[OSGeo-Board] Motion: Promotion Committee

[Frank Warmerdam]

Arnulf Christl wrote:
> Hello,
> this is a motion to start a Promotion Committee. Please vote -1, 0, +1 
> to get this started as a Wiki page.

Arnulf,

I am would like to suggest you setup a web page with the committee
plan and a web page with the motion to establish it but that we vote
at the next board meeting.  In the meantime we can discuss and refine
the concept if needed in the wiki.

And as I tell myself frequently GSITWS (get something in the wiki
stupid).

I'm good with everything you have written on what the committee
should do.  We may need to consider the boundary between this
committee and the web committee a bit.

> To spread word and build a strong recognition of the Open Source
> Geospatial Foundation every major event should be covered 
> professionally. 

I would expect the promotion committee to be promoting the foundation,
foundation projects and the use of open source in geospatial applications
in general.  Is that reasonable?  Half of the fundamental mission I
propose for the foundation is promoting the widespread use of geospatial
software.   I hope that the promotion committee would be taking on that
mission as well as promoting the foundation itself.  Also, I see that
mission as extending beyond foundation projects though foundation projects
will naturally figure most prominently.  But we should also be promoting
other open source geospatial technology when we feel it is appropriate
(such as GeoServer, PostGIS, Thuban, QGIS, OpenEV, etc).

> === Notice ===
> Please do not create PPTs or PDFs any other closed format. (Motion by
> Arnulf to make this currently personal opinion a foundation directive).
> This might seem a minor problem, but it is actually not, closed formats
> are show stoppers. The preferred format would probably be HTML, making 
> it easy to create links and make it searchable using the OSGeo (CN) 
> infrastructure. (for a starter it can be added to the Wiki).

Perhaps we could focus on producing HTML for general web documents, and
open office presentations for presentations?  I personally have no problem
with distributing .pdf's for "static content" but we would naturally
want to keep around the source material.

I do think that as a promoter of open source, the foundation should
make a reasonable effort to "eat it's own dog food".  Sending out .doc's
or .ppt's sends a conflicting message.  I don't feel a need to be
compulsive about this, but we should make a significant effort.

> == Talks, Discussions, Interviews ==
> Every chance to present the OSGeo should be taken, every simple link to
> the OSGeo website is another 2 ct. adding to publicity. 

Ah, I know this porn link farm that will link to us, if we link to them...
Well, perhaps we don't need to take every opportunity. :-)

 > This fact should
> be stressed in every aspect, this is the primary food for search engine
> ranking and virtual visibility.

It is my personal opinion that we won't have much trouble building
google rank for the foundation.  Many of the involved open source projects
already have good google karma, and pointers to osgeo.org will help build
our rank.  I was shocked to discover a few years ago that when www.libtiff.org
was domain-pirated away from me it was sold for $4K US due to it's good
google karma.

I think we ought to be pushing to get some visibility in the various
on line "GIS magazines" like GISdevelopment, Directions, GISuser, etc.

PS. I can't believe my lousy spelling dictionary doesn't already include
Google.  Fixed now.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent