Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 2015 Charter Member elections
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Vasile, thanks from here too for this very useful recap. I posted it more or less verbatim to the discussion page of the Charter Members article in the Wiki: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Talk:Membership_Process All, on the OSGeo Wiki we currently have 605 self categorized OSGeo members: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Category:OSGeo_Member This is the best we can currently do for anybody who is interested in becoming an OSGeo member apart from subscribing to the Discuss mailing list or being nominated as a Charter Member to be then elected by an eclectic group of geospatial whizzes. Just to reiterate: Charter Members are usually those who set up the charter of an organization: A charter member of an organization is an original member; that is, one who became a member when the organization received its charter. - From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter After signing the Charter they can continue to participate actively in the organization, go away or even die - without any of this actually changing the Charter. What is OSGeo's Charter? My guess is that the section About the Open Source Geospatial Foundation contains what we would consider our Charter. As a legal body incorporated in Delaware, USA we needed to implement how the newly founded organization should support this charter. This has been written into the bylaws: http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/incorporation/bylaws.html In ARTICLE VII Members of our bylaws we specify how we plan to manage membership. There is no talk of Charter Members, just members. Looking at what we did almost 10 years ago it was probably the right thing to do at that time. But it may be good for an update. My suggestion is to change this section into regular membership and remove the self-pollinating aspect. At the same time we could update our About section into a proper Charter and then go ahead and operate as any regular member association. On a personal note: I do not see any danger of a hostile take-over. This was an important catch we put into the DNA of OSGeo when we founded it. There never was a hostile take-over and I cannot really see it coming. We are big enough to not need to fear this anymore. And we would make OSGeo a much more open and welcoming organization if we moved away from this somewhat strange self pollinating system. I am not really passionate about this and only consider it an overdue maintenance patch to how OSGeo functions. If there is no broad interest I am happy to drop the ball, otherwise I am as happy to help build a more appropriate member mechanism. Best regards, Seven - -- Arnulf Christl (OSGeo) OSGeo President Emeritus OSGeo Founding and Charter Member http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Arnulf_Christl On 30.06.2015 13:24, Gert-Jan van der Weijden - Stichting OSGeo.nl wrote: Vasile: thanks for this very useful recap. A few remarks from a relative newbie as I am ;-) - the name of the wiki page with the charter members is already called voting members ;-) - the charter member list grows and grows. Over the year only 1 person retired from the charter member list - charter membership seems to drift towards a title of honour, instead of a mechanism for proper board elections and prevent a hostile take-over - the voting participant rate for the board elections is low over the years: 70% - 85%. I would expect 100%! Therefore, I'd suggest a voting membership with: - a fixed number of seats (e.g. 72) - with a certain numbers of seats reserved for each region [51], (e.g. 6*6, and thus 36 remaining wildcard-seats). - in case of not enough candidates, or note enough votes for a candidate from a certain region, seats can remain empty - a 3 term (instead of a lifetime membership, re-election possible) - and a mechanism in which not all seats are elected every year, but one-third every year, and thus all seats once every three years Just my 2 eurocents, Gert-Jan [51] http://bl.ocks.org/jsanz/raw/779f9b9954b92461fa50/ -Oorspronkelijk bericht- Van: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] Namens Vasile Craciunescu Verzonden: maandag 29 juni 2015 15:08 Aan: OSGeo Discussions Onderwerp: [OSGeo-Discuss] 2015 Charter Member elections Dear all, First of all, please accept my apologies for the delay in sending this message to you and, again, apologies for the length of the message. Let's start with some basic information about the charter member elections followed by a little bit of history. I know that many of you already know the details but the community is quite large now and I find this recap useful. OSGeo charter members [1] are the blood of our foundation. They are voted into this category by the other charter members. They have the right to vote in elections for other charter members and for board members. They are required to act in accordance with the goals and bylaws [2
[OSGeo-Discuss] Reminder: OSGeo Board election phase is coming to an end!
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Folks, in case you are a Charter Member and have not yet received an email from our dedicated Charter Member mailing list then it is high time that you contact us. Best regards, your CROs on behalf of OSGeo - -- http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2013 -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with undefined - http://www.enigmail.net/ iEYEARECAAYFAlInTFgACgkQXmFKW+BJ1b2QoACffHB7jQuWQ3LNk7eB4wpFH/hi qB4AoIAGHgPykQVupRtd7GdC3VrKOds3 =kmQW -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo Board elections 2013
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Folks, the board elections are well under way. With still more than a week to go we already received votes from 50 members (27.6% of the total, including those who may drop to inactive level by not voting this year). If you are a Charter member and did *not* receive a reminder and instructions a few minutes ago through the list - or if are unclear on how to proceed then please contact c...@osgeo.org so that we can help you. Best regards, your CROs on behalf of OSGeo - -- http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2013 -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with undefined - http://www.enigmail.net/ iEYEARECAAYFAlIgcaEACgkQXmFKW+BJ1b3VjQCfdF1l1NMtUibP1AO5TeAbwBoP UmIAn13z9R/6TKETr4hFnaTiWmG/X/t5 =JW1N -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Board Election 2012 Results
Dear OSGeo Members, the election 2012 has been completed and we are happy to announce the new board of directors [1]. Here are the final results from the voting for the open seats of the OSGeo Board of Directors. There were five seats open and they have been filled by, in alphabetical order: * Anne Ghisla * Jeff McKenna * Daniel Morissette * Cameron Shorter * Frank Warmerdam Thanks to everyone for running, all candidates received good support ( 40 votes each). The voting participation was 68% and there were no tie scores to arbitrate. Thank you to all who voted. Your complete resulting Board is: * Peter Batty * Michael Gerlek * Anne Ghisla * Mark Lucas * Jeff McKenna * Daniel Morissette * Cameron Shorter * Frank Warmerdam Congratulations and please welcome the new and and re-elected OSGeo directors! With the election results published the new board of directors becomes effective as of now. We wish to thank the outgoing directors for their continued support of OSGeo and for helping to run a fantastic organizations with a great memberships and lots of energy. We thank all candidates who stood in this election and all OSGeo Charter Members for their contribution and votes. Best regards, Michael and Arnulf [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Election_2012_Results -- OSGeo Chief Returning Officers Arnulf Christl and Michael Gerlek http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2012 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo Board Elections 2012 closed, results to be published tomorrow (2012-08-14)
Hello OSGeo, the OSGeo Board election 2012 period has closed. We are now tallying votes, double checking them and will publish the final results tomorrow. Best regards, Arnulf Michael -- OSGeo Chief Returning Officers Arnulf Christl and Michael Gerlek http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2012 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] New Charter Member Nominations
Dear OSGeo members, this is a gentle reminder that the new member nomination ends on Friday this week [0]. If we have more than 20 nominations this will be followed by the two week elections period starting on Saturday 7 July and ending on 20 July. One questions came up a few times, this is to clarify things: I have a question about supporting candidates, I know in person the majority of them and am glad to see their candidature. Shall I second their nominations in each thread, or can I send a global mail mentioning all the candidates I wish to support? There is no formal need (as in required) to second nominations to the CRO. If you wish to express your support for any candidate please do so on the discuss list. Whether in one or in many emails is up to you. A request: PLEASE be so kind and send the email address of the nominee along with the nomination to ! c...@osgeo.org ! (as is clearly noted in the instructions... :-). It makes it so much easier for us to send out the confirmation emails and maintain the nominee list. And if you really want to make it easy, please also send your own OSGeo Wiki user page and the nominee's along. And while you are at it check out the OSGeo Advocate [1] page. Thank you, Arnulf (*) On the New Member Nomination page it incorrectly said 5 July, changed now to 6 July. My bad, apologies. [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Advocate -- The Open Source Geospatial Foundation Arnulf Christl, President http://www.osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [Local-chapters] Spanish Language Local Chapter elections results
