members are eligible to vote! * Please email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a list of names 15 lines long (one vote per new member slot) * Votes can be for 15 different people, or the same person 15 times, or any balance in between. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2008 has more links. Charter Members are responsible for electing the Board of the OSGeo Foundation. The initial group of Charter Members was the 25 people in the Free and Open Source Geospatial community who attended the startup meeting of the Foundation in Chicago on 4th Feb. 2006 This group later selected another 20 Charter Members and they in turn elected the first complete Board in the summer of 2006. In 2007 another 15 Charter Members were elected to the Foundation (one stood down). The current list is at http://www.osgeo.org/charter_members http://www.osgeo.org/membership explains why the Charter Membership exists, basically as an attempt to guarantee the ongoing integrity of the Board as representative of the community at large. This is seen as more stable, and less liable to hijack, than granting a vote in exchange for payment (like the OpenStreetmap Foundation) or in exchange for measurable contribution (like Wikimedia's Foundation) This year's nominations again, for those who read this far: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/New_Member_Nominations_2008 jo -- ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Allan Doyle Director of Technology MIT Museum +1.617.452.2111 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] AAG Boston Social Next Week
There was a proposal to host an event at the MIT Museum, but that never got anywhere. There is an interesting meeting that's happening on the 14th - http://liftlab.com/think/fabien There is a pub at MIT, the Muddy Charles - http://web.mit.edu/muddy/hours.html but to show up in large numbers requires getting there before 5 or so. If people go to the talk, that means heading to the Muddy right afterwards. (I'm not sure I can make it to the Adam Greenfield talk yet, I'm trying to rearrange my schedule.) Allan On Apr 10, 2008, at 8:07 AM, Lucena, Ivan wrote: Alex, I am nearby, Central-Mass. I wasn't planning to go to AAG but if there is some OSGeo stuff event that I can attend I might change my plans. Regards, Ivan Alex Mandel wrote: So any progress planning an OSGeo social next week for the AAG in Boston. I know we've got at least 10 people to bring together (at least 5 from UC Davis). Even just picking a hang out for one night would be cool, although you had mentioned MIT before... What do the locals say? Alex ___ 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 -- Allan Doyle Director of Technology MIT Museum +1.617.452.2111 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] NASA meeting end of April
Another good place to introduce OSGeo to NASA is the ESIP Federation, where I think a number of OSGeo folks are already active. Their next meeting is in July in New Hampshire. http://esipfed.org/events (ignore the date typo, the 2007 there should be 2008...) Allan On Jan 18, 2008, at 9:40 AM, Ned Horning wrote: Greetings - I'll give the “standard process” for announcing possible OSGeo events suggested by Arnulf a try. If there is interest I'll create a Proposed Event Wiki page. NASA is holding their bi-annual Carbon Cycle and Ecosystem Joint Science Workshop April 28-May 2 in College Park Maryland: http://cce.nasa.gov/meeting_2008/ This event would be an excellent opportunity to introduce OSGeo to NASA and it's funded researchers. It will be well attended and I think this NASA community is ripe for learning more about OSGeo. This is potentially an important community since NASA is funding researchers that develop software but it's often not developed within open source communities even though there is an increase in the use of open source software. My gut feeling is that the reason for this is that many folks are not familiar with what open source is all about and they are not aware of the great resources out there. If folks are interested in pursuing this I will do what I can to facilitate OSGeo involvement. I'm not certain if I will be able to attend and even if I do it would be good to have someone involved who is more adept at advocating for OSGeo than me. All the best, Ned ___ 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 Technology Group, Inc. announces PostGIS UMN MapServer Training
+1 on no advertising or announcements on this list. I agree that it may sound churlish to stop good organizations from sending good information to good people; I also agree that allowing it would diminish the usefulness of this list. If the web page of offerings is not enough, then maybe set up a separate list for that kind of thing. +1 on Arnulf's analysis of freely provided course materials. MIT started the Open Course Ware (OCW) movement a few years ago[1] and it certainly has not cut back on MIT's ability to attract customers, i.e. students. In fact, it has spawned a mini-industry of other universities putting their materials online[2]. Allan [1] http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm [2] http://www.ocwconsortium.org/index.php?option=com_contenttask=viewid=12Itemid=26 On Jan 18, 2008, at 7:58 AM, Arnulf Christl wrote: Howard Butler wrote: On Jan 17, 2008, at 1:34 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote: If you were to lead the development of this material and put it into the Open Source (with your name attached) this would give you extra credibility and marketing reach. Why? Why must OTG put their hard earned training materials in the public domain and give them away for free for extra credibility? What would then be the incentive for someone to pay $$$ to go to an intensive training session? Entrepreneurs, we have thoroughly analyzed this aspect over the past years and come to the conclusion that publishing course material openly is not detrimental to earning money. Quite the contrary it even helps us making more business. The added value is generated at several levels including both hard cash and marketing (find out details below). As active FOSSGIS software contributors we are happy to foster and promote the projects that we are involved with. In some cases (for example MapServer and PostGIS) this is the only way that we can give back our 2Ct contribution. To better understand the involved factors we have studied uses cases in detail. First we have grouped our clients into three distinct categories who *use* our course material, these are: * Experts * Students * Professionals Then we have identified three distinct groups who *profit* from having course material released under an open and free license. These are: * Clients (~users, as categorized above) * Creators (for example the WhereGroup or Chandler OTG who produce Intellectual Property) * the FOSSGIS project and communities that are in the focus of the training material (here MapServer and PostGIS). A multidimensional matrix would probably make this transparent but unfortunately I am too dumb to create it and will need to use words to explain the dependencies. 1. Real Experts (hackers, nerds, freaks). They would never pay for our courses because they are too damn smart. They wont offer courses themselves (which would be detrimental to our business) because it would bore them to death. But they still profit from having access to material because it will speed up understanding the corresponding FOSSGIS project. This will make them choose this project one over another one because good developers are also lazy. This is good for the FOSSGIS project and community because those people listen to what those real experts have to say, recommend, etc. Hard to measure - but unquestionably there. 2. Students. They will not be able to pay our rates anyway, so we do not loose anything if we give them the material for free. Quite the contrary, when those students leave school and come into a position where they have to decide where to go - who you'r gonna ask - Ghostbusters. This is a long term strategy that only market leaders can follow. Corporations Besides that students can potentially also enhance the course material, keep it up to date, etc. But only if it is available under a FOSS license, etc. This currently does not happen because universities and educational personnel are still in the late sixties wrt their knowledge about Open Source but so what. We have to be patient. Eventually the old farts who don't get it will be replaced by those that we have helped educate with our freely available course material and Bingo! If you lock your training material away and treat it as Intellectual Property you will be the only idiot who invests keeping it up to date. Why not exploit those who are prepared to give (FOSS4G 08, Keynote by Damian Conway)? 3. Professionals: Those are the ones that pay us money. They have a problem on their hand, a budget to solve it and limited time. These are the ones we love, we live off them. They would never bother to try and learn by themselves with freely available material because they have the resources to do it professionally and get somebody to explain it to them. They don't have the time to learn it by themselves. If they don't have the budget, they are not interesting to us
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Association of American Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting
Chris Schmidt is starting up OSGeo Boston, and this would be a great project for us to do. We're having our first meeting tonight, we can put it on the agenda! Allan On Oct 17, 2007, at 13:30 , Alex Mandel wrote: I think this is a great opportunity for OSGeo to reach a wider audience of general users. As and organization I think we should consider having a 'vendor' booth in the exhibit hall, running a workshop, and maybe an organized session. I'll volunteer to help with whatever we pick to do. The meeting is April 15-19 2008 in Boston, but paper submission are due by the end of this month. Note, they make you pay for the conference before you submit because you are guaranteed to talk(as far as I can tell). Alex -- Call for Papers 2008 Annual Meeting of the AAG The AAG Annual Meeting accepts all submitted abstracts for presentation. If you have any questions about these guidelines please direct them to Oscar Larson at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Abstracts must be submitted online at www.aag.org/annualmeeting between August 1, 2007, and October 31, 2007. * Presentations * Abstracts * Organized Sessions * Program Committee Organized Sessions * Requirements for Participation * Enrichment Funds * Workshops Field Trips * Disclaimer --- http://www.aag.org/annualmeetings/2008/papers.htm ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Allan Doyle Director of Technology MIT Museum +1.617.452.2111 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: [Aust-NZ] Geospatial Events Calendar?
