<div dir="ltr">A few comments inline, the OSGeo board has a face to face meeting coming up (so until that time take my comments here as my viewpoint).<div><div class="gmail_extra"><div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="gmail_quote">On 12 November 2015 at 20:04, Cameron Shorter <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:cameron.shorter@gmail.com" target="_blank">cameron.shorter@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
Hi Jeff, Venka, Jody, Rob,<br>
<br>
Thanks for initiating this discussion and starting to put ideas out
for public discussion.<br>
<br>
Jeff, Venka, I get the impression from your emails that you are
concerned that LocationTech might "steal" community mind-share, and
in particular take control of key OSGeo tasks such as FOSS4G and in
the process change focus of FOSS4G into a more commercial event,
which increases prices, and looses core community driven focus. Am I
right? Or could you please clarify.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>My concern is that OSGeo is relying on FOSS4G its major source of income, thus is my interest in revising the sponsorship program. My concern is this places a lot of pressure on the event and the local organizing committee(s). I would like to reduce that pressure and preserve FOSS4G as a tool for advocacy. There was a impassioned lightening talk at foss4g this year reminding everyone that this game is about freedom.</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">For the record, at the time I was disappointed at the time that
Location Tech was created, and the functionality of Location Tech
didn't get created under the umbrella of OSGeo. However both
organisations exist now, and I can see that in moving forward that
both organisations can exist successfully together and complement
each other. (+1 to Rob's comments).<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I was involved in the formation of LocationTech. In part as one of my projects, uDig, is not in position to meet the strict requirements of OSGeo incubation.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">The "Board Priorities" include focus on
OSGeo acting as a "low capital, volunteer focused organisation", and
acknowledge that a the role of the "high capital" business model is
better accomplished by LocationTech.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>That is interesting, I disagreed with you at the time but acknowledge the success realized by OSGeo. I would like to find a middle ground (as outlined above) in order to take pressure off our outreach events and our volunteers.</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
Jeff, Venka, Jody and others on the board, what is your vision for
OSGeo's future direction</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>This was outlined during the election process (it amounts to projects, projects, projects).</div><div><a href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2015_Candidate_Manifestos#Jody_Garnett">http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2015_Candidate_Manifestos#Jody_Garnett</a></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">and in particular, what is your vision for
a future relationship with Location Tech?</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><div>I will quote one line from the above wiki page: "<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13px">OSGeo has agreements (with OGC and LocationTech) and I would like to ensure we take advantage of these opportunities."</span></div></div><div><br></div><div>I may as well link to my more recent talk (<a href="https://vimeo.com/142989259">https://vimeo.com/142989259</a>) as I have learned a bit since foss4gna.</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"> Should OSGeo revise our
focus and goals? It might help to start by being specific. What
should OSGeo take responsibility for? What should Location Tech take
responsibility for? Are the organisations appropriately structured
and resourced to take on that responsibility? If not, what should
change to make that happen?<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I will defer on commenting on focus and goals until after the face to face meeting.</div><div><br></div><div>If there is a theme to the proceedings I would prefer both organizations look outward - we have so much work ahead of us (a lot of good to do in the world).</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"><div>On 13/11/2015 3:53 am, Rob Emanuele
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Hi Jeff,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>You are right, commercial-friendliness certainly does play
a part in LocationTech. The way I've seen that enacted is by
the use of the Eclipse Foundation's legal department to ensure
that the projects which are supported by LocationTech are
declared by a legal team to be free of proprietary or
wrongly-licensed code. In this way, commercial entities can
use the projects with some assurance that they will not be
sued down the line for code that was not actually open in the
way they thought it was. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Also, there is a steering committee that makes decisions
about how the budget will be used. The budget mainly consists
