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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=FI link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Peter and others,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>I just realize that Easter holidays will have impact to response quickly to all your questions. Or maybe this is not even Q&A session, but more like online chatting. However, here are comments from Helsinki team to Peter’s questions:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Previous FOSS4G events:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>I have personally only participated in one conference: Denver. My feeling was that this FOSS4G was very similar with ESRI UC/DevSummit conferences. I have over 10 year experience of those conferences. I also organize Finnish User Conference several times. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Ari Jolma has been in several FOSS4G conferences. As far as I remember, he has just missed one: Australia. Maybe Ari can confirm this later on.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Other members in our General committee haven’t participated FOSS4G conferences before. I presume we will have 5-10 people in our committees who have join previous FOSS4G conferences. I can’t really give you names because we haven’t officially named them. That will happen during Stage 2. You can guess and pick names from various OSGeo email lists.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Conference chairs commitment:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>This is always challenging in Finland: Finns already think how they organize conference and how much time it will take. And we are now preparing application to the conference. So, by definition, whole conference committee is very committed to organize this event. And we have already 15+ organizations who will support FOSS4G conference. So, let me explain in details how our committee has been build: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Forum Virium is organization which has excellent knowledge about organizing different kind of events. CEO of Forum Virium, Mr. Jorma Eskelinen, has 20+ years’ experience to organize events. His team is very dedicated to have this conference to Helsinki.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>I and Professor Ari Jolma are GIS nerds in the conference committee. I have almost 20 year experience using and developing GIS systems. Ari will take care about academic track. I presume that you know him better than me ;-)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>General Director Jarmo Ratia and Director Jyrki J.J. Kasvi will be guiding and leading advisors for rest of us. Mr. Ratia was president of GSDI and has excellent contact network with European mapping agencies and via United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management-initiative. Mr. Kasvi is great advocate for Open Source and Data movements in Finland. He will give us excellent perspective to use of open solutions in information society.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Real hard work will be done in subcommittees. We are currently working to get people involved to these subcommittees. But as I said before, Finns don’t promise anything unless they can keep their words. So it took a little bit longer to get people into the committees, but then they really have time /resources to work on it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>I understand also Peter’s worry about people risks (leaving/got sick/accident..). We haven’t made any kind of risk plan, yet. It will be part of process, but not in this phase.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Conference focus / theme:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>I don’t believe white-and-black kind of things. There is always grey area. So, maybe that’s our motto. FOSS4G in Helsinki won’t be just conferences for FOSS4G developers. Neither it will be just for end users. Or it won’t be just “commercial” or “non-commercial”. It’s not even conference only for GIS people, it will be also conference for non-GIS developers from commercial (maybe closed source) companies. Key word will be open. We’re preparing this conference openly, with open mind. We listen carefully what people and future participants of FOSS4G conference like to do and hear.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>So, this openness won’t be only software. As it was stated in Conference RFP: “…support and promote… open geospatial technologies and data”. We like to cover open public and private data sources; we like to understand what it means when government / companies are open. This open theme should include also open standards, open API’s etc. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Forum Virium is organizing Open Knowledge Festival in next September. We will have Open Geodata stream/track there. We will learn what other (non-GIS, normal) people think about geographic information and its usefulness. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>I do hope this answers (or comments) will clarify our LoI. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Best Regards,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Pekka<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='mso-fareast-language:FI'>--<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='mso-fareast-language:FI'>Pekka Sarkola<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='mso-fareast-language:FI'>pekka.sarkola@gispo.fi<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='mso-fareast-language:FI'>Gispo Oy – www.gispo.fi<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='mso-fareast-language:FI'>GSM 040 725 2042<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='mso-fareast-language:FI'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></body></html>