Pedro-Juan, thanks for this update and congratulations to the new Board! This mail is also a forward to OSGeo Discuss in case there are Spanish speaking folks not aware yet of your activities. Please consider joining the mailing list [1] and becoming active in the community. There are currently also lots of activities focusing around a Latin American FOSS4G, get involved. Best regards, Arnulf [1] http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/spanish -- The Open Source Geospatial Foundation Arnulf Christl, President http://www.osgeo.org On 18.06.2012 17:18, Pedro-Juan Ferrer Matoses wrote: Hello, last week ended the election process for the Spanish Language Local Chapter and the Community has elected new Local Chapter Charter Members and a new Local Chapter Board. The new Local Chapter Charter Members are: Maria Aryas de Reina Jose Gomez Castaño David Mateos Juan Ignacio Garcia Varela Francisco Perez Sampayo Leonidas Hernan Oliveira Right now we have 80 Charter Members in the Local Chapter. And the new Local Chapter Board members are: Pedro-Juan Ferrer Matoses Mauricio Miranda Santiago Higuera Maria Arias de Reyna Cesar Medina All the process has been documented in the wiki [1] (in spanish) The new board hasn't already meet so right now I'm still the acting Local Chapter Liaison Officer. Bests regards, [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Category:Elecciones_2012_OSGeo-ES ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo Governance
Dear Members of OSGeo, we have an important issue on governance coming up again and again. It suggests that OSGeo Board decisions should be complemented by votes from the Charter Members when important and strategic decisions have to be taken. Something like this: [snip] For such important decisions, I think that it would maybe worth making Charter members vote too, just like to get an major orientation decided by 120 people instead of only 8. [snip] Initially this sounded like a good idea to me so we discussed this in Denver and then again in Seattle at the last f2f board meetings plus on the list and during regular IRC board meetings. We have come to a different conclusion and want to explain why and ask for comments. Introducing another level of voting introduces a hierarchy to OSGeo which we have so far avoided and which we should - in my personal opinion - continue to avoid. We have committees for all important areas of work. If we lack a committee any member can suggest to form it. Most decisions are taking in the committees and they are pretty open to everything. Some committees function better, some not so - but this is entirely up to the regular members who make up the committees. We have a functioning board of directors for some of the day to day operations and to approve or reject decisions taken by committees. This is a health check and makes sure we do not go astray. The board is recruited and elected by trusted Charter Members. This is their role and it is their only role. There is not need for another role at this level. If any regular member wants to become active, go for it. Same for ex board members. Whenever they think the current board is wrong they can say so. And they can suggest how to do it better, just like any regular member. Whenever a committee does not function but a decision has to be taken the board steps up and takes over. This is one reason why we have the board, to keep rolling. All other decisions, especially strategic and important ones are taken by regular members who do things. By introducing a new level of decisions - for example the Charter Members - we gain nothing. Instead we introduce an artificial hierarchy which does not help anybody. Instead it will discourage regular members to speak up and become active. And it is anti do-ocratic because it is easy to say yes or no to a motion but so much harder to formulate that motion in the first place. We need people who creatively bring up new things and not decide over what others have done. Thank you for your attention, Arnulf PS: Apart form this only very few Charter Members actually speak up at all - a big thank you to those who do! Running a Charter and Board election is always a major pain and takes weeks to complete. It is impractical to do this more than once a year. -- The Open Source Geospatial Foundation Arnulf Christl, President http://www.osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Future perspectives for OSGeo
Folks, the OSGeo board of directors has been working hard on finding ways forward in those areas where we do not perform well. These are especially on the business side of things. Our annual revenue has come down considerably in the last years and we seem to lack high level contacts to global players. Without the single sponsor Autodesk we honestly wouldn't be where we are now but they have considerably reduced their focused on geospatial. We see new opportunities by starting joint activities with the Eclipse foundation - which is in the process of spawning activities explicitly focused on geospatial. They have lots of high level contacts but lack a noteworthy community. This is where we in turn did exceptionally well, we are perceived as *the* global voice for open source geospatial. In between the community and business work (if we take them as extremes) is a long range of things we did well and not so well and obviously everybody will have their own opinion. If you are interested in learning more about what the board is thinking and want to share your ideas I suggest you subscribe to the board list and become active there. (Please refrain from telling us you must be doing this and that but reckon that whatever will happen does so because you also commit to actually doing it). Once we come to a more coherent point of view we will again share it with this discussion list but for now would like to keep it at the strategically interested level of things, just as open as all in OSGeo - but not cluttering the Discuss list. The board will start to post a few threads in the next days summarizing the thoughts shared so far. Best regards, Arnulf -- The Open Source Geospatial Foundation Arnulf Christl, President http://www.osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Charter Member nomination: Martin Landa
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 14.11.2011 18:35, Anne Ghisla wrote: Dear all, I have the pleasure to nominate Martin Landa [0] for OSGeo charter membership. Martin is a PhD student at Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Civil Engineering, study program Geodesy and Cartography, and he also teaches open source GIS and programming. He's well known for his long time contribution to GRASS GIS and GDAL. He participated with success to Google Summer of Code both as student and as mentor of GRASS projects. Among important geospatial events in Prague, he organised the first GRASS community sprint [1] that was a great success! I believe Martin's experience and contributions make him a valuable candidate for charter membership. [0] http://geo.fsv.cvut.cz/gwiki/Landa [1] http://grass.osgeo.org/wiki/GRASS_Community_Sprint_Prague_2011 Anne I second the nomination of Martin. He comes from a vibrant community which he helped to build up and he will be a valuable charter member of OSGeo. Cheers, Arnulf -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk7CNKAACgkQXmFKW+BJ1b0VZgCeJcyE9hsIUh1GO6x32neDw30p QaYAnjl8BsK8jQ5bvnk4C5Hxh5hIlZx4 =IZIe -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Nomination of Nicolas Bozon
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 10.11.2011 01:01, Markus Neteler wrote: I would like to nominate Nicolas Bozon: Nicolas Bozon is specialized in design of GUIs for FOSS4G based applications, he has contributed to various FOSS4G projects and used OSGeo tools for scientific research projects. He actively promoted OSGeo during many trainings and workshops in France and participates actively in national and international conferences (OSGeo fr + jp + th, ...), giving talks and teaching workshops. Nicolas has contributed in several ways to OSGeo such as conducting workshops at FOSS4G events, regularly participating in FOSS4G as well as active participation code sprints. His work has led popularizing the WPS standard around the world and paved way for the next generation GIS on the Cloud. Best regards, Markus Neteler I absolutely second this momination. Vested regards, Arnulf -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk679ncACgkQXmFKW+BJ1b2LZgCePejFlX6XOi+NvBYZEpFoy4Mo ITAAnRvoixLpPeYuKsItfim554f0j+ID =w4Zb -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] FOSSGIS Konferenz 2012 in Germany
All, FOSSGIS e.V. [0], the German language Local Chapter of OSGeo is proud to announce the Call for Papers [1] for this year's edition of the FOSSGIS Konferenz. (basically FOSS4G in German - yes we have a legacy name, but - well, we are Germans...). This local edition of FOSS4G every year attracts around 500 attendees from business, public administration, adademia and research. This year it will take place in Dessau [2], better known for it's Bauhaus [3] history and a worthwile place to visit. Please feel free to spread word in your German speaking communities (word of mouth still accounts for three quarters of all marketing). Have fun, Arnulf [0] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSSGIS [1] http://www.fossgis.de/konferenz/2012/callforpapers/ [2] http://osm.org/go/0MHPTGS2K [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus -- The Open Source Geospatial Foundation Arnulf Christl, President http://www.osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] charter member nomination: Tim Sutton