There's another at http://www.esa.int/esaCP/index_Calendar.html I thought setting up a calendar would be a good idea at one point, too. Then I saw how many are out there already, and the enormity of the task sunk in. Not only are there a lot of calendars out there, but many events are already on many of the calendars. But they are on there with metadata that was interpreted by the calendar keeper from the source material about the conference. It's ironic that this is essentially the same kind of thing that plagues the geo data world. Lots of datasets get shipped around, slowly losing their ties to the source data set as people use and reuse the data. The ideal solution is the same. Standardized metadata attached to the source material in a crawlable way. Make sure the catalogs (in this case, calendars) retain pointers to the source material. Allan On Oct 14, 2007, at 23:43 , [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Cameron, The GSDI people maintain a list of conferences at: http://www.gsdi.org/events/upcnf.asp This may help. Bruce Cameron Shorter [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 15/10/2007 01:16 PM To OSGeo Discussions discuss@lists.osgeo.org cc Aust-NZ OSGeo [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject [Aust-NZ] Geospatial Events Calendar? Has anyone set up (and maintaining) a Geospatial Events Calendar? Ideally one that I can import into my Google Calendar. It would be useful for picking future OSGeo conference dates that don't clash. -- Cameron Shorter Systems Architect, http://lisasoft.com.au Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 ___ Aust-NZ mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/aust-nz Notice: This email and any attachments may contain information that is personal, confidential, legally privileged and/or copyright. No part of it should be reproduced, adapted or communicated without the prior written consent of the copyright owner. It is the responsibility of the recipient to check for and remove viruses. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender by return email, delete it from your system and destroy any copies. You are not authorised to use, communicate or rely on the information contained in this email. Please consider the environment before printing this email. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Allan Doyle Director of Technology MIT Museum +1.617.452.2111 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] GEO task on Open Source
Looking at http://www.earthobservations.org/docs/WP0709.v4.pdf - page 29, I see that Brazil has been assigned this task: = CB-07-01e: Open Source Software This Task is led by Brazil. Encourage use of open source solutions across/along the Earth observation value chain through the development of an inventory of OSS solutions that could be used within GEO. Make this inventory and identified open source solutions available through the GEO Web portal. Encourage the development of open source solutions across/along the Earth observation value chain by building on existing efforts and drawing on networks of OSS developers. As a starting point, use the TerraView and Terralib platform to encourage the development of open source software for end users dealing with integrated Earth observation and GIS data. = Do we know who's doing this and is the Brazil GEO team aware of OSGeo? See http://www.earthobservations.org/index.html for more info on GEO. Allan -- Allan Doyle +1.781.433.2695 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo Journal Now Available
Thanks Tyler - this is fantastic! I'm learning a lot already, reading through it. It would be good to clarify the copyright on the journal. Right now, on page 70, it says all articles are copyrighted by the respective authors, and that's probably as it should be. But it's unclear how anyone could reproduce copies of the journal. For instance, is it ok to post a copy on another web site? Is it ok to print 5 copies for a small office? Could the UN print and mail copies to a number of field offices? Can copies be distributed on a CD? etc. etc. I think this could be solved with a CC-Attribution-NoDerivs or maybe the non-commercial version of that license that covers the entire journal issue. (I can't look up the real CC license version, their site seems to be suffering some malady right now). Then people could print entire copies but would have to get permission from the authors to make copies of individual articles. Allan On May 15, 2007, at 10:54, Tyler Mitchell wrote: It is my pleasure to announce that Volume 1 of the OSGeo Journal is now available for your reading pleasure! http://www.osgeo.org/journal/volume1 This is the first volume of the new Journal and includes many interesting articles, news and updates from our open source communities. We already have some content ready for Volume 2 and have learned many lessons along the way that will help the next volume be even better. A big thanks to the editorial team for their hard work in pulling it all together and to all the great contributions we received from writers, developers, users and project teams. I'm excited to see that we can promote projects, educate readers and provide news/info all in our own professional publication. I hope you enjoy it! Sincerely, Tyler p.s. Please note that the Journal has an official ISSN number (1994-1897) that you can cite in your formal bibliographic references. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Allan Doyle +1.781.433.2695 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Liability protection project - call for participants
Thanks for bringing this to our attention, it's a topic that has renewed relevance. From the sound of it, OSGeo itself has too many eggs in its basket to risk having them broken by providing a shield. But that ought not stop geo-foss developers from either joining up with Bruce's idea or from setting up a geo-clone of that idea. Ideally, the legal issues would only have to be worked out once, and everyone who wanted could join the shield. There's nothing inherently different about geo in this case, is there? Allan On May 14, 2007, at 23:32, Frank Warmerdam wrote: Folks, Bruce Perens is a luminary in the open source world, and known as a founder of the Debian project, and author of the Free Software Definition - a foundational document for the concept of OSI approved open source licenses. Bruce Perens wrote: A long time ago we planned for SPI to protect Debian developers from liability connected with their development of Free Software. That never came to fruition. With the sword-rattling going on by various patent holders, it's a goal even more worth carrying out today. Some of us have homes, and other property that we would rather not place at risk of any lawsuit connected with our Free Software activities. The way to do that is to act as a volunteer on the behalf of a non- profit corporation, with the corporation assuming your liability. It is possible to insure you against those risks, but it's much more expensive - potentially 1.5 to 2.5 percent of your net worth per year per member. It's better to put the risk in the lap of an entity that doesn't own anything. We can potentially do it at zero cost to the member that way. There is a downside. If you work on behalf of such an entity, you would have to agree to act at their direction, which means acting responsbily on their behalf, by not doing stupid stuff that obviously increases the corporation's risk of being sued. This doesn't really have to do with practical software, but with what some consider freedom-of-speech issues like obscentity or hate speech. For that reason, this would be strictly opt-in. It would not be directly associated with SPI or Debian, because we could never get all of the DDs to agree about this, and because SPI owns property that we do not want to expose to liability. Copyrights of software produced would be assigned to a non-profit like FSF or SPI* I am asking for current free software authors in the United States who would be interested in being protected from liability, and would join me in a request to the Software Freedom Law Center to assist us by creating such an entity. If you would like to do that, please reply to me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Further discussion will be carried out separately from SPI and Debian lists. Thanks Bruce * There should also be limits on how much software a single non- profit has in its risk pool, this is a good question for SFLC. At the time it was founded, OSGeo also had a goal to provide legal resources, and perhaps assume legal liability for developers of OSGeo project. This is not a role that OSGeo has worked to address since founding, and it is unclear how much liability it would be willing to assume. I've asked Bruce for more information on his efforts, either with an eye towards OSGeo fulfilling this role of legal liability shield for developers, or possibly with the idea of addressing this via some separate entity such as the one he envisages establishing. I'm interested in others thoughts on the importance of the role of legal liability shield. Such thoughts would be well expressed here on OSGeo discuss. Bruce is also interested in other open source software developers expressing interest in his effort to help justify forming a corporation. You can contact him as noted above. Best regards, -- --- +-- I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, [EMAIL PROTECTED] light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam and watch the world go round - Rush| President OSGeo, http:// osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Allan Doyle +1.781.433.2695 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Free
On Mar 5, 2007, at 13:26, Frank Warmerdam wrote: ross s wrote: Just to add a bit more spice to the discussion. I think the root problem here is a definition amoung open source purists. Jeff Thurston has added some interesting points to his blog (below). --- So? is your ?free? more pure than my ?free?? Is there a ?free-o- meter? or something about? Folks, Yes, there is a free-o-meter. If the licensing of software meetings the requirements of the open source definition then the software is free (in the open source sense). Otherwise it is just not. I have no problem with workshops about mixing free (aka open source) and proprietary software. Lots and lots of foss software works with Oracle, so show that link in action! But I don't feel the conference should have substantial content that is strictly proprietary without so much as an open source fig-leaf. The lack of understanding of what we mean by free just demonstrates the need for additional outreach by OSGeo. +1 See also: http://zcologia.com/news/390/deliberately-obtuse/ Free-o-meter: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html -- Allan Doyle +1.781.433.2695 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Free
On Mar 5, 2007, at 14:27, Paul Ramsey wrote: Au contraire, you'll find the GPL and LGPL duly listed as OSI- approved licenses here: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ While the free folks might not like the flexibility displayed by the open source movement, they can be fully subsumed from a licensing point-of-view, if not an advocacy point-of-view. On Mar 5, 2007, at 14:33, Ned Horning wrote: The FSF can't exist under the Open Source umbrella because they feel some Open Source does not guarantee Freedom over time. The Open Source people can't exist under the Free umbrella because they feel the GPL and its variants are too restrictive. Okay, this is the part I don't get. What part of the FSF can't be included as open source? To me this sounds like a square saying it can't be a rectangle since all of its side have the same length. I think of open source as embracing a broad spectrum of licenses including all of those supported by the FSF. Should I not be looking at this from a licensing perspective? I stand corrected by Paul from a license point of view. But I believe that licenses such as the MIT license http://opensource.org/licenses/ mit-license.php which are non-viral in that they do not require that derived works themselves be open source are philosophically at odds with the Free Software Foundation's ideals. Thus to me Free is not a subset of Open Source because the latter does not guarantee Freedom in perpetuity. That is what makes people think of FSF as a bunch of radical communists, but I think they are pretty staunch defenders of a freedom that we would be loathe to lose. Allan -- Allan Doyle +1.781.433.2695 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