of member company's dues. The members of the steering
committee are decided by membership level (large membership
gets representation on the steering committee) as well as a
lower-membership level elected committee. There is also
representation by the developers, who vote independently of
any company and are there to represent the committers on the
project. For more information, you can read through some links
here:<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a href="https://www.locationtech.org/charter" target="_blank">https://www.locationtech.org/charter</a><br>
</div>
<div><a href="https://www.locationtech.org/election2015" target="_blank">https://www.locationtech.org/election2015</a><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In practice, as a maintainer of an open source project and
developer, what LocationTech has meant to me is support for my
project in ways that are not centered around business. To me
it's been a place where I've gotten to collaborate with
similar open source projects and have my project be promoted
through events and other channels; for instance I participate
in Google Summer of Code and Facebook Open Academy as a mentor
through the Eclipse Foundation. Perhaps these are needs that
can also be served by OSGeo, but they have in practice been
met by LocationTech. From my perspective as a project lead and
open source developer, that there are multiple channels that
can potentially support me and my project is a great thing and
signs of a healthy domain.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I did not start LocationTech. So for me it's not a question
of, why should LocationTech be created when there is already
OSGeo; LocationTech already exists, and I don't think it's up
to me to question it's existence. Nor do I think it's a useful
exercise to question the existence of something that clearly
has support and is supporting others. I can only decide which
organizations I believe in and support, and what I can get out
of those organizations as far as them supporting me. So on a
personal level, my thoughts are that both OSGeo and
LocationTech are good organizations. I'd like to find ways to
support both organizations, and find ways both organizations
can support me and my project.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>On a more general level, I'm against centralization. Having
diversity in governance structures, funding models and support
channels is a good thing, and I don't want there to be only
one "true" organization that I can look to for support.
However, like I mentioned, the ideal would be that those
organizations could figure out how to use their difference
skill sets to work together on making the community as a whole
move forward. And that is what I am hoping OSGeo and
LocationTech can do (as well as any other related
organizations).<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Jody did a talk at FOSS4G NA 2015 on some of the
differences between LocationTech and OSGeo, I recommend it:</div>
<div><a href="https://youtu.be/sdpEa6XdQEo" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/sdpEa6XdQEo</a><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best,</div>
<div>Rob</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 10:54 AM, Jeff
McKenna <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jmckenna@gatewaygeomatics.com" target="_blank">jmckenna@gatewaygeomatics.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">Hi Rob,<br>
<br>
Thank you for your very thoughtful response. You summarize
the situation very well. I think talking openly like this
on this topic, is the only way to make this all work.<br>
<br>
It sounds like I am wrong about LocationTech's goals; at the
same time then, if that is the case, that LocationTech is
not about commerce (doesn't "commercially friendly"
encourage business interest?), then what was the need to
create a separate new foundation, also focused on growing
Open Source geospatial software?<br>
<br>
I hope we can speak openly here Rob, I do not mean any
disrespect to you personally or to LocationTech (some take
it personal). Please share here the reasons you see to have
2 foundations focused on the same goal.<br>
<br>
Thanks,<br>
<br>
-jeff
<div>
<div><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 2015-11-12 11:37 AM, Rob Emanuele wrote:<br>
</div>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<div>
Hi Jeff,<br>
<br>
I'm sorry to hear you are being bullied in private
messages. It is<br>
perhaps best to bring in the Code of Conduct committee
to help handle<br>
this; direct threats and private bulling tactics seem
in violation with<br>
the CoC, and there should be steps taken to ensure
that our community<br>
doesn't have bulling in our midst that goes
unaddressed.<br>
<br>
I'm disappointed that you take LocationTech's core
goal as "to promote<br>
business and give those businesses a stage". Your
point of view and<br>
behavior on the lists makes more sense knowing that,
though; if you<br>
believe that LocationTech is really about promoting
the businesses, and<br>
not the greater community, then having LocationTech
involved in the<br>
FOSS4G conferences would diminish the non-business
community members'<br>
role in the conference, which would be a Bad thing.
However, as a member<br>
of the LocationTech PMC and someone who was/is
involved in the FOSS4G NA<br>
2015 and FOSS4G NA 2016 process, as well as someone
involved in the<br>
FOSS4G 2017 Philadelphia bid, I want to assure you
that is not the case.<br>
<br>
There is real focus and real work being done at
LocationTech to help the<br>
community of developers and users of FOSS4G. In this
instance I'm using<br>
FOSS4G for what the acronym actually means, Free and
Open Source<br>
Software for Geospatial, not referring to the
conference that has<br>
captured that name. Both LocationTech and OSGeo exist
to support FOSS4G,<br>
and the greater community (greater then both of those
organizations)<br>
that use and develop FOSS4G. There are differences in
the organizations<br>
for sure, and I think highlighting those differences
and really<br>
understanding how they serve the community in
different ways is<br>
important. The ideal scenario that I see is that both
organizations<br>
would use those differences to collaborate and have a<br>
sum-greater-than-it's-parts type of support system for
FOSS4G. Instead,<br>
we have a situation where there's distrust, finger
pointing, and<br>
political "power plays" against each other. We have
the president of one<br>
of the organizations characterizing the core goal of
the other<br>
organization in a dangerously wrong way. We have
decisions and<br>
discussions about a million dollar revenue generating
conference focused<br>
on that million dollars, rather then how to ensure
that conference does<br>
the best job possible at supporting and pushing
forward the community.<br>
We have the precious resource that is the energy of
volunteers being<br>
spent on political infighting rather than on
collaboration towards<br>
serving the community. I'm not sure the best path
forward for this, but<br>
I want to declare that the situation as I see it is
bad for the<br>
community, collaboration between OSGeo and
LocationTech would be good<br>
for the community, and I hope as a whole we can move
towards that better<br>
future.<br>
<br>
I hear your concerns for the price of the FOSS4G NA
tickets, though I'll<br>
point out to people who are following along that it's
not as simple as a<br>
flat $1000 dollar rate. I encourage you to look at the
registration<br>
pricing breakdown when it's published for FOSS4G NA
2016, be sure to<br>
apply for a non-corporate pass if you will not be
reimbursed by a<br>
company, and to apply for a scholarship if the cost is
still too high.<br>
Also, if you are giving a talk, registration is free,
so please submit!<br>
The Call For Proposals is now open (<a href="https://2016.foss4g-na.org/cfp" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"></a><a href="https://2016.foss4g-na.org/cfp" target="_blank">https://2016.foss4g-na.org/cfp</a>).<br>
Jeff, your presence was missed at FOSS4G NA 2015 and I
hope that you can<br>
come to Raleigh for FOSS4G NA 2016.<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Rob<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 8:40 AM, Jeff McKenna<br>
</div>
</div>
<<a href="mailto:jmckenna@gatewaygeomatics.com" target="_blank">jmckenna@gatewaygeomatics.com</a>
<mailto:<a href="mailto:jmckenna@gatewaygeomatics.com" target="_blank">jmckenna@gatewaygeomatics.com</a>>>
<div>
<div><br>
wrote:<br>
<br>
On 2015-11-12 7:01 AM, Jody Garnett wrote:<br>
<br>
<br>
I have gotten a number of private emails
expressing concerns about<br>
LocationTech being involved in several of the
foss4g bids. I<br>
guess I had<br>
the opposite concern last year when there was
the joint OSGeo /<br>
LocationTech foss4gna conference. I was kind
of embarrassed our<br>
behavior<br>
as a community - would prefer to see us as
welcoming and supportive<br>
(especially as we had a first time organizer
that could use our<br>
support).<br>
<br>
Hi Jody,<br>
<br>
I am very glad that you brought this up publicly.
