<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">Hi Landon, I'll give my opinion below...<DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On 19-Dec-06, at 9:13 AM, Landon Blake wrote:</DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV class="Section1"><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Bitstream Vera Sans"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:" bitstream="" vera="" sans";="" font-size:="" 13.3333px;=""><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Bitstream Vera Sans; font-size: 13.3333px; ">[1] Is there someone taking the lead on this project? Is there a person that I can ask for final decisions on things like the book’s content, style, and format?</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></P></DIV></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV>That's what this committee is for, though I expect a smaller working group focused on the book would reveal itself as work progresses. Apart from the work Charlie Schweik's FOSS GIS curriculum work, you may be the main push in getting us going.</DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV class="Section1"><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Bitstream Vera Sans"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:" bitstream="" vera="" sans";="" font-size:="" 13.3333px;=""><O:P style="font-family: Bitstream Vera Sans; font-size: 13.3333px; "></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Bitstream Vera Sans"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:" bitstream="" vera="" sans";="" font-size:="" 13.3333px;=""><O:P style="font-family: Bitstream Vera Sans; font-size: 13.3333px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Bitstream Vera Sans; font-size: 13.3333px; "> <SPAN style="" bitstream="" vera="" sans";="" font-size:="" 13.3333px;=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD">[2] Do we have a target audience for the book? Are we writing for an international audience, for GIS beginners or experienced professionals?</FONT></SPAN></SPAN></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P></DIV></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE>I'm not clear on this myself, which means we probably haven't discussed the overall scope (or at least not recently). Every person that comes to the table seems to have a slightly different user/reader group in mind. I believe that most of us realise that some GIS theory, etc. needs to be included, or else the rest of the work may not be usable by some. However, some of us will be more interested or able to contribute on specific parts. I'd suggest we (you) focus on the area and audience you know best and then go from there when you have extra time :)<BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV class="Section1"><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Bitstream Vera Sans"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:" bitstream="" vera="" sans";="" font-size:="" 13.3333px;=""><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Bitstream Vera Sans; font-size: 13.3333px; ">[3] What license will we use to release the material of book? I was thinking about the </SPAN></SPAN></FONT><FONT size="2" face="Bitstream Vera Sans"><SPAN lang="EN" style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:" bitstream="" vera="" sans";="" font-size:="" 13.3333px;=""><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Bitstream Vera Sans; font-size: 13.3333px; ">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License. You can find details about the license here: </SPAN><A href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/"><FONT color="black"><SPAN style="color:windowtext; font-family: Bitstream Vera Sans; font-size: 13.3333px; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Bitstream Vera Sans; font-size: 13.3333px; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; ">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/25/</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></A></SPAN></FONT></P></DIV></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><P class="MsoNormal"><SPAN lang="EN" style="" bitstream="" vera="" sans";="" font-size:="" 13.3333px;=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Bitstream Vera Sans" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px;">Basically the license allows the text to be freely distributed and modified, but not for commercial purposes, and any modified text must be released under the same license.</SPAN></FONT><O:P style=""></O:P></SPAN></P></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV>I'd have to dig up the archives to see if we agreed on something around this. We talked a fair bit about Charlie's own curriculum and how/why it could be licensed certain ways. From my angle, one thing to keep in mind is that any 'non-commercial' clause can actually kill some good use of the material. For example, I worked with one or two others a couple years ago to produce a data access manual for MapServer, for a workshop we were running. I included this as an appendix in my Web Mapping Illustrated book, because it was a very good reference for the audience in the book. Re-writing material that I'd already contributed to didn't make sense and the other authors had no problems with it. Was that commercial use? </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Regardless, it helped provide a resource to open source web mapping users who might not have otherwise went to the free-to-download version online. The other scenario is what if this committee wants to sell prints of the document to raise money? Or someone wants to include it in a manual with, say, MapServer software they have bundled for a client? I'm not quite sure why non-commercial would be important, when we want the knowledge to be freely and liberally available. Keeping copyright with OSGeo would be good though, so that creator/owner is clear.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV class="Section1"><P class="MsoNormal"><FONT size="2" face="Bitstream Vera Sans"><SPAN lang="EN" style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:" bitstream="" vera="" sans";="" font-size:="" 13.3333px;=""><O:P style="font-family: Bitstream Vera Sans; font-size: 13.3333px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Bitstream Vera Sans; font-size: 13.3333px; "> <SPAN lang="EN" style="" bitstream="" vera="" sans";="" font-size:="" 13.3333px;=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD">[4] I had also planned on starting a “math for maps” chapter of the book. I realize now that this may be a little too broad of a subject, and may even deserve a separate “book”. I can address this at some point in the future. So I thought I would instead start with an introductory chapter that defines GIS. After that I might tackle a couple of chapters on common GIS data formats.</FONT></SPAN></SPAN></O:P></SPAN></FONT></P></DIV></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>Sounds interesting. Feel free to contribute wherever your interest leads you. If you do up a chapter and then you realise it should be standalone or that it is something you want to steer a different direction, I don't think anyone here will complain. Any activity is good activity.<BR></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I'd personally like to see us do some fundraising to get support money for developing this curriculum further. Then to hire some higher level college/university students or professionals to write it up - with a some funds to support an editor. But then also have the oversight of this committee involved.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>A few ideas anyway.. hope it helps.</DIV><DIV>Tyler</DIV></BODY></HTML>