RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity
On Jo's last point re funding travel expenses, this would be a huge benefit for getting deserving delegates who don't have the means to Cape Town next year and other conferences in future. Perhaps a merit- and means- based application process could be applied. Gavin -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jo Walsh Sent: 30 August 2007 12:20 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity dear Howard, thanks for your email which has been along with its responses very thought-provoking, On Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 10:18:36PM -0700, Dave Patton wrote: Howard Butler wrote: Most of OSGeo's measurable successes to date have been volunteer efforts, not primarily financially-backed ones. The OSGeo Journal effort, Google Summer of Code administration, the Geodata committee's efforts, and even much of our system administration to keep the lights on for developer tools Well, these are quite different kinds of efforts. The Journal has come together because of Tyler's time invested in it, so it is more or less direct financial backing from OSGeo. The SoC programme, look forward to hear more about the eventual experiences of, but that came about in the first place because of direct Google financial support to students. The Geodata committee's efforts have been more like what you describe about software projects coming together - a byproduct of a set of interconnected people each scratching their own itches. But being more loose collaboration than planned action it is a bit impenetrable to those outside the immediate loop, i think. And geodata and systems administration have overlapped quite a bit, as people get shanghaied into helping with different problems ;) But keeping the lights on, and creating new things, are quite different. One burns out on doing administrative / organising things and i wish there were a way that could be automated and/or shared. The structure we have now with one Committee Chair per committee, one gets into overcommitment/guilt and superfluous soul-searching. benefactor as we do now. We're almost two years down the road into bootstrapping, and our majority benefactor situation has budged very little. As far as I know, our only significant incoming sponsorship dollars beyond Autodesk are the targeted development vehicles like those that pay for a permanent maintainer for GDAL. This definitely seems something the Board should be talking about, the whole question of what sponsors are visibly getting and what can be done to get them involved, and at what should we aim. I have added a few notes to the Agenda section for the next meeting right before FOSS4G and i would urge anyone to add their concerns so it can be refined - re-framed? - nearer the time... http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Board_Meeting_FOSS4G2007#Agenda There has certainly been a lot of volunteer effort by the organizers of the FOSS4G 2007 conference It is terrific to see so much effort and I am really looking forward to getting to see it realised, taking lots of pictures, sending press releases etc. At the same time i am having to beg and borrow to get to Victoria and I know many, many others from outside North America for whom the combination of long flight and cost of living disparity is just too large a barrier. Something else i would like to add to the Board's discussion is the possibility of funding either travel expenses or better, several smaller conferences distributed around the planet, next year... cheers, jo -- ___ 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] Return on Equity
I think that it's a mistake to be thinking about how to spend OSGeo's funds until we have a business model that ensures sufficient income to cover our expenses. We're still bootstrapping, but we're almost two years in and are still heavily reliant on Autodesk's continued involvement. I sincerely hope that the new board (and Tyler) are making this topic their highest priority. Jason From: Gavin Fleming Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity On Jo's last point re funding travel expenses, this would be a huge benefit for getting deserving delegates who don't have the means to Cape Town next year and other conferences in future. Perhaps a merit- and means- based application process could be applied. winmail.dat___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity
It depends a great deal on whether OSGeo wants to be self-sustaining at the $1000 level or the $10 level. At the $1000 level we shut everything down and put a paypal button on the front page, mission accomplished. At the $10 level, job one is to direct the money at places where it will eventually generate more money, and a great deal will depend on whether this open source geospatial stuff is as big as we all seem to think it is. P. On 30-Aug-07, at 12:50 AM, Jason Birch wrote: I sincerely hope that the new board (and Tyler) are making this topic their highest priority. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity
I am involved in another organization that illustrates why I participate in the OSGeo. I thought sharing that might add something to the return on equity conversation. On a regular basis I meet with 20 to 30 other surveyors that are members of the local California Land Surveyors Association Chapter. We hold the meetings to meet one another and to discuss items of concern to our profession. I don't know that we necessarily get any tangible return on equity from our involvement, but it is important to all of us. I look at the OSGeo in a similar manner. I'm not GIS Certified or a part of an organization like URISA. In a way the OSGeo serves as my professional organization for GIS. It gives me the opportunity to learn from and share with other GIS professionals with whom I have some common interests and values. I think we need to remember OSGeo is as much about the people as it is about the software. On a related note, I have heard that organizations like the OSGeo slowly die if their members don't have an agenda of action items to work on. I guess this is related to the united by a common enemy principle. I'm not saying that we need a common enemy, but I think that having definite problems or challenges that we address as an organization will make us healthier. Here are some examples of the problems or challenges I am talking about: [1] Affordable and reasonable access to publicly funded geospatial data. [2] Privacy concerns with geospatial data. [3] Affordable and reasonable access to geospatial education focused on open source software and technical principles, not on button pushing. [4] Promotion of open source GIS as a tool that can be used to better the lives of the people in our society. Promotion and support of open source software is an important part of what we do at the OSGeo. But if you really want to make OSGeo an organization that matters to the general public you have to see it as an organization that promotes the use of open source GIS to solve the bigger challenges listed above. My return on equity from the OSGeo is the opportunity to do some of those things. I don't want to just write great open source software, I want to do great things with the software I write. I think the OSGeo can provide me the opportunity to do that. Landon P.S. - Thanks to Howard for the excellent post. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jody Garnett Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2007 9:48 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity vs leech of resources Thanks for the insight; Right now the pitch is: We are taking part in OSGeo in order to meet with the rest of the community I am not looking for much return out of OSGeo until the projects I am involved in finish incubation (am I alone in this?). So far I feel bad that we are taking up tones of time, occasional legal council etc...after incubation involvement should become more positive (marketing etc...) Jody Howard Butler wrote: Open source software works because people acting in their own self interest have the auxiliary benefit of helping everyone in the project. Report your pet bug, file a patch, add a new feature -- all of these things immediately help you, but ultimately help the project. This activity also imparts tangential benefits that are very hard to quantify but can be clearly important like personal visibility, credibility, and status. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss Warning: Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against defects including translation and transmission errors. If the reader is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this information in error, please notify the sender immediately. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity
Landon Blake wrote: Promotion and support of open source software is an important part of what we do at the OSGeo. But if you really want to make OSGeo an organization that matters to the general public you have to see it as an organization that promotes the use of open source GIS to solve the bigger challenges listed above. My return on equity from the OSGeo is the opportunity to do some of those things. I don't want to just write great open source software, I want to do great things with the software I write. I think the OSGeo can provide me the opportunity to do that. Landon, I think this is an interesting point. A part of why I write open source software is that I want my software to be used, and in particular I want my software to enable things of social value that might not otherwise have happened. If there are people willing to help make it happen, I'd like to see OSGeo support socially relavent organizations in use of open source software. I'm not so such I worry about OSGeo an organization that matters to the general public. I'd be pleased to see it matter to developers and users of open source geospatial software (and helping to grow that pool). 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
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity
Frank wrote: I'm not worried so much about OSGeo as an organization that matters to the general public. I'd be pleased to see it matter to developers and users of open source geospatial software (and helping to grow that pool). Perhaps it is best to start with modest goals and the goal you describe above is a modest AND logical. I just think that open source GIS software opens up the door for GIS to be used in a lot of other places that are now prevented from doing so because of price. For example, I volunteer with a non-profit organization that assists the United States Forest Service with care of the Mokelumne Wilderness. That type of group could never afford a big-brand GIS program. But I am going to try to use OpenJUMP to support their efforts. The same applies to developing countries, which has been discussed on this list previously. That is were the real beauty of the open source gem shines. Putting a tool into the hands of people so that they can accomplish a greater good. Open source software development is all about circumventing the unbalanced desire for profit and the secrecy that results to accomplish a greater good. It seems like a natural fit to me. But I'm getting totally sidetracked. I apologize for that. My original point was that I'm involved in OSGeo as much for the people as I am for the benefits to my open source software project. The people are part of my return on equity. Landon (A.K.A. - The Sunburned Surveyor) -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Frank Warmerdam Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2007 12:13 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity Landon Blake wrote: Promotion and support of open source software is an important part of what we do at the OSGeo. But if you really want to make OSGeo an organization that matters