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 09.11.2011 13:13, Duarte Carreira wrote: I would like to nominate Tim Sutton. I?m probably not the best person to introduce Tim, but here goes. I know Tim mostly as Developer, Project Steering Committee member and project co-administrator of Quantum GIS, from his educational materials (Gentle Introduction to GIS excellent videos come to mind), great blog posts, active community building activities, and using open source in his projects. I think Tim is one of the main promoters of open source gis today. I think he is based in South Africa, so the plea to diversify charter members geographically is also catered for. Best regards, Duarte Carreira I wholeheartedly support this nomination (even although Tim is white, male and about my age and thus a best fit for what we already have in the charter membership... :-) He will be a great bridge to Africa. Best regards, Arnulf PS: I had to recheck because I was sure that he must already be a Charter Member but he is not - yet. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk66nXgACgkQXmFKW+BJ1b1ZcwCfY4DpZI0D/wgxRjwhOs+sQdKf nr0AoIC0u7VQOT6KQUTc3Dkmcft7cw0G =NDkz -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 2010 Charter Member Selection
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Markus Neteler wrote: On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 1:20 PM, Paul Ramsey pram...@cleverelephant.ca wrote: OSGeo members, The 2010 process is complete, and the new charter members are, in alphabetical order: • Alex Mandel • Andreas Hocevar • Anne Ghisla • Astrid Emde • Danilo Furtado • Gavin Fleming • Hirofumi Hayashi • Jo Cook • Maria Brovelli • Milena Nowotarska Congratulations - I am very happy that the global distribution of OSGeo + gender is now better represented also in the charter membership. Markus Hi, I want to join the congratulations to all new Charter Members, thanks for standing up and showing this active support! Another big thank you goes to all who have been nominated but could not get elected due to the limitations in our process. To me all nominees would have been a great addition underlining the great diversity of people deeply involved with OSGeo. As Puneet sais I hope that you will contineu to actively support OSGeo as so many regular members do. Last but not least I want to thank our Chief Returning Officer Paul for taking on the responsibility of organizing the Charter Member elections again. Looking forward to another exciting year of OSGeo. Have fun, Arnulf. - -- Arnulf Christl President OSGeo http://www.osgeo.org -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkzdbzYACgkQXmFKW+BJ1b0m8ACdFCGHI7s2apJM7mQDGC5CeGF3 Sp0AnArguGZYiYj6RmjfyeEtK0fFqc8X =y3/c -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Geopaparazzi released
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Andrea, All, this is an excellent example of how the OSGeo trademark is being protected by the community. At the same time constructive discussion on the trademark policy is helpful to evolve how we deal with these questions. It is good to see growing interest in using the graphics. And please by all means please feel free to use the standard OSGeo logo to link back to OSGeo. As a side note to the broader community: Whenever you feel that you come close to using the trademarked version of the OSGeo logo and colors or want to explicitly use it in a context you are unsure of, feel free to let the marketing mailing list know so that we can discuss this up front. Best regards, Arnulf andrea antonello wrote: Dear colleagues, today we finally released the first version of Geopaparazzi on the android market. The project is released under GPLv3 an available on the homepage of the project [0]. Geopaparazzi is a tool developed to supprot very fast qualitative engineering/geologic surveys. It integrates completely with the BeeGIS digital tablet extentions, i.e. the data are imported straight into the GIS from the phone for further processing [1]. Geopaparazzi is sold on the Android market and supports the development of Geopaprazzi itself as well as the projects developed by the same team: JGrass, JGrassTools and BeeGIS. That said, I leave you to the documentation on the main website. Thanks for the attention, Andrea [0] http://www.geopaparazzi.eu [1] http://tinyurl.com/35zucxt ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss - -- Arnulf Christl President OSGeo http://www.osgeo.org -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkygth4ACgkQXmFKW+BJ1b1l7QCfeTgQS+8BKFO8hhwj3c4KaGly N3wAoIL2VJ3hi25RVqZ6uVzvNdG2/XJc =qhvI -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: OSGeo Board Election 2010 Results
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Paul, thanks again for organizing the board elections. It is great that we could get this done in time prior to FOSS4G so that the new board can meet there in real life. This promises to become a very productive meeting. Howard, Ari, thanks to both of you for serving on the board for two full years and we hope to continue to see you give advice to the OSGeo board in your specific domains. We will lack the European and education background of Ari and miss Howard's direct engagement from our systems committee. Tim and Daniel, welcome to the board and be prepared for lots of activities in the coming months. We need to look into funding and acquire new and more sponsors. The local chapters of OSGeo are developing great but many would like to see a closer relation to the OSGeo Foundation. The public geodata committee is developing interesting ideas around cataloging that could turn into a new OSGeo service and last but not least we will want to improve the incubation process to better serve the projects and the users. All, thanks all for trusting me with another term on the board of directors and I am excited to get going with the new team. See (hopefully most of you) in Barcelona. Best regards, Arnulf. Paul Ramsey wrote: OSGeo, Here are the final results from the 2010 voting for the open seats of the OSGeo Board of Directors. There were four seats open and they have been filled by, in alphabetical order: * Arnulf Christl * Daniel Morissette * Frank Warmerdam * Tim Schaub Thanks to everyone for running. The voting participation was 82% and there were no tie scores to arbitrate. Your complete resulting Board is: * Arnulf Christl * Chris Schmidt * Daniel Morissette * Frank Warmerdam * Geoff Zeiss * Jeff McKenna * Markus Neteler * Ravi Kumar * Tim Schaub We will complete the 2010 election process with the selection of new Charter Members in September after FOSS4G. Yours, Paul Ramsey 2010 Returning Officer - -- Arnulf Christl President OSGeo http://www.osgeo.org -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkx3YPgACgkQXmFKW+BJ1b1vrwCeJZfJChn9bWkh1yWXKNV5kFMH NjoAn1bDDF0JC06EaQ36Hf6/THLnoeSj =/JXC -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source vs Closed source
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Bob Basques wrote: All, We've got a discussion going on in the office about the subject line. I was wondering if folks here had any pointers to online information, both from a superficial view (low detail level, IE Manager speak) as well as some somewhat higher level information about costs, in the short term/ long term, etc. Thanks bobb Bob, the subject line and the answers make me wonder whether you are aiming at free and open access data or software or both? The International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) [1] has recently released the publication [2] FLOSS in Cadastre and Land Registration - Opportunities and Risks together with FAO. It has two initial chapters on Free and Open-Source Software and Open-Source Software for Geospatial Data – The Birth of OSGeo. The publication is directed at decision makers and lacks most of the tech talk that makes those folks' eyes glaze over immediately. It is still 7 and 9 pages to read (coincidences) but fairly straight forward. Maybe you can take some ideas from them when promoting the Open Source idea. Regards, Arnulf. [1] http://www.fig.net/commission7/index.htm [2] http://www.fig.net/pub/fao/floss_cadastre.pdf [3] http://openstreetmap.org/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss - -- Arnulf Christl President OSGeo http://www.osgeo.org -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkvHW98ACgkQXmFKW+BJ1b2UewCeJe5qxNdOQmQ6ynqtxF1VkLqC KMIAnjNxmMXbgd2+xDH4O78SliJkpm4z =5gRT -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] U.S. Department of Interior soliciting Ideas on improving business practices
