[OSGeo-Board] Re: Chair for OSGeo Core Curriculum & Education project?

[Jo Walsh]

On Sat, Mar 25, 2006 at 08:22:11PM -0500, Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> >  I
> >believe there needs to be a focus on building relationships and community 
> 
> I'm interested in suggestions on how to do that.  Though, I'm not even sure
> that I would consider this the top priority or focus.

I appreciated Chris's suggestion of a 'pledgebank' type system for OSGeo.
(c.f. http://pledgebank.com )

[[ But for new features, I can see a pledge bank type system working
better. Paul Ramsey brokered a deal like this for GiST improvements to
Postgresql. But it'dâbe great if someone could request a feature,
get a developer to estimate the total cost, and say they'd pledge
$500 towards it, but only if it got funded. ]]
http://cholmes.wordpress.com/2006/03/09/foundation-of-participation-part-3-the-social-concerns/

On one level, this could work for fundraising; people volunteer to
commit a sum towards the development of a new feature or a new
documentation set, if N other people also were interested in doing so. 
This could be a good way for the Foundation to contribute towards
projects, by setting a side a pool of funding to match what is
raised if the pledge is completed. People could pledge time, an amount
of Effort, there are "time-bank" systems but they don't have much 
abstraction, value of time varies so much under different circumstances.

There is some interesting work in "decision markets", the whole
"wisdom of crowds" thing, personally I don't believe all the hype. 
But a pledgebank like scheme could help engage people and get them
talking, help offer visible "proof of value".

In terms of priority and focus; there are a lot of us willing to help,
and we can do all kinds of different things. Communicating with each
other more about what we are building, can only help that work better,
and prioritisation doesn't have to involve sacrifice. 

warm regards,


jo