[Board] [Fwd: [Discuss] Letter of support for FGDC CAP grant]

[Chris Holmes]

Most of you have probably seen it on the discuss list, but I'm writing 
for board approval for a letter of support from OSGeo to support an 
application for a grant for FGDC money to work on GeoTools/uDig.  It's 
probably a bit of a longshot, going up against proprietary software, but 
I figured it's at least worth a shot.

I've gotten approval of a letter from the GeoTools PSC, as Frank's 
recommendation was that they write the letter and the board approves it. 
  The letter is attached, with a section in <<  >> that is for the 
board's endorsement.  The grant is targeting more adding the WFS 1.1 
capability to existing GIS software, that they get to include in their 
next release (the only stipulation is they can't charge extra for the 
capability - but they can charge for the upgrade to the latest release), 
with the goal of impacting as many users as possible.  So I'm trying to 
make a strong case that funding a generic component that others can 
include in their software will ultimately impact more users than just 
funding a few popular proprietary platforms.

So I put a bit of language in to emphasize that.  If the board isn't 
comfortable making the statement I can tone it done, and will try to 
refine the wording in the next couple days (I'm working on another grant 
app today), but I wanted to send this out in time for the board to vote 
on it at our meeting friday.

best regards,

Chris

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Discuss] Letter of support for FGDC CAP grant
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 18:52:33 -0500
From: Chris Holmes <cholmes at openplans.org>
Reply-To: discuss at lists.osgeo.org
Organization: The Open Planning Project
To: discuss at lists.osgeo.org

As per:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Protocol_for_requesting_letter_of_support

I am writing to request a letter of support from OSGeo for a Cooperative
Agreement Program grant from the Federal Geographic Data Committee.
There is information at:
http://www.fgdc.gov/grants/2007CAP/2007CAPschedule, we are going for
category 2 'framework client development'.  The main point of the grant
is to add capabilities to access WFS servers that serve the 'Framework
Data' - which are complex GML 3.1.1 application schemas for common data
layers (transportation, hydrography, government units, ect.).

A majority of the work will be at the GeoTools level, improving it's
core feature model and parsers to handle complex GML 3.1.1.  This work
will be reusable by any Java project.  The client targeted is uDig,
which is built on GeoTools.

My organization - The Open Planning Project (http://topp.openplans.org)
- is taking the lead and partnering with CIESIN and GISCorps.  It's a
great chance to form closer bonds with GISCorps - our goal is to use the
funding to make a desktop GIS that their volunteers will be able to use
and to leave behind in resource poor communities.  GISCorps volunteers
will be helping us to refine the interface and to write training
materials for others to use - not just about using the software but also
teaching new people about GIS in general.

We'd like a letter of support from OSGeo to help the potential funders
see that we're working in the wider open source context.  There wouldn't
need to be much of a commitment, except for maybe a bit about helping to
promote the final solution, if people were comfortable with that.

If you'd like any more information let me know.

best regards,

Chris


-- 
Chris Holmes
The Open Planning Project
http://topp.openplans.org
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