[Board] Press release president's comments

[Frank Warmerdam]

Arnulf Christl wrote:
> Fellow boars,
> please read this press release: 
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Press_Release_Board_2008
> 
> I would like to extend my personal comment to say the following:
> 
> 
> [BOF]
> Arnulf Christl explains, "I'm pleased to be able to help in my new role 
> as OSGeo President. I have three mail goals on my personal agenda, these 
> include further supporting the emergence of local chapters and 
> supporting them in organizing meetings and conferences that complement 
> our global FOSS4G effort. The second area is to improve our support for 
> businesses using and supporting Open Source Geospatial software. Our 
> organization is now so strong and healthy that we need to tell the world 
> about it in the lobby (pressure group work, etc. - please add some 
> correct terminology). The third area is the most challenging one. It 
> includes conciliating between the extremes of proprietary businesses 
> that dominate the OGC and the other extreme of thorough volunteerism(?) 
> that rules still exponentially growing OpenStreetMap. If at all then 
> OSGeo is the organization capable of bridging this gap/gorge/chasm/."
> [EOF]

Arnulf,

I think presening your three pronged vision is good, though some care
should be taken in how it is presented, and I think some iterative
wordsmithing may be appropriate.

I don't think we ought to name OGC as being dominated by proprietary
businesses.  I think we can get across the idea of a range of community
members from proprietary software vendors at one extreme, through to
the volunteerism of communities like openstreetmap without saying something
that might be construed as being a negative view of OGC.

If there is no other rapid negative comment, I'd suggest you push this
into the wiki, and then we go through a bit of iterative editing there.

It's a bit unconventional to say something non-vacuous in a press release,
but I suppose there is no reason we can't buck the trend.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent