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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">This message has been cross posted to reach as many possible GRASS users and developers as possible. I Apologize for any inconvenience.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">There was some movement on this subject a while back ago. To bring yourself up to speed check out the following including past letters to the GRASS community and some initial nominations</FONT></P>
<P><A HREF="http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/wiki/GRASS_Project_Steering_Commitee#2nd_Letter_to_GRASS_mailing_lists"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/wiki/GRASS_Project_Steering_Commitee#2nd_Letter_to_GRASS_mailing_lists</FONT></U></A>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">As first introduced……...</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">"</FONT><FONT SIZE=1 FACE="Courier New">in the Chicago meeting the GRASS project was suggested to<BR>
as one of the initial OSGeo foundation projects.<BR>
<BR>
So far I only received positive feedback on the idea of<BR>
moving GRASS more formally to the foundation (while the<BR>
individual authors are keeping their copyright which is<BR>
a major difference to the Apache Foundation.)<BR>
<BR>
A couple of things will have to be sorted out in the<BR>
coming months to make GRASS's membership possible (below<BR>
list is inspired by Frank's mail to the GRASS project):</FONT><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">"</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">A large and important benefit to the greatest number of people in the GRASS community may very well be….</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=1 FACE="Courier New">"</FONT><FONT SIZE=1 FACE="Courier New">One benefit of the foundation is some degree of legal<BR>
support and protection for the project. The flip side of that<BR>
is that the foundation needs to ensure some degree of<BR>
rigor and process in how code comes into the project. One<BR>
part of that is getting committers to sign a legal agreement<BR>
indicating that they agree that changes they commit will<BR>
be under the license of GRASS (GPL) and that they have<BR>
the right to submit the code (they wrote it, it is not<BR>
patented, have permission from their employer, etc).</FONT><FONT SIZE=1 FACE="Courier New">"</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Recently in Ottawa, Ontario (Canada) we have merged a GRASS users group and a Mapserver user group into a local OSGEO chapter (ottawa.osgeo.org).</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Over some brews afterwards and talking about the possibilities of a local OSGEO affiliation I was floored to learn that GRASS is not necessarily OFFICIALLY a member in OSGEO due to the lack of OFFICIAL acceptance from the GRASS user community.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">The first step in this whole process would be to form a GRASS project Steering Committee (PSC). The above link has many great ideas and directions hammered out but it seems that activity has dwindled.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">As a GRASS user representing GRASS in a local OSGEO chapter I hope to contribute to the community, because membership in OSGEO IMHO will benefit GRASS development as it reaches a broader audience.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">So. Who is up for helping out to allow GRASS to move forward into becoming an official and accepted member in OSGEO?</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">If you have questions, comments or reservations to GRASS's involvement in OSGEO let them be known so we can work them out. I personally had initial reservations that were mostly due to lack of information that were nicely attended to by the president of OSGEO (Frank Warmerdam) who attended our meeting and is also a contributor to the GRASS project (GDAL/OGR).</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I propose a separate mailing list for business referring to the PSC. I propose psc@grass.osgeo.org if the owner of </FONT><A HREF="http://grass.osgeo.org"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">http://grass.osgeo.org</FONT></U></A><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"> agrees.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I would also like to hear some chatter as to opinions on the whole matter.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Thanks for your time</FONT>
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