Hi Folks, The U.S Department of Interior has a website up soliciting ideas for improvement. Each idea gives registered users options to comment and vote on suggestions. There is a suggestion posted for the use of open source software, and I have just posted a suggestion for regular benchmarking of software ( commercial and open source) for OGC services and processing large datasets ( comments welcome!) . Doug, thank you for this information. One minor clarification on terminology (I will never tire): Using the wording commercial and open source to differentiate proprietary form free/open license models is misguiding as all Open Source software can also be used in commercial contexts and is thus also commercial software. This has recently been clarified by the US Department of Defense available in a document [1], attachment 2 on page 5, §2 a): In almost all cases, OSS meets the definition of “commercial computer software” and shall be given appropriate statutory preference in accordance with 10 USC 2377 (reference (b)) (see also FAR 2.101(b), 12.000, 12.101 (reference (c)); and DFARS 212.212, and 252.227-7014(a)(1) (reference (d))). (I love to cite those guys, they manage to make everything look dead serious :-) The correct term to differentiate free and open source license models from proprietary license is models is proprietary, and nothing but. Best regards, Arnulf. [1] http://cio-nii.defense.gov/sites/oss/2009OSS.pdf For those who might be interested in making suggestions or commenting on the existing suggestions, the website is: http://openinterior.ideascale.com/ Doug Doug Newcomb USFWS Raleigh, NC 919-856-4520 ext. 14 doug_newc...@fws.gov - The opinions I express are my own and are not representative of the official policy of the U.S.Fish and Wildlife Service or Dept. of the Interior. Life is too short for undocumented, proprietary data formats.___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- President OSGeo http://www.osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Fw: open access resources/Natural Earth Data Cartography 2.0
Martin Bunch wrote: FYI Great resource, thanks for the link. One slightly off topic comment on the term non-commercial further down...: Martin J. Bunch, PhD Associate Professor Faculty of Environmental Studies York University Tel: 416-736-2100 x:22630 Fax: 416-736-5679 This electronic mail (e-mail), including any attachments, is intended only for the recipient(s) to whom it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential and/or exempt from disclosure. No waiver of privilege, confidentiality or any other protection is intended by virtue of its communication by the internet. Any unauthorized use, dissemination or copying is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, or are not named as a recipient, please immediately notify the sender and destroy all copies of it. -Forwarded by Martin Bunch/fs/YorkU on 12/03/2009 09:18PM - To: CAG List cagl...@lists.uvic.ca From: Kristopher Olds o...@geography.wisc.edu Sent by: caglist-boun...@lists.uvic.ca Date: 12/03/2009 08:05PM Subject: [Caglist] open access resources/Natural Earth Data Cartography 2.0 Hi - Canadian geographers, with geospatial interests, might be interested in some new open source, non-commercial resources our The use of the term non-commercial in this context is probably meant to convey that the sources do not originate from a commercial project. It should not be confused with a restriction of use as some Creative Commons licenses optionally have. This data has been released to the Public Domain and can be used for any purpose. The web site has a concise terms of use page: http://www.naturalearthdata.com/about/terms-of-use/ Thanks for this, it is the maximum possible level of freedom for data. Well done, well done. Regards, Arnulf. faculty, staff and students (and their colleagues) have been heavily involved in developing. The first is Natural Earth Data, an effort to create a comprehensive set of freely accessible geospatial data. The effort was led over the past six months by Nathaniel Kelso of the Washington Post and Tom Patterson of the US National Park Service. The data is now freely available here: http://www.naturalearthdata.com/ Additional information: http://kelsocartography.com/blog/?p=3173 The second is Cartography 2.0, a free online knowledge base and e-textbook for students and professionals interested in interactive and animated maps: http://cartography2.org/ We hope these resources are of use to some of you. Best wishes, Kris Kris Olds Professor Department of Geography University of Wisconsin-Madison 550 N. Park Street, Science Hall Madison, WI 53706 USA Email: ko...@wisc.edu Tel: 1-608-262-5685 GEOG Twitter: http://twitter.com/UWMadisonGeog GlobalHigherEd: http://globalhighered.wordpress.com/ GlobalHigherEd Twitter: http://twitter.com/globalhighered WUN Faculty Coordinator: http://www.intlstudies.wisc.edu/wun/ Co-editor, Geography Compass: http://www.blackwell-compass.com/subject/geography/ ___ CAGList mailing list cagl...@lists.uvic.ca https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/caglist ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Arnulf Christl President OSGeo http://www.osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Question about FOSS4G Business Models
Hi all, A friend of mine at a medium-sized IT company in Japan needs to convince his company management and finances to invest in FOSS4G technologies over the next 5 years. The company presently does a small part of its business using FOSS4G tools but is wondering if it should take a deeper plunge into the FOSS4G world. In order to convince the company management and finance departments, they need to produce a document with concrete data about *how companies elsewhere in the world are profiting, growing, increasing market share and the kind of clients that they are catering to*. Even company brochures, financial reports etc. would help. The company also wants to consider marketing broad based services for SDI using FOSS4G technologies and would like to know market potential in other countries and region for SDI related services. Since a part of my Master thesis deals with business models for FOSS4G, I find their situation interesting and would like to help them to take a deeper plunge into the FOSS4G world. In order to help prepare a brief report for them including some statistical information about few of the bigger players in FOSS4G business. It would be great if some of the business leaders in the OSGeo community could provide me with inputs for the report. Your input will not only help me convince them that FOSS4G is worth it (I am already convinced, but need some data to support my claim) but also help me to understand the business models better. If you want to keep your inputs confidential, you are welcome to contact me off-list (daniele.ocuATgmail.com). Names, names of companies will be kept confidential (just call them company A,B,C etc) in the final report. Once the report is ready It will be shared it as an open document under appropriate CC license, if that is desired. The report needs to be ready in three weeks, I look forward for the inputs. Thank you in advance. Best regards Daniele -- Researcher @ Osaka City University Graduate School for Creative Cities http://gisws.media.osaka-cu.ac.jp/gistrends My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there. — Charles F. Kettering ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss Daniele, working from there I have recently published draft versions of two new papers (and weeks ago promised you to send the links) detailing Open Source Business processes [1] and the other showing the needs that lead to the formation of OSGeo [2]. They are more general in tone and do not give explicit examples but maybe are a good introduction. Hope this helps. Best regards, [1] http://arnulf.us/Open_Source_Business_Models [2] http://arnulf.us/History_and_Mission_of_OSGeo -- Arnulf Christl President OSGeo http://www.osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo
On Wed, September 30, 2009 18:49, Maxim Dubinin wrote: Hi Local OSGeo chapters are great, but how about existing non-OSGeo groups? Does OSGeo have a strategy to build communication with them? Maxim Maxim, yes, OSGeo's intent it to embrace and support existing organizations with the same vision instead of being exclusive. There is a Wiki page with some links and always happy to be updated: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Like_Minded_Regional_Organizations Please also feel free to introduce OSGeo to organizations that have not yet stumbled across us. In Germany the existing Free Software Geospatial organization FOSSGIS e.V. (then named GRASS user's group) meanwhile has become the official OSGeo Local Chapter and we are working on the same goals and appear jointly at conferences, trade fairs, organize hack sprints, etc. It is a lively community and growing strong. It did take some time to work out the details as is always the case with integrating existing organizations but now all seem to be quite happy with it. Best regards, Arnulf. Âû ïèñàëè 30 ñåíòÿáðÿ 2009 ã., 11:03:35: where the cost of software licenses is far to high for the budgets thay have. Naturally, some of the users use cracks, but it won't be that easy enymore, especially in the domain of web services. OSGeo could support education in FOSS4G in those countries - with active marketing, sending information letters to the bodies responsible for mapping and environment. FW I am a big believer in folks pulling up their own socks in this regard. FW I am dubious about OSGeo trying to seed into countries without local FW advocates, but there are things we can do to help support locals who FW want promotional and training materials, and some introduction into FW international circles. FW Hopefully we can also provide an aura of deserved respectability FW for our projects that will make it easier for decision makers to take FW them seriously. OSGeo could also participate in dvelopment projects - like those small grants of GSDI, providing FOSS solutions, not mentioning European FP7 projects addressing Africa. For know the quite steep learning curve to get into FOSS4G is very often keeping the potential users away. FW There are things we can do, but to a large extent the benefits will go FW to those users who realize some investment in learning is worthwhile. Is OSGeo targeting those users now? If you look onto the map of registered members: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Category:OSGeo_Member, well, not everyone added himself to the map, but enyway, Africa, Asia and South America look quite empty (-; FW There are things we are doing now, including holding FOSS4G in South FW Africa last year, and making an effort to involve geographically diverse FW folks in the charter membership and board. We have also been supportive FW (though perhaps we could be more so) of local chapters where they are FW established by local advocates. FW But, clearly we still have had only modest success getting folks in FW the developing world actively involved in the global OSGeo activities. FW Best regards, ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Arnulf Christl President OSGeo http://www.osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Pictures from Intergeo
