[North America] OSGeo Board Meeting and NA Chapter

Dave McIlhagga dmcilhagga at dmsolutions.ca
Mon Dec 12 11:52:30 EST 2011


Mark,

My sense on this is - let's get the "big rock" moving, ie. the conference, as a primary priority and figure out the logistics of the Chapter around that.

I think most people engaged here want to see a North American open source geospatial event happen, and that can happen with or without OSGeo blessing. Once the event is committed to move forward, this chapter and the Foundation can look to see how closely they want to tie up with both parts knowing there's mutual benefit to making this happen.

If no arrangement can be made -- so be it, and the event still moves forward.

The one thing to be aware of, conference naming should avoid use of the OSGeo brand for now in case an arrangement with the Foundation cannot be made to do so.

There may be more ideal ways to do this -- but pragmatism needs to be top priority at this point if an event is actually going to happen on the aggressive schedule that has been suggested.

Dave





On 2011-12-10, at 7:44 AM, Mark Lucas wrote:

> Thought I'd status everyone on the board meeting and recent discussions.
> 
> The motion to approve the North America chapter was voted down.
> 
> There were many comments and a lot of discussion.  At the end, many of the board members decided there was no need to rush a decision.  Many, not all, encouraged that we continue to pursue the NA chapter and also a regional conference this year and that an official chapter approval was not needed to do that.
> 
> [9:44] NA chapter
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/North_America_Regional#Official_expression_of_interest_to_form_a_North_America_Regional_chapter_of_the_OSGeo_Foundation
> much discussion
> motion to approve chapter - MarkL/1, Jo/2...
> mpg -1, Frank -1, Jeff +0, Daniel +0, Jo +0, Mark +1, Arnulf (absent), Peter +0, Tim +0
> motion failed; concerns centered on organizational structure, concerns about the conference
> 
> Negative comments were that there wasn't enough work done on organizational structure, it seemed to reflect the work of one person (I assume that is me), that we haven't done proper coordination with all of the other existing chapters in NA, I think a few don't want an annual NA regional conference.  What about revenues?.  From my perspective, many of the same discussions that we have previously tried to address.
> 
> I'll certainly accept blame for trying to push this through.  My intentions were to be officially recognized and schedule a conference that did not conflict with Beijing in the Apr/May timeframe.  
> 
> I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts and comments on this.
> 
> GITA, MIL-OSS, and USGIF have all offered to include us in conferences they would host.
> 
> Mark
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Northamerica mailing list
> Northamerica at lists.osgeo.org
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