to the general public you have to see it as an organization that promotes the use of open source GIS to solve the bigger challenges listed above. My return on equity from the OSGeo is the opportunity to do some of those things. I don't want to just write great open source software, I want to do great things with the software I write. I think the OSGeo can provide me the opportunity to do that. Landon, I think this is an interesting point. A part of why I write open source software is that I want my software to be used, and in particular I want my software to enable things of social value that might not otherwise have happened. If there are people willing to help make it happen, I'd like to see OSGeo support socially relavent organizations in use of open source software. I'm not so such I worry about OSGeo an organization that matters to the general public. I'd be pleased to see it matter to developers and users of open source geospatial software (and helping to grow that pool). 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 Warning: Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against defects including translation and transmission errors. If the reader is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this information in error, please notify the sender immediately. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity
An excellent book that tells the FOSS story and explores its value propositions and business models is 'The Success of Open Source' by Steven Weber, who writes from the perspective of an 'outsider', a political scientist. Gavin -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of P Kishor Sent: 29 August 2007 05:40 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity Very well written Howard. In tribute to your writing, I will promptly snitch some ideas from your writing below. I have been tackling this issue of selling open geospatial, particularly to agencies for whom generally financial cost is a non-issue. I try to tell them that in most classes open source is the best-of-class technologies no matter what yardstick you measure it against. The defining characteristic, of course, is the mob-intelligence quotient. But how do you measure the quality of knowledge produced collaboratively? There is no gross salary number that can be divided by the staff hours. There is no cash-flow, free money, ROE of the contributors... there is return on investment that can be measured, but usually only after the investment. SLOCs (source line of code) is one measure, but in the world which strives to write as few lines of code to accomplish a task, usually a measure of better software, fewer SLOC would actually be a better indicator of the quality. If someone can condense the qualities of open source to a sound-bite, that would be great, but I have been unable to do so. I find that there is a story behind open source, and that story takes time telling, particularly to those who are not familiar with it. For that, one needs to cultivate relationships so folks can become willing to give their time to listen to the story. I have been shaping my story along the lines of technology, law, and culture. Open source, unlike other forms of knowledge-production, has innovated along all of these three axes... novel forms of technologies created through novel forms of technologies, innovative legal regimes that are continuously evolving participatively, and a culture, an ethos, that fundamentally believes that sharing is better than not sharing. On 8/29/07, Howard Butler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Open source software works because people acting in their own self interest have the auxiliary benefit of helping everyone in the project. Report your pet bug, file a patch, add a new feature -- all of these things immediately help you, but ultimately help the project. This activity also imparts tangential benefits that are very hard to quantify but can be clearly important like personal visibility, credibility, and status. For an open source software project to be viable as a development entity, it must be able to bestow these benefits to its individual contributors. Everyone's reasons may be different, but people must be able to receive a return on their sweat equity that they put in or volunteer effort will not continue to flow into a project. I think that recognition and facilitation of this symbiosis is a blind spot for OSGeo. We should be striving to ensure that it can take place because we are a volunteer organization whose members have common goals. Wait a second? Isn't OSGeo an Autodesk thing with lots of money? How is it a volunteer organization? Most of OSGeo's measurable successes to date have been volunteer efforts, not primarily financially-backed ones. The OSGeo Journal effort, Google Summer of Code administration, the Geodata committee's efforts, and even much of our system administration to keep the lights on for developer tools like Subversion/Trac have been volunteer enterprises (please help flesh out this list, these are only those I am most aware of, I know there have been many others). However, I think financial resources, both in the capacity to generate sponsorship money and the ability to spend it wisely, are what provides the opportunity to set OSGeo apart and provide the volunteerism leverage. When Autodesk came in and helped bootstrap OSGeo, it was fairly clear that our financial existence would not be an indefinite expenditure -- we would have to exist on our own. Additionally, to meet 503c3 requirements, we cannot have a situation where we have a majority benefactor as we do now. We're almost two years down the road into bootstrapping, and our majority benefactor situation has budged very little. As far as I know, our only significant incoming sponsorship dollars beyond Autodesk are the targeted development vehicles like those that pay for a permanent maintainer for GDAL. Another aspect is the sweat equity that has been poured into OSGeo over the past year and a half. Committee members, board members, and of course, especially Frank Warmerdam have been spending a lot of time bootstrapping. The opportunity cost of this effort has not been insignificant. I think it is time we take a step back