Hey, Intergeo was a great success. There are a few shots available through the osgeohackingevent2009 account (thanks again to Anne Ghisla): http://www.flickr.com/photos/osgeohackingevent2009/sets/72157622486321366/ Regards, -- Arnulf Christl Exploring Space, Time and Mind http://arnulf.us/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: [Board] 2009 Board Election Results
Folks, first off a big thanks to our late directors, thanks for all the good work! Thanks Paul for running the elections. I will use Paul's words when I say it was a very large field of really excellent candidates, it's a shame the board isn't bigger! I hope that you will bring in your excellence within OSGeo all the same and I am sure that you will have a close look on how the board is doing and let it know if it goes astray. OSGeo is all about its members, the board should be nothing but its formal extension. Lets get going for a cool FOSS4G and next year. Best regards, Arnulf. On Tue, September 29, 2009 16:53, Paul Ramsey wrote: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Election_2009_Results Here are the final results from the voting for the open seats of the OSGeo Board of Directors. There were five seats open and they have been filled by, in alphabetical order: * Chris Schmidt * Geoff Zeiss * Jeff McKenna * Markus Neteler (re-elected) * Ravi Kumar Thanks to everyone for running, it was a very large field of really excellent candidates, it's a shame the board isn't bigger. The voting participation was middling at 73% and there were no tie scores to arbitrate. Your complete resulting Board is: * Ari Jolma * Arnulf Christl * Frank Warmerdam * Howard Butler * Markus Neteler * Chris Schmidt * Geoff Zeiss * Jeff McKenna * Ravi Kumar http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_of_Directors Yours, Paul Ramsey CRO 2009 ___ Board mailing list bo...@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board -- Arnulf Christl President OSGeo http://www.osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo
Howard, your list looks good to me. OSGeo should focus on: * Local Chapters * Conferences (FOSS4G + many, many localized versions) * Global strategic binding (that is cross project, journal, marketing, etc.) I want to add that for me it is also a goal to limit OSGeo's growth wrt the number of paid staff and budget. We can make good use with 100k more for hardware, services and to have more reserves for the conferences. But I believe that we should not let the budget grow beyond ~half a million - not even in five years. If there is money to make then it should be made by businesses. They in turn are welcome to sponsor OSGeo. By supporting FOSS business development OSGeo automagically supports itself. Local Chapters should grow by themselves, in most cases an small initial stub created from within OSGeo Global is enough to get going. And as Howard said - the life of OSGeo is within the local chapters. Regards, Arnulf. PS: I wonder how many FOSS geospatial core software developers there are? Any educated guesses? What for? Becasue those are the ones who need OSGeo global. All the others are well served with LCs. Howard Butler schrieb: On Sep 14, 2009, at 4:01 PM, Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) wrote: Hi everyone, a recent chat I was asked about our vision for OSGeo over the next 3 and 5 years. I'd really like to hear thoughts on the matter and pool a few of the ideas together for further discussions amongst committees, projects, chapters and the board. It's also a good way for the board nominees in the upcoming election to get a sense of where other members are thinking these days. My measurement of success for OSGeo and priorities I hope it shares in the next 3-5 years are the following three items: - Continued expansion of the local chapters. Local chapters make OSGeo real in the sense that mailing lists, websites, and an IRC channel can't. - The conference continues uninterrupted for the next five years, and we start to use it our central fundraising piece. - Cross-project collaboration, like the journal, osgeo4w, metacrs, benchmarking, system administration, and geodata continues to be fostered by us. From my biased developer's perspective, these have been OSGeo's biggest accomplishments along with the local chapter development and consolidation of the conference. Howard ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Arnulf Christl OSGeo President http://www.osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[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
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Examples of Opposition to Open Source/Open File Formats in the United States
Landon Blake schrieb: It looks like I might have ruffled a few feathers with my earlier post Landon, please keep it up, it is advocacy at its best. As you said before, this is the OSGeo mailing list. Would you care to also add some of your thoughts and ideas backed up with reference links (just link from the mailing list archives) to the OSGeo Wiki? It provides an easy way to reference and disseminate our activities wrt advocating Open Source Geospatial and is easily indexed by search engines. There is also a dedicated category in the Wiki to tag and organize pages with explicit advocacy content. Most of the pages there are currently focused on Open Source, Free Software and some on Business Models. Pages related to Open Standards and Formats are still missing and would round of the topic really well. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Advocacy and http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Category:Advocacy Thanks, Arnulf. about the lack of support for open source software in the United States. I was making a generalization, and didn't mean to criticize or downplay the efforts of advocates and government employees that are promoting open source software. I hope their advocacy continues, and I will do what I can to support it. I thought I would take a minute to post one or two articles that highlight the type of opposition/attitude that I was talking about. The first one isn't directly related to geospatial software, but it is related to the use of open source software and open file formats by government agencies in the United States. It has to do with the adoption of ODF (the file format used by Open Office). See the section on Massachusetts in this wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument_adoption Here is an article about legislation proposed in 2006 to do the same thing in Minnesota: http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/open_source/showArticle.jht ml?articleID=184429732 These articles are old, and there may have been updates and new legal decisions that I am not aware of. You could check to ODF Alliance site for updates: http://www.odfalliance.org/mail_list.php There is no question in my mind that Microsoft opposed the adoption of ODF by state governments in the United States. If you don't think this is true, I've got a bridge I want to sell you. :] My second example involves the Autodesk suit against the Open Design Alliance. You can read an article about that here: http://www.stress-free.co.nz/autodesk_sues_the_open_design_alliance Autodesk may have legitimate concerns about trademark violation, but I'll bet they would love to sink the Open Design Alliance ship. The majority of CAD data produced in the surveying/engineering arena is stored in the DWG format, and Autodesk knows this. Controlling that format and programmer's access to it is a key component of Autodesk's business model. It looks like the legal battle was still on as recently as July 7, 2009: http://www.opendesign.com/node/398 Autodesk is certainly entitled to protect is intellectual property, but in my mind this is a big obstacle to data sharing among the geospatial communities in the US, especially as you move to the engineering/survey side of things. Let's not kid ourselves. There is a lot of money to be made selling software in the United States, and people will do their best to influence our legal and commercial systems to serve their own needs. One thing I love about open source software development is the sense of sharing and community. This is a definite contrast. I think OSGeo (and all of us as individual software developers) should be aware of this opposition to open source and open technology standards, and should do our best to counteract it. A lot of the general public doesn't understand the issues involved, or understand how governments funded by their tax dollars might benefit from open source software. We need to be the voice the people aren't going to hear from Autodesk or ESRI. Landon 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 -- Arnulf Christl OSGeo President http://www.osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Any plan for improving Service Providers?
Jacolin Yves schrieb: Le Monday 03 August 2009 20:13:09 Frank Warmerdam, vous avez écrit : Yves Jacolin (free) wrote: Hello, Anyone could tell me it there are any plan for improving the Service Provider [1] ? For instance, add more information about service provided by each company like formation, support, custom dev, development of OSGeo application, etc. Yves, There was a plan to add indicators for service providers that had contributed back to the community in a variety of ways (sponsorships, supporting projects with developers, etc), but it never was implemented. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/SPD_Prioritization I have tried to avoid attempting to describe services in too much detail within the application itself, and instead *hoped* that organizations would provide a landing page that gave a good description of their services appropriate to people coming from the service provider directory. Organizations provide a wide set of services, and it is hard to describe them consistently for searching purposes. I think it is better to see the SPD as giving pointers to service providers that the searcher can then research more deeply using other mechanisms. Also, keep in mind that we do not currently vette organizations and the more complicated the classification the more inconsistently it is likely to be applied. We already have the problems that service providers which to list lots of countries where they are willing to operate while we really want that field to indicate countries where they have existing staff on the ground in an office. Best regards, Many thanks for your answer Frank, it gives me some interesting information :) Y. Yes, we should pick this up again. A suggestion was floated some time back to mark those service providers who sponsor OSGeo with a barn star[1]. This might also get us broader interest in sponsoring as involved service providers can showcase their activity. It would also allow us to reward those who do lots of in-kind contributions (e.g. SAC folks) and thus are reluctant to pay cash to OSGeo as a sponsor. Apart from this I guess it would be appropriate to add companies to a map (hey, we are a bunch of mapping folks...) and maybe order the languages and region section by name, alphabetically. Generally, would people prefer to have the language in its own name as on the left of the main web site or rather their English names? My preference tend to the first. Too many ideas, no one to do it. Sure. Thats why the SPD still looks as it does... :-) Best regards, Arnulf. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Barnstars -- Arnulf Christl OSGeo President http://www.osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] OGC Technical Committee Meeting protocol available Online
All, the OGC [1] members meet four times a year for a one week long meeting to work in working groups. At the fourth day the Technical Committee meets and motions and votes on new standards, change requests, new working groups etc. The meetings themselves are only open to members and invited people. In order to improve communication with other communities the OGC has started to publish summaries of theses meetings. To make these more accessible for OSGeo folks I have started a Wiki page with OGC News [1] from where the latest meeting protocols are linked. If you have further question regarding OGC feel free to ask and discuss on the OSGeo Standards mailing list. Best regards, Arnulf [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OGC [2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OGC_News -- Arnulf Christl OSGeo President http://www.osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] OGC Technical Committee Meeting protocol available Online
All, the OGC [1] members meet four times a year for a one week long meeting to work in working groups. At the fourth day the Technical Committee meets and motions and votes on new standards, change requests, new working groups etc. The meetings themselves are only open to members and invited people. In order to improve communication with other communities the OGC has started to publish summaries of theses meetings. To make these more accessible for OSGeo folks I have started a Wiki page with OGC News [1] from where the latest meeting protocols are linked. If you have further question regarding OGC feel free to ask and discuss on the OSGeo Standards mailing list. Best regards, Arnulf [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OGC [2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OGC_News -- Arnulf Christl OSGeo President http://www.osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Some cialis spam in the wiki...
Pedro-Juan Ferrer Matoses schrieb: I've found several pages and some users spamming the wiki as you can see in [1] [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php?title=Special%3ASearchns2=1search=cialisfulltext=Advanced+search Greetings Thanks for the notice, I removed the pages. If you are interested in busting this kind of page yourself you are invited to take on the burdens of the sysop role [1]. This list of people can delete pages. I just checked the user list [2] and deleted a dozen more cialis bust enhancers. If I would gobble all that stuff my bodily dimensions would have grown beyond any imaginable bra sizes... Anybody aware of a way to delete the users themselves (now they only show up as not-yet-edited pages)? Best regards, Arnulf. [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php?title=Special:ListUsersgroup=sysop [2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Special:ListUsers -- Arnulf Christl OSGeo President http://www.osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Some cialis spam in the wiki...
