Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Report from the OSGeo Board meeting
On Sep 21, 2011, at 2:59 AM, Michael P. Gerlek wrote: I wrote recently that there three kinds of functions needed here: administrative (bookkeeping, answering mail, etc), tactical (project management, sys admin), and strategic (fundraising, outreach). The first can be done by a mixture of outsourcing and volunteers, and we're already taking steps for that. The second is done already by very competent volunteers. The third requires a very specific set of skills we will likely hire or contract out for; Agree about the first and the second above, but disagree about the third (in a minor way). Yes, fundraising is something that requires a dedicated person or persona, which, unfortunately and ironically requires funds. Although, there are models for getting around that (in a minute on that). However, please don't lump outreach there. Outreach is what we all do on a daily basis -- - Every time someone responds to a desperate new or (ahem) returning user's email as to why MapServer is returning a broken image or why OpenLayers is not working via a proxy, that is outreach. - The hours that Alex and Karsten and others (including, in a very small way, myself) stand at the OSGeo booth talking to visitors, that is outreach. - The countless presentations that I have given all over the world in the past 3 years, mostly as a Creative Commons Fellow, but also talking about OSGeo and free and open source geospatial, that is outreach. - Using pretty much nothing but OSGeo tools for my current largish-money project and converting all my colleagues in academic to appreciating the benefits of OSGeo tools is outreach. Outreach is a fundamentally volunteer and community effort, not requiring a dedicated sales/advertising budget or agency. This is a significant part of the open in OSGeo. With regards to fundraising -- I am thinking of the sqlite model. As you might know, sqlite is in public domain. However, the developer ha) at least the following funding sources -- 1. personal technical support 2. sale of encrypted sqlite 3. (perhaps, most applicable to OSGeo) is corporate sponsorship/membership to the sqlite consortium from big-pocketed private companies that benefit from sqlite. I believe part of the benefit of being a member of the consortia is that they get some tech support, etc., although I am not too sure about that. sqlite.org has details about that. in the near term, the board and other non-board volunteers will shoulder this (as they have been doing for years, though often unacknowledged). This will be an evolving process, of course, and the discussion with the community is now underway. Yup, this is good. And, absolute no issues with taking decision about eliminating the ED position without airing it on the public list. Besides other reasons, it would have been tremendously inefficient. -- Puneet Kishor___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Report from the OSGeo Board meeting
Hello, this is a short report from the OSGeo board meeting held in Denver, USA after FOS4G 2011. We had a crammed agenda [1] with many things to talk about and will continue to do so on the board mailing list [2] over the coming weeks and months. Feel free to join us there and chime in if you are interested in helping to shape the future of OSGeo. The full minutes of the meeting will be on the Web soon, the following bullets only give a short overview of the most important items. * We have reconsidered the way the organization is run and came to the conclusion that it is time for a change. * We would like to diversify our outreach and fundraising and address a wider range of activities. * As a result we have decided that the existing role of a single Executive Director is no longer the best use of our funds and we will discontinue this role. * We thank Tyler Mitchell for his great contribution in launching and bringing OSGeo into operation over the last five years. We look forward to his continued contributions in coming years. * We will make supporting code sprints a higher priority of our goals and draft guidelines [3] to that effect. * As a first step we decided to financially back-up the Islandwood Code Sprint (sign up here [4]). * Beijing has been confirmed as the venue for FOSS4G 2012 * FOSS4G 2011 in Denver was such a great success that we will consider hosting more regional events, including options for an ongoing North American conference and a Central and East European FOSS4G. * The Conference Committee list [5] will be a hot place for talking about how to organize this. * We adopted two Memoranda of Understanding with the International Cartographic Association (ICA) [6] and The GIS and Remote Sensing Centre, The University of Girona, Spain (SIGTE) [7]. * Our new treasurer is Daniel Morissette. We thank Frank Warmerdam for the good work he has provided in this position beforehand. * We welcome Alex Mandel as the new chair of the System Administration Committee and thank Howard Butler for chairing the committee so far and welcome his continued support in the System Administration Committee. * The board confirmed Daniel Morissette as chair of the Incubation Committee and thank our outgoing chair Frank Warmerdam for launching and running the Incubator for more than 5 years. * The nomination and election of up to 20 new OSGeo Charter Members are going to take place in the coming weeks. * We thank Peter ter Haar, product manager from Ordnance Survey and sponsor of OSGeo [8] for sharing his insight on the adoption of Open Source by public administrations in Europe during the board meeting. We appreciate the momentum that has carried over from the many talks we had with OSGeo members and friends at the conference and look forward to a productive coming year. On behalf of the OSGeo board of directors, Arnulf Christl [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Face_to_Face_Meeting_Denver_2011#Agenda [2] http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board [3] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Code_Sprint_Guidelines [4] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/IslandWood_Code_Sprint_2012 [5] http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev [6] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/MOU_ICA [7] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/MOU_SIGTE [8] http://www.osgeo.org/sponsors -- 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] Report from the OSGeo Board meeting
On Sep 20, 2011, at 3:14 PM, Arnulf Christl wrote: * We have reconsidered the way the organization is run and came to the conclusion that it is time for a change. * We would like to diversify our outreach and fundraising and address a wider range of activities. * As a result we have decided that the existing role of a single Executive Director is no longer the best use of our funds and we will discontinue this role. * We thank Tyler Mitchell for his great contribution in launching and bringing OSGeo into operation over the last five years. We look forward to his continued contributions in coming years. * We will make supporting code sprints a higher priority of our goals and draft guidelines [3] to that effect. * As a first step we decided to financially back-up the Islandwood Code Sprint (sign up here [4]). The elimination of the Executive Director position accompanies what seems to be a strategic shift in the operation of OSGeo. It seems such a move should have been discussed with the membership prior to implementation. Being and open and transparent organization calls for such discussions. Can the board explain how elimination of the Executive Director supports the new goals? Or is it solely a financial issue? Is there a strategic plan the outlines these goals and how they will be implemented? -gary ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