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity
Dave Patton wrote: Howard Butler wrote: Most of OSGeo's measurable successes to date have been volunteer efforts, not primarily financially-backed ones. The OSGeo Journal effort, Google Summer of Code administration, the Geodata committee's efforts, and even much of our system administration to keep the lights on for developer tools like Subversion/Trac have been volunteer enterprises (please help flesh out this list, these are only those I am most aware of, I know there have been many others). However, I think financial resources, both in the capacity to generate sponsorship money and the ability to spend it wisely, are what provides the opportunity to set OSGeo apart and provide the volunteerism leverage. When Autodesk came in and helped bootstrap OSGeo, it was fairly clear that our financial existence would not be an indefinite expenditure -- we would have to exist on our own. Additionally, to meet 503c3 requirements, we cannot have a situation where we have a majority benefactor as we do now. We're almost two years down the road into bootstrapping, and our majority benefactor situation has budged very little. As far as I know, our only significant incoming sponsorship dollars beyond Autodesk are the targeted development vehicles like those that pay for a permanent maintainer for GDAL. There has certainly been a lot of volunteer effort by the organizers of the FOSS4G 2007 conference, and the efforts of those volunteers will continue through to the end of the conference, when the ball gets picked up by the organizers of next year's conference. The actual dollar number that you come up with will depend on various factors, but you can argue that both the 500+ registrants for the conference, and the conference's Sponsors/Exhibitors are all contributing financially to OSGeo. The Sponsors presumably wouldn't be spending money on the conference if they didn't see value for their companies. Maybe it's an opportunity for the new board to frame some questions at their meeting the day before the conference, and to ask those questions of Sponsors during the conference, to try and facilitate future opportunities for OSGeo sponsorship by a variety of corporations, in a variety of ways. I'm contributing financially to OSGeo? How much? I don't remember reading anywhere on the conference website that the event is about OSGeo revenue. Sean ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity
Sean Gillies wrote: Dave Patton wrote: The actual dollar number that you come up with will depend on various factors, but you can argue that both the 500+ registrants for the conference, and the conference's Sponsors/Exhibitors are all contributing financially to OSGeo. I'm contributing financially to OSGeo? How much? I don't remember reading anywhere on the conference website that the event is about OSGeo revenue. Well, I didn't say it was about OSGeo revenue :-) FOSS4G is presented annually by the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo). There is of course a difference between gross revenue and net revenue for something like a conference, where there a lots of expenses, however, if the gross revenue is shown on the OSGeo balance sheet, it can help make the case that Autodesk isn't the only significant source of revenue, even if the end result of the conference is that it is 'revenue neutral'[1]. [1] http://www.osgeo.org/files/conference/osgeo-conference-2007-request-for-proposal.pdf OSGeo may also be in a position to provide some bridge funding and take on liability for conference shortfalls should attendance fall short. It is, however, intended that the conference be essentially revenue neutral after completion. -- Dave Patton Degree Confluence Project: Canadian Coordinator Technical Coordinator http://www.confluence.org/ FOSS4G2007: Workshop Committee Conference Committee http://www.foss4g2007.org/ Personal website: Maps, GPS, etc. http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity
Sean Gillies wrote: I'm contributing financially to OSGeo? How much? I don't remember reading anywhere on the conference website that the event is about OSGeo revenue. Sean, Relax, the conference sponsors are effectively subsidizing attendies. If the conference makes a small profit, then it does revert to OSGeo (as does any loss), but it is really the sponsors that are making the difference. 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
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity
Howard Butler wrote: Open source software works because people acting in their own self interest have the auxiliary benefit of helping everyone in the project. Report your pet bug, file a patch, add a new feature -- all of these things immediately help you, but ultimately help the project. This activity also imparts tangential benefits that are very hard to quantify but can be clearly important like personal visibility, credibility, and status. ... I think it is time we take a step back and attempt to quantify what the return on that investment has been. What has the existence of OSGeo enabled that could not have happened otherwise? Howard, I would claim that the benefits of OSGeo are quite hard to quantify. But hopefully we can at least identify some qualitative improvements. From my perspective the more obvious benefits are: 1) I was able to launch a GDAL/OGR sponsorship program that is fairly credible to corporate entities (ie. it doesn't just look like me feather-bedding), and we were able to turn that funding around to fund a maintainer role. 2) We have some organization around selecting conference venues, and this process has (I think) resulted in multiple