Pedro-Juan Ferrer Matoses schrieb: ¡Hola Arnulfo! If you are interested in busting this kind of page yourself you are invited to take on the burdens of the sysop role [1]. This list of people can delete pages. I just checked the user list [2] and deleted a dozen more cialis bust enhancers. If I would gobble all that stuff my bodily dimensions would have grown beyond any imaginable bra sizes... Nowadays I'm following the wiki changes via RSS so usually I notice this kind of pages, may be tomorrow I won't attend the RSS so much, but in the meanwhile I can do some dirty job for the Comunity, if you give me the power... mhuahahaahahahaha And Arnulf, I'm not really interested about your bodily dimensions, for sure mate, ni de coña ;-D Bests, Done, thanks for helping out! http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Special:Log/rights -- Arnulf Christl OSGeo President http://www.osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source Park at Intergeo 2009
Folks, we would like to invite you to the Open Source Park at the upcoming Intergeo 2009 Trade Fair and conference in Germany. As in the past years OSGeo is organizing a shared presentation including a community section for Open Source Geospatial software projects, a speaker corner and presentation area and partner booths. There are still a few partner booth slots available. If you are interested in participating please contact Daniel Katzer from Hinte-Messe for further details and add me to CC as reference. Due to organizational learning processes we have been somewhat late in sending around this call and apologize that we will probably not be able to accommodate all interested parties. So please let us know quickly if you are interested in being part of the growing Open Source business presence at Intergeo. Find out more about past years events at below URLs (mostly in German language due to the more local focus of the earlier Open Source booths). OSGeo is also seeking active participants for the set up and organization of the community area and FOSSGIS booth duty. Fell free to contact me directly if you need more information on the event, community and project areas. With best regards, Arnulf Christl -- President OSGeo http://www.osgeo.org http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Intergeo_2006 http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Intergeo_2007 http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Intergeo_2008 http://www.fossgis.de/wiki/Intergeo_2009 (early planning stage) ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Open Source Park at Intergeo 2009
Sorry, forgot to add the contact at Hinte-Messe. Please contact Daniel Katzer as per Cc: above and include me to make sure. Best regards, Arnulf Folks, we would like to invite you to the Open Source Park at the upcoming Intergeo 2009 Trade Fair and conference in Germany. As in the past years OSGeo is organizing a shared presentation including a community section for Open Source Geospatial software projects, a speaker corner and presentation area and partner booths. There are still a few partner booth slots available. If you are interested in participating please contact Daniel Katzer from Hinte-Messe for further details and add me to CC as reference. Due to organizational learning processes we have been somewhat late in sending around this call and apologize that we will probably not be able to accommodate all interested parties. So please let us know quickly if you are interested in being part of the growing Open Source business presence at Intergeo. Find out more about past years events at below URLs (mostly in German language due to the more local focus of the earlier Open Source booths). OSGeo is also seeking active participants for the set up and organization of the community area and FOSSGIS booth duty. Fell free to contact me directly if you need more information on the event, community and project areas. With best regards, Arnulf Christl -- President OSGeo http://www.osgeo.org http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Intergeo_2006 http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Intergeo_2007 http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Intergeo_2008 http://www.fossgis.de/wiki/Intergeo_2009 (early planning stage) -- Arnulf Christl President OSGeo http://www.osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] California Chapter Held First Annual Meeting
Landon, cool to see lots of activity in your local chapter. I think the idea of awarding good geo data stewardship is very good and hopefully some other local chapters are interested in picking up this idea. The list of chapter members who are willing to serve as outreach speakers could also be extended to the international level. Do you have any suggestions of how we could organize this? Some questions that come up to my mind are whether people would be required to have some formal relationship with OSGeo in order to do this? What level of official endorsement would this mean for OSGeo? How can we keep this both easy to manage (not do anything) but prevent having people talk nonsense in the name of OSGeo? An informal list of speakers who are at least recognized by some other OSGeo members would probably be a good start. Best regards, Arnulf. Landon Blake wrote: On Saturday, February 21, 2009 the California Chapter held its first annual meeting in Davis, California. We had 10 people in attendance. (I want to thank Alex Mandel and the other people at UC Davis for setting up the meeting and hosting it.) I wanted to share two (2) things that developed during the meeting with everyone on the discuss list, since the ideas might be used by other local chapters. We talked about putting together a list of chapter members that would be willing to serve as outreach speakers to other professional groups and societies. You can view this list (which is just starting) on this wiki page: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/California/Outreach_Speakers We also decided the chapter would give an annual award to a public agency or other organization in California that we wanted to recognize for efforts to promote free and open access to California geodata. This idea is still taking shape, but I think the final award will be a framed certificate and letter. (Something that would look nice hanging on the wall.) I hope to start the design of the letter and certificate soon, so if others wanted to help, I'd appreciate that. The idea of the award is to reward and encourage good geo data stewardship in California. You can see the wiki page for the award here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/California/Geodata_Access_Award Landon 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 -- Arnulf Benno Christl http://www.osgeo.org (OSGeo Board Member) +50.7342N +7.0707E ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] some post-FOSS4G thoughts
On Tue, October 7, 2008 22:55, Gavin Fleming wrote: Frank wrote: As an alternative to a stand-alone event, it can also be helpful to work with an existing GIS conference organizer to provide an open source track or something similar. We've just been approached by www.eis-africa.org who are keen to run a dedicated FOSS4G track at www.africagis2009.org , 26-29 Oct 2009, the week after FOSS4G 2009. AfricaGIS is the major GIS conference in Africa (e.g. 750 delegates in Pretoria in 2005). So, who's keen to make it happen? GISSA will try to run FOSS4G tracks / have FOSS4G booths at all future national and provincial events in SA as well. Gavin Gavin, this is excellent! Even although this might be much to ask, please make sure that this takes place, even if you have to go in the lead again. You will eventually find someone to help and eventually take over. It is great to have connected with GISSA and see that they are picking up the idea, this will help spread word on OSGeo and FOSS4G a lot. All, from what I have read in this thread things seem to work out the way we hoped, that FOSS4G can actually spawn local activity and help chapters grow. But it all takes time, so don't despair if next year your only chance to see FOSS4G in action is in Sydney. Instead of despairing or complaining - why don't you start your own meeting? Whatever it is - ranging from meeting in a pub to full fledged conferences with 500+ attendees - is better than nothing. Try to not compete with FOSS4G - The Gobal Meeting of the Tribes but complement this event, either regionally, language-wise or by tastes of beer. The simple magic that gets you going is to connect with your peers and then DIY. If you think that OSGeo can help - ask for it. And please don't stop being critical just because you might get told off by greater minds with even better arguments. If you think something needs to be changed then you should say so. There are already many good ideas under way to make the global FOSS4G even more attractive for developers, communities and suites alike in coming years and many have started off as a comment on this list. We might also want to make FOSS4G a lot more accessible via web with online presentations, videos, podcasts, IRC transcriptions, and the like. Be prepared for a great show in Sydney. If we can't manage spatial who can? Best regards, -- Arnulf Benno Christl http://www.osgeo.org OSGeo President Still lingering at: -33.9201S +18.4237E ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] some post-FOSS4G thoughts
