[Board] Motion regarding Systems Support for non-OSGeo Projects, and Fusion (and Motion)

[Jo Walsh]

dear Frank, all
On Mon, Dec 10, 2007 at 08:53:38AM -0500, Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> >>+1, I trust hobu and the good people at SAC not to make crazy decisions.
> 
> I would like to stress that it still falls to the board to review and
> potentially object when we are notified of a pending "intent to provide
> services".  In particular I believe Howard wants the board to do the
> "political" review of whether a project is appropriate for hosting
> at OSGeo.  The intent of the motion is to expedite the process by turning
> this review in an opportunity to object, instead of a full board motion.

Right, I've just seen the followup to this thread. 
My initial reaction to the motion was partly like Arnulf's: 
2 days is too short a window to guarantee a response. 
But then, i thought; if a request or offer of hosting services is
likely to be "politically" difficult or clearly motivated by special
interest, surely SAC members would sound out Board and other community
members before the question ever got to a formal, legal motion?

I agree with Hobu that technical responsiblity is a heavy enough load
without having to take political responbsiblity as well, and to make
these weird decisions is one of the reasons to have a Board. But we don't
have a monopoly on the sensible. I guess if we are redesigning
processes there is some obligation to make those persist past people.
But the process isn't the first resort, and could be the last one.

PS, i spent a really interesting couple of days at the Stresa OGC TC meet,
"road-testing" one of the 10 free individual memberships that OSGeo
has on offer from OGC. I will try to unpack the OSGeo related thoughts 
this all provoked, over the coming week.

cheers,


jo