[GRASSLIST:9817] Re: Talking about an umbrella GFOSS foundation

[pmarc]

2006/1/13, Markus Neteler <neteler at itc.it>:

> Personally I see a need for a sort of institutionalization
> of our project to become more independent from single persons
> and institutions. I feel that establishing a corpus for fund
> raising/re-investment and other good things a foundation could
> do (see Mapserver related pages from Tyler Mitchell [3]), is needed
> to move forward. As you all know, there are a couple of successful
> FOSS foundations out there (Apache, PostgreSQL, R-stats, ...).

I sometime wondered why GRASS and other GFOSS project get (AFAIK)
unnoticed here.
Well, I am not aware of any relevant company here using any GFOSS.

So, a foundation would be a Good Thing, well, at least we could leave
the (sort of) ghetto, stand up and say: "here we are, and we are
serious about it"

All this talk is giving me ideas... I shall talk of them another day.

> The basic question is now if the GRASS project wants to
> make part of general purpose "GIS FOSS umbrella foundation"
> (with whatever name then).

I'm not in a position to say anything, but given the points you introduced,
the size of the GRASS project and of the industry, I say that this
should be a reasonable move to make.

> I am interested to participate in the meeting and see
> how things evolve and which role the GRASS project already
> plays or may play. To me it looks like an important strategic
> issue to be present there - a big "GIS FOSS umbrella foundation"
> without GRASS would be somewhat strange.

I agree completely with your view.
Someone (you =]) has to be present there. At least to see what is going on.

Besides, you are right on the mark (pun intended) when you say that
GRASS staying outside this foundation is a bit strange.

I am all for it.
--
Paulo Marcondes
PU2PIX/PU1
Debian GNU/Linux = http://rj.debianbrasil.org