credible host candidates putting the conference on a more even keel. 3) We have dependable project infrastructure for those that want to use it. I'd add that this shared hosting effort has had a substantial benefit for GDAL/OGR (and I think MapServer, OSSIM, etc) of encouraging the use of better tools (trac/svn vs. bugzilla/cvs) that might not have happened if the projects were still on their own. There are some less tangible benefits, but I find there are many and it is hard for me to decide which are significant and which are in my own head. What is the elevator pitch, one-sentence value proposition to a potential sponsor of OSGeo? My short pitch to existing users of open source geospatial software is that they need to find ways of supporting and fostering the community that makes and improves the software they use. That some modest effort in this direction keeps the factory working, and provides them with credibility when they need something. Depending on the organization this pitch might lead to in-kind support, project specific sponsorship or sponsorship for OSGeo as a whole. With consulting companies working in the field, I would emphasize that having some profile as a project and community supporter is important to clients when they are selecting a service vendor. The inverse of the above, is that if we want OSGeo sponsors on this sort of basis we need to demonstrate that sponsorship of OSGeo actually helps the projects and that such sponsorship actually produces a higher profile for the sponsors. What is the concrete return on sweat equity that a volunteer within OSGeo can expect to earn? We need to think about structural issues OSGeo might have that hinder our ability to model the Open Source symbiosis described in the first paragraphs of this email for those with financial resources or those willing to swing an ax or two. This I will need to think on this. I'd like to think the web site spotlights, the Sol Katz award, and fancy OSGeo titles provide a little visibility/credibility/status juice but clearly the feedback loop for participating in the incubation committee for instance isn't going to be as tight as implementing a new software feature you can use right away. 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
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity
dear Howard, thanks for your email which has been along with its responses very thought-provoking, On Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 10:18:36PM -0700, Dave Patton wrote: Howard Butler wrote: Most of OSGeo's measurable successes to date have been volunteer efforts, not primarily financially-backed ones. The OSGeo Journal effort, Google Summer of Code administration, the Geodata committee's efforts, and even much of our system administration to keep the lights on for developer tools Well, these are quite different kinds of efforts. The Journal has come together because of Tyler's time invested in it, so it is more or less direct financial backing from OSGeo. The SoC programme, look forward to hear more about the eventual experiences of, but that came about in the first place because of direct Google financial support to students. The Geodata committee's efforts have been more like what you describe about software projects coming together - a byproduct of a set of interconnected people each scratching their own itches. But being more loose collaboration than planned action it is a bit impenetrable to those outside the immediate loop, i think. And geodata and systems administration have overlapped quite a bit, as people get shanghaied into helping with different problems ;) But keeping the lights on, and creating new things, are quite different. One burns out on doing administrative / organising things and i wish there were a way that could be automated and/or shared. The structure we have now with one Committee Chair per committee, one gets into overcommitment/guilt and superfluous soul-searching. benefactor as we do now. We're almost two years down the road into bootstrapping, and our majority benefactor situation has budged very little. As far as I know, our only significant incoming sponsorship dollars beyond Autodesk are the targeted development vehicles like those that pay for a permanent maintainer for GDAL. This definitely seems something the Board should be talking about, the whole question of what sponsors are visibly getting and what can be done to get them involved, and at what should we aim. I have added a few notes to the Agenda section for the next meeting right before FOSS4G and i would urge anyone to add their concerns so it can be refined - re-framed? - nearer the time... http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Board_Meeting_FOSS4G2007#Agenda There has certainly been a lot of volunteer effort by the organizers of the FOSS4G 2007 conference It is terrific to see so much effort and I am really looking forward to getting to see it realised, taking lots of pictures, sending press releases etc. At the same time i am having to beg and borrow to get to Victoria and I know many, many others from outside North America for whom the combination of long flight and cost of living disparity is just too large a barrier. Something else i would like to add to the Board's discussion is the possibility of funding either travel expenses or better, several smaller conferences distributed around the planet, next year... cheers, jo -- ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity
Hi all, all that has happened is, for the benefit of developing world, where GIS hitherto has limited itself to the glass facades of multinational companies, and is only meant for those who can afford. The Pune exercise is one of the pioneer effort in this direction http://pcmcgisda.org.in/node/gisda The OSGeo-India is promoting GIS projects under consideration for other cities, Example: Rajahmundry city, A.P. Cheers Ravi Kumar Gavin Fleming [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: An excellent book that tells the FOSS story and explores its value propositions and business models is 'The Success of Open Source' by Steven Weber, who writes from the perspective of an 'outsider', a political scientist. Gavin -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of P Kishor Sent: 29 August 2007 05:40 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity Very well written Howard. In tribute to your writing, I will promptly snitch some ideas from your writing below. I have been tackling this issue of selling open geospatial, particularly to agencies for whom generally financial cost is a non-issue. I try to tell them that in most classes open source is the best-of-class technologies no matter what yardstick you measure it against. The defining characteristic, of course, is the mob-intelligence quotient. But how do you measure the quality of knowledge produced collaboratively? There is no gross salary number that can be divided by the staff hours. There is no cash-flow, free money, ROE of the contributors... there is return on investment that can be measured, but usually only after the investment. SLOCs (source line of code) is one measure, but in the world which strives to write as few lines of code to accomplish a task, usually a measure of better software, fewer SLOC would actually be a better indicator of the quality. If someone can condense the qualities of open source to a sound-bite, that would be great, but I have been unable to do so. I find that there is a story behind open source, and that story takes time telling, particularly to those who are not familiar with it. For that, one needs to cultivate relationships so folks can become willing to give their time to listen to the story. I have been shaping my story along the lines of technology, law, and culture. Open source, unlike other forms of knowledge-production, has innovated along all of these three axes... novel forms of technologies created through novel forms of technologies, innovative legal regimes that are continuously evolving participatively, and a culture, an ethos, that fundamentally believes that sharing is better than not sharing. On 8/29/07, Howard Butler wrote: Open source software works because people acting in their own self interest have the auxiliary benefit of helping everyone in the project. Report your pet bug, file a patch, add a new feature -- all of these things immediately help you, but ultimately help the project. This activity also imparts tangential benefits that are very hard to quantify but can be clearly important like personal visibility, credibility, and status. For an open source software project to be viable as a development entity, it must be able to bestow these benefits to its individual contributors. Everyone's reasons may be different, but people must be able to receive a return on their sweat equity that they put in or volunteer effort will not continue to flow into a project. I think that recognition and facilitation of this symbiosis is a blind spot for OSGeo. We should be striving to ensure that it can take place because we are a volunteer organization whose members have common goals. Wait a second? Isn't OSGeo an Autodesk thing with lots of money? How is it a volunteer organization? Most of OSGeo's measurable successes to date have been volunteer efforts, not primarily financially-backed ones. The OSGeo Journal effort, Google Summer of Code administration, the Geodata committee's efforts, and even much of our system administration to keep the lights on for developer tools like Subversion/Trac have been volunteer enterprises (please help flesh out this list, these are only those I am most aware of, I know there have been many others). However, I think financial resources, both in the capacity to generate sponsorship money and the ability to spend it wisely, are what provides the opportunity to set OSGeo apart and provide the volunteerism leverage. When Autodesk came in and helped bootstrap OSGeo, it was fairly clear that our financial existence would not be an indefinite expenditure -- we would have to exist on our own. Additionally, to meet 503c3 requirements, we cannot have a situation where we have a majority benefactor as we do now. We're almost two years down the road into bootstrapping, and our majority benefactor situation has budged very little. As far as I know, our only significant incoming
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity
Very well written Howard. In tribute to your writing, I will promptly snitch some ideas from your writing below. I have been tackling this issue of selling open geospatial, particularly to agencies for whom generally financial cost is a non-issue. I try to tell them that in most classes open source is the best-of-class technologies no matter what yardstick you measure it against. The defining characteristic, of course, is the mob-intelligence quotient. But how do you measure the quality of knowledge produced collaboratively? There is no gross salary number that can be divided by the staff hours. There is no cash-flow, free money, ROE of the contributors... there is return on investment that can be measured, but usually only after the investment. SLOCs (source line of code) is one measure, but in the world which strives to write as few lines of code to accomplish a task, usually a measure of better software, fewer SLOC would actually be a better indicator of the quality. If someone can condense the qualities of open source to a sound-bite, that would be great, but I have been unable to do so. I find that there is a story behind open source, and that story takes time telling, particularly to those who are not familiar with it. For that, one needs to cultivate relationships so folks can become willing to give their time to listen to the story. I have been shaping my story along the lines of technology, law, and culture. Open source, unlike other forms of knowledge-production, has