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<TITLE>Greetings from Beijing</TITLE>
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<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Yesterday I met with some folks</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">from</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"> a government institute that are</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">doing</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"> a lot of work with open source GIS and want to contribute code back, and in addition want to set up a chapter of OSGeo for China. Given their</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">deep involvement with the software</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">–</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"> they use most of our projects</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">–</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"> and reach across the country, I think these people would be invaluable members of OSGeo and perfect representatives of OSGeo in China.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">What is our process for this? I move we get these guys into membership status right away and get them set up. They are willing to translate, host data, and become contributors to our projects.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I will be offline for a cou</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">pl</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">e of days</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">; I am going up into the Yellow Mountains here, where net access is unlikely, so I will be back on Monday.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Gary</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
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