[Journal] Fwd: Re: OSGeo-Journal: proof reading

[Micha Silver]

Hi Tyler:


Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) wrote:

>> I'd like to point out a similar problem with a different article: 
>> Landon Blake did a write up on spatial relations. No where in his 
>> article is FOSS (or any softwre for that matter) mentioned. It's a 
>> theoretical presentation, and the FOSS aspect is totally ignored. I 
>> have more misgivings about that article than the Mapguide one.
> Hi everyone, I appreciate the open honesty about your concerns Micha, 
> but the last thing I want to do now is start dropping content.  I 
> would really like to keep this article in because I believe it is 
> applicable and interesting to our communities/readers.  Hopefully I 
> can convince you of this too.
I also do not want to suggest dropping any articles at this point. I 
brought up the issue of Landon's article only to strengthen the case 
that the San Francisco article should still be included despite Martin's 
and Paulo's reservations. Besides, I'm still too green and new to OSGeo 
to be deciding the destiny of someone else's work.
>
> Please consider the Journal as an extension of the other parts of our 
> communities - mailing lists, web sites, conferences, articles, etc.  
> These contain a mixture of ideas, theory, discussions, debates, case 
> studies and show that we are part of a larger community of interest - 
> and a healthy community that has many diverse viewpoints.  How can we 
> help capture some of this energy, mind-share and direction?  By 
> writing articles and wrapping them up neatly for others to use, re-use 
> and share with friends and colleagues.  No one goes to print off a 
> lengthy email discussing to share it with their friends - so we help 
> do this for them by finding topics of interest to ourselves and our 
> communities.
>
> For example, I particularly requested the article from Landon and was 
> glad he offered to do it.  I think you would be surprised how 
> interesting is will be to many readers.  I thought it was a good 
> approach to helping educate readers to some fundamental geospatial 
> basics that Landon could then apply in a future article.
>
I hope to see in future issues of OSGeo Journal, as a permanent feature, 
articles on basic GIS theory. However I'd want at minimum some mention 
of FOSS- at least a link to a HowTo or some such. I want to believe that 
OSgeo readers would *expect* to find the FOSS viewpoint threaded 
throughout the Journal. There is, afterall a multitude of material 
available today, online and otherwise, on GIS theory - mostly oriented 
towards commercial software.. Most potential "converts" would 
continuously need to ask: Where is feature X from [your favorite 
proprietary GIS app] in FOSS GIS?? (GRASS, as you know has a whole wiki 
page devoted to GRASS for Arcview users.)  It would be most appropriate, 
in my mind, for OSGeo to fill this need.
> I also believe these are important topics that help make the Journal 
> more applicable to a much larger audience than only FOSS-related 
> readers.  Please remember it is not "The GFOSS Journal" but represents 
> a much larger community of interest.  I don't want to run the risk of 
> being so tightly focused that we exclude valuable content because it 
> doesn't meet precise criteria.  100% pure FOSS-focused publications 
> can easily slip into a category that makes them only useful to those 
> who already recognise that FOSS has value.
>
...and to those are are on the fence; a much larger audience, I think.
> My hope for the Journal is to have it reflect the interests, expertise 
> and software tools of those who work in our OSGeo-related project 
> communities (and beyond).  I want this to be a publication that not 
> only talks about FOSS, but about real people, projects and solutions.  
> In the mean time I appreciate the theoretical articles because it 
> helps build knowledge and awareness.  Landon and I spoke about this 
> when I twisted his arm to write it - so that it set the stage for a 
> FOSS topology implementation example later.   Likewise with the WPS 
> topical article, a follow up article will show how Mapwindow is used 
> to implement the spec.
>
> In the end, if there are people interested in writing about useful and 
> applicable technology, concepts, software, examples, then I want to 
> harness their energy and put it into our journal.  First of all it 
> engages our communities to learn more about each other in a fuller 
> capacity (not just the FOS Software portion of our lives and work), 
> but it also encourages people to write more articles that could then 
> be re-used in the compilation of a book or for presentations, etc.  
> Consider also the alternatives: our community members may go and write 
> articles for magazines that usually *only* promote proprietary 
> solutions.  I'm not against those publications and think we *should* 
> be writing for them too, but I also think that our community is 
> advanced enough to be able to help itself grow and teach each other in 
> our ways.
>
I'm not worried about "alternatives". Open source developers, writers, 
activists very often, I believe have a "day job"  which might well 
involve exclusively, or mostly, proprietary, closed software. That 
doesn't usually compete with the time they spend on open source coding 
or activities.
> In a nutshell, consider the journal as a way of building our image as 
> geospatial professionals, not only GFOSS advocates, while also 
> promoting open source projects to others who may not know about them.  
> I think we've got a pretty good mix in this volume, though I'd like to 
> have more case studies and a few less project introductions in the 
> next volume.
>


Would you want to consider for future issues spelling out guidelines for 
authors? For example there might be a "template" for developer updates, 
another for topical, theoretical articles, and another for case studies, 
etc.  Perhaps, as editors, we should exercise some judgement and give 
the Journal a more uniform structure and direction.


> I hope that makes some sense and that the authors of SFUF case study 
> and Landon don't run away screaming ;-)
>
I'd certainly regret that.
> Tyler
Best regards,
Micha