innovated along all of these three axes... novel forms of technologies created through novel forms of technologies, innovative legal regimes that are continuously evolving participatively, and a culture, an ethos, that fundamentally believes that sharing is better than not sharing. On 8/29/07, Howard Butler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Open source software works because people acting in their own self interest have the auxiliary benefit of helping everyone in the project. Report your pet bug, file a patch, add a new feature -- all of these things immediately help you, but ultimately help the project. This activity also imparts tangential benefits that are very hard to quantify but can be clearly important like personal visibility, credibility, and status. For an open source software project to be viable as a development entity, it must be able to bestow these benefits to its individual contributors. Everyone's reasons may be different, but people must be able to receive a return on their sweat equity that they put in or volunteer effort will not continue to flow into a project. I think that recognition and facilitation of this symbiosis is a blind spot for OSGeo. We should be striving to ensure that it can take place because we are a volunteer organization whose members have common goals. Wait a second? Isn't OSGeo an Autodesk thing with lots of money? How is it a volunteer organization? Most of OSGeo's measurable successes to date have been volunteer efforts, not primarily financially-backed ones. The OSGeo Journal effort, Google Summer of Code administration, the Geodata committee's efforts, and even much of our system administration to keep the lights on for developer tools like Subversion/Trac have been volunteer enterprises (please help flesh out this list, these are only those I am most aware of, I know there have been many others). However, I think financial resources, both in the capacity to generate sponsorship money and the ability to spend it wisely, are what provides the opportunity to set OSGeo apart and provide the volunteerism leverage. When Autodesk came in and helped bootstrap OSGeo, it was fairly clear that our financial existence would not be an indefinite expenditure -- we would have to exist on our own. Additionally, to meet 503c3 requirements, we cannot have a situation where we have a majority benefactor as we do now. We're almost two years down the road into bootstrapping, and our majority benefactor situation has budged very little. As far as I know, our only significant incoming sponsorship dollars beyond Autodesk are the targeted development vehicles like those that pay for a permanent maintainer for GDAL. Another aspect is the sweat equity that has been poured into OSGeo over the past year and a half. Committee members, board members, and of course, especially Frank Warmerdam have been spending a lot of time bootstrapping. The opportunity cost of this effort has not been insignificant. I think it is time we take a step back and attempt to quantify what the return on that investment has been. What has the existence of OSGeo enabled that could not have happened otherwise? With some new blood and hopefully new enthusiasm coming to the OSGeo board, I would like to propose that we challenge the assumptions of the value proposition of OSGeo in an attempt to focus our efforts. Other than some minor benefits (or major pains, hah!) of shared
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Return on Equity
Howard Butler wrote: Most of OSGeo's measurable successes to date have been volunteer efforts, not primarily financially-backed ones. The OSGeo Journal effort, Google Summer of Code administration, the Geodata committee's efforts, and even much of our system administration to keep the lights on for developer tools like Subversion/Trac have been volunteer enterprises (please help flesh out this list, these are only those I am most aware of, I know there have been many others). However, I think financial resources, both in the capacity to generate sponsorship money and the ability to spend it wisely, are what provides the opportunity to set OSGeo apart and provide the volunteerism leverage. When Autodesk came in and helped bootstrap OSGeo, it was fairly clear that our financial existence would not be an indefinite expenditure -- we would have to exist on our own. Additionally, to meet 503c3 requirements, we cannot have a situation where we have a majority benefactor as we do now. We're almost two years down the road into bootstrapping, and our majority benefactor situation has budged very little. As far as I know, our only significant incoming sponsorship dollars beyond Autodesk are the targeted development vehicles like those that pay for a permanent maintainer for GDAL. There has certainly been a lot of volunteer effort by the organizers of the FOSS4G 2007 conference, and the efforts of those volunteers will continue through to the end of the conference, when the ball gets picked up by the organizers of next year's conference. The actual dollar number that you come up with will depend on various factors, but you can argue that both the 500+ registrants for the conference, and the conference's Sponsors/Exhibitors are all contributing financially to OSGeo. The Sponsors presumably wouldn't be spending money on the conference if they didn't see value for their companies. Maybe it's an opportunity for the new board to frame some questions at their meeting the day before the conference, and to ask those questions of Sponsors during the conference, to try and facilitate future opportunities for OSGeo sponsorship by a variety of corporations, in a variety of ways. -- Dave Patton Degree Confluence Project: Canadian Coordinator Technical Coordinator http://www.confluence.org/ FOSS4G2007: Workshop Committee Conference Committee http://www.foss4g2007.org/ Personal website: Maps, GPS, etc. http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