On Tue, October 7, 2008 21:16, Frank Warmerdam wrote: Landon Blake wrote: When I think about the possibility of setting up a local or regional conference I get a little scared about the unknowns. How do you go about locating conference space? Do you approach local hotels and motels about discount rooming rates? Would it be possible to have a way for the FOSS4G conference folks assist a chapter interested in a regional conference? Landon, Good question. I think Arnulf raised the suggestion that it would be good to have some how to hold a mini-conference materials in the wiki. I would suggest that local/regional conference aim for a more modest presence than FOSS4G. In particular look for inexpensive space to hold it. Often universities are cooperative in this regard if there are some FOSS4G friendly faculty. Universities also often have computer labs available if you want to try and do some hands on workshops. Also, ensure you have at least 3-4 local volunteers willing to help make arrangements. If it all falls on one person it can be a very heavy load. Ideally you would have more folks as part of a local chapter who would like to help. You will also want to be sure you have enough speakers to provide a useful event. Best to get some respectible ones committed early. Sometimes it is helpful to arrange smaller conferences just before or after some other GIS event to take advantage of folks existing travel arrangements. If you do this though you may need some good lead time. It can be helpful to have some sponsorship to fund food, facilities, and such. In the OSBootCamp/GeoCamp event here in Ottawa we did not require attendies to register and pay (due to support for the food from sponsors, and the university for facilities). The downside of that was it was very hard to work out how many people were likely to show up, and there was no attendie list for future contact. So I'd suggest requiring registration, and getting contact info, even if the registration is relatively modest (ie. 100 local currency units). As an alternative to a stand-alone event, it can also be helpful to work with an existing GIS conference organizer to provide an open source track or something similar. Best regards, This is all good stuff that should be added to the Wiki and get consolidated there. Would the Conference Committee be interested in setting up and maintaining a Wiki page on this respect? Well, lets say: the Conference Committee should be highly prepared to set up and maintain a Wiki page on how to organize a local meeting / conference or piggy pack on another event. Best regards, Arnulf ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] How to become an OSGeo member
All, Markus was so kind as to update our membership pages so that finally we should all be able to understand how to become a member. This is an announcement to please check back and let us know whether this is actually true. From http://www.osgeo.org/content/faq/getting_started.html = Getting Started at OSGeo = If you're new to OSGeo, here are a few things that you can do to come up to speed quickly with the organization and start collaborating with others. All are welcome to participate regardless of membership status. You do not need to be an OSGeo member to use email mailing lists, the wiki or to contribute to any projects but we do encourage your registration. = How to add Yourself to the Member List = To become an OSGeo member, register yourself on the Wiki. To do this, you will need a Wiki account, which you can get by clicking the 'log in' button on the upper right hand corner of the Wiki[1]. For more information about using a Wiki, see the Wiki Help. After your registration, let people know in your personal Wiki user page (your login name in the top right of the Wiki) what you're about, and what you're interested in. Please simply add the text [[Category: OSGeo Member]] to your page to become auto-registered on the member list page. Since you've read the FAQ[2], you know that everyone participating is a member, so adding yourself to the discuss email list is the first thing to do (which you probably already did if you are reading this :-). If something does not make sense to you or you have a idea how to improve please let this list know. [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php?title=Special:Userlogintype=signupreturnto=Main_Page [2] http://www.osgeo.org/content/faq/foundation_faq.html -- Arnulf Benno Christl http://www.osgeo.org OSGeo President +50.7342N +7.0707E ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Beta-test the GEospatial Applications Registry (GEAR)
FYI. Maybe they will appreciate some humble Open Source contributions. == In support of the Geospatial Line of Business, an FGDC-coordinated activity to streamline geospatial activities across the US federal government, a GEospatial Applications Registry (GEAR) is being prototyped as a directory of software applications that are pertinent to government business processes. The objective is to provide a listing (Wiki) of software products and encourage comments (blog-style) with evidence of implementation. Nominations of software in GEAR does not constitute endorsement by the government, but provides an interesting and useful way to learn about available software of all types. Software envisioned for the GEAR include open source and commercial applications, as well as commercial offerings. Extensions or add-ons to existing software can be documented and clarified through a dependencies section. Initially we expect a small number of government-originated applications to be registered, but we are inviting the broader GIS implementer community to help us test and build-out the content in GEAR within the next 2-3 weeks. A typical entry should take less than 30 minutes, less if you are fluent with the product being described. Keep in mind that this is only Beta software in a testing phase, but we welcome your honest and complete entries. These will get propagated into the final GEAR deployment when it goes public in October. All entries will be reviewed by a government team and, once approved, made visible for search and browse. Your assistance is greatly appreciated! The URL: http://gear.morphexchange.com == -- Arnulf Benno Christl http://www.osgeo.org (OSGeo Board Member) +50.7342N +7.0707E ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Marketing (was: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects)
Hi, good thread. On Wed, October 3, 2007 03:50, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bruce IMO: I'd caution against watering down the OSGeo 'brand' as a source of 'quality' products, particularly if we want the products accepted as a viable alternative within larger organisations. Ack! While it is good to provide pointers to projects of interest, there needs to be a clear separation of what is an OSGeo project and what is not. I think that it is acceptable to have certain hurdles that a project has to pass in order to be accepted into the OSGeo fold. Could there be a series of tiers? I think they are all there yet, but not well enough discernible yet (the Marketing Committee chair does not really do a good job currently). The first tier could have a low barrier of entry, with low support provided, plus little-or-no promotion as being of the OSGeo 'brand'. This is an OSGeo Wiki page. It is open to the public, go hack it. One of Wikipedia's early mantras was Be Bold. This should apply to the OSGeo Wiki too. Julien's page http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/OSGeo_Labs is a organizing point. I suggest making it a Category (easier to structure and find later more difficult to get people to add it to the Wiki page early on...). A project could work its way through the tiers, and incidentally through the incubation process, and be rewarded with more support from OSGeo along the way. That is the Incubation process, it is fairly well defined and also working so so. We are still in the learning process but that is fine by me as it is a long term thing. The final tier would include, amongst other things, recognition on the OSGeo home page. nick Also correct. But right from the start we published all projects indiscriminately because there was no distinction. Currently there is still practically no distinction between incubating and graduated projects becasue at first only lightweights graduated. This lack is again caused in parts by bad marketing but also because projects don't really care. There are no incentives to graduate. I am at a loss what to do about that and open for suggestions. Feeding on this extraordinary creative thread I am inclined to rephrase Paul's question and ask how to improve Supporting old projects (which is my job as marketing chair). Best regards, -- Arnulf Benno Christl http://www.osgeo.org (OSGeo Board Member) +50.7342N +7.0707E ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo Advocacy
Henning Lorenz wrote: Hi Arnulf! What a great resource! This is exactly what is needed to allow everyone who is interested in OSGeo to promote its case. I'm grateful for the collection of definitions and concepts because I was asked to give a seminar on FOSS software during a local conference here in Uppsala. Why I, a simple FOSS user was asked? Well, that's related to the Use cases for FOSS-GIS in universities thread - there are simply no other people around who use FOSS software in GIS. Cheers, Henning PS: I suggest consolidate instead of bundle in 1. under Education and long term outreach. Hi, thank you for your reply. I added your suggestion. Next time please feel free to do it yourself, after all it is a Wiki... :-) Hopefully we will be able to continue developing these pages but it seems like everybody is busy with other stuff. If you need anything for your seminar and don't find it on OSGeo feel free to contact me directly. Maybe I can help. Best regards, Arnulf. Arnulf Christl (OSGeo) wrote: Hi All, I have started a new page in a tentative try at defining Advocacy for OSGeo. http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Advocacy Please feel free to add, remove, discuss at will. I imagine something like: http://www.freebsd.org/advocacy/ with links and general information, gallery, etc. As we do not want to start yet another workgroup we do this in the Visibility and Promotion Committee (who the f*** gave it this name?) in short VisCom. We (VisCom) will try to pick up a few threads that have been started in the past and looked promising but then have been abandoned due to pending real work. I would be very interested in getting a little unreal again and actively position OSGeo mission and brand in the market. We have already done a good job by just being there but this could be done more actively. * http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/WebCom_OSGeo_Site_Focus * http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Open_Source_Training_Providers etc. many more Be prepared to do things if you suggest them (this is a try a preventing more great ideas spring into life and then wither away because OSGeo did not pick them up). If you are interested please consider joining the VisCom mailing list: http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/viscom-dev Best regards, -- Arnulf Benno Christl http://www.osgeo.org (OSGeo Board Member) +50.7342N +7.0707E ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