Lately I too have<br>
received very disturbing direct emails, containing
threats of "if<br>
this happens you watch" "karma you watch yourself"
"if we lose you<br>
watch out" and direct bullying tactics, for
speaking my mind on this<br>
issue. The same people sending these threats will
not speak<br>
publicly on this, so I have asked them to stop
sending me these<br>
messages, but the messages continue, so I have
stopped answering<br>
them. These are "power-play" emails sent directly
to me, but I will<br>
tell them here publicly, bullying me will not stop
me from speaking<br>
openly about OSGeo's one event all year, the
global FOSS4G. (for<br>
those not following the 2017 conference
discussions, you would have<br>
to read a long thread to get caught up<br>
<a href="http://osgeo-org.1560.x6.nabble.com/Call-to-discuss-FOSS4G-2017-proposals-prior-to-voting-td5234235.html" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://osgeo-org.1560.x6.nabble.com/Call-to-discuss-FOSS4G-2017-proposals-prior-to-voting-td5234235.html</a>).<br>
<br>
As someone just wrote last night on another list,
likely there would<br>
be no one else that has attended more FOSS4G
events, regional,<br>
global, anything, than myself. I make a point of
going to a FOSS4G<br>
event, to help grow the local community, no matter
what size of the<br>
event or where it is. Lately in my FOSS4G travels
I have noticed a<br>
return to our FOSS4G roots, where the popular
events are very low<br>
cost, aimed at developers, users, students,
researchers, and the<br>
smaller companies trying to make a living (a great
recent example is<br>
the FOSS4G-Como event this past July). Getting
back to the topic of<br>
your message: I too have been embarrassed by
recent<br>
FOSS4G-NorthAmerica events; I was shocked to see
the 1,000 USD<br>
registration fee there.<br>
<br>
But I was not too upset, because no one is
traveling the small<br>
FOSS4Gs like me to see the difference, and I
didn't see complaints<br>
voiced from the local NorthAmerican community.
LocationTech<br>
involved in FOSS4G-NA is a good thing, to promote
business and give<br>
those businesses a stage; the core goal of
LocationTech.<br>
<br>
However now we are in the process for deciding the
global FOSS4G<br>
event for 2017, OSGeo's flagship event, attended
by the<br>
international community, and we must be very
careful. Working with<br>
foundations is good (hence all of OSGeo's great
MoUs), and I'll use<br>
the upcoming example that the 2016 team is
considering, giving<br>
LocationTech a 90 minute slot in the program for
their projects (and<br>
the same for OSGeo, UN, likely OGC, and other
organizations). This<br>
is a wonderful way for OSGeo's FOSS4G event to
involve other<br>
organizations. I hope that LocationTech will also
give OSGeo a 90<br>
minute slot in their big conference someday as
well; this would be<br>
exactly what I see as best-case scenario.<br>
<br>
On the other hand, not signing an MoU, and then
just contacting all<br>
of our 2017 bidders, is quite a different method
to get to the<br>
table. Instead of a long-standing MoU agreement
that would foster<br>
the relationship throughout the years, as we have
with so many<br>
organizations, we are faced with a decision now
that involves both<br>
foundations and 1,000,000 USD (the annual FOSS4G
event generates a<br>
lot of revenue, making this very attractive to
professional<br>
conference companies all over the world, I was
phoned yesterday by<br>
one from Europe, for example). The money is
there, huge money, and<br>
huge exposure for these companies. And their jobs
are on the line,<br>
in their minds. Hence this situation we are
forced to deal with<br>
now, and these nasty private messages being sent
to me.<br>
<br>
Let's try to remain positive though, as we have 3
great bids for<br>
FOSS4G 2017, and a solid team working hard already
to make<br>
FOSS4G-2016 in Bonn another amazing event. OSGeo
has never been so<br>
active and vibrant as so many initiatives and
location chapters grow<br>
all around the world.<br>
<br>
Thanks for listening, and thank you Jody for
bringing this topic to<br>
the public lists.<br>
<br>
-jeff<br>
<br>
<br>
--<br>
Jeff McKenna<br>
President, OSGeo<br>
<a href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Jeff_McKenna" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Jeff_McKenna</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>
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