[Board] Status update...

Mon Oct 15 16:56:32 PDT 2007

Hi everyone,
Here are a few notes for you from the last week or two.

Blog
---------
For those of you who didn't know, I do my OSGeo-related blogging at:
http://www.osgeo.org/tyler
I posted a FOSS4G blog summary there a couple weeks ago.  You may  
find some other statistics on that page interesting as well.

Journal
---------
The next edition (vol 3) of the Journal is going to be interesting.   
It will be dedicated to publishing proceedings from FOSS4G.  We have  
14 articles from a wide range of authors.  We are in the process of  
collecting the articles and editing them.

There are several requesting peer review as well, so we are looking  
at whether it is going to be feasible this round or not.

We also starting to move the publication of the journal onto a  
journal management system, which will help with a bunch of things.   
In particular it can manage the peer review and editorial processes  
but also push out indexing metadata to a collective of other journal  
metadata search engines.

All this at the same time that articles for vol 4 are starting to  
come in.  It's pretty impressive to see the content and interest from  
the broader community.

Marketing
-------------
The Visibility Committee is officially gone, I've removed the list  
and ported the archives over into the new "Marketing" list.  We had  
our first meeting last week and have been doing a lot of working  
around the wiki organisation and generally regrouping with a bit more  
of a focus.  Jeroen has joined the committee and is looking into  
design help options for getting our next generation of brochures and  
flyers made up.

I have also ordered some more OSGeo t-shirts and hats.  It was agreed  
at the Marketing meeting that it would be good to make sure our  
sponsors each have some as a gift.  When we get brochures and other  
handouts redone, there will be a nice little package we can give them.

Also at our meeting there was the timeless debate about how to best  
help support local chapters.  Francophone chapter was asking for a  
donation to help fund a booth at the GeoTunis event.  Spanish chapter  
and gvSIG project was asking to have OSGeo listed as a host/supporter  
of their upcoming (Nov 14th) gvSIG Days event.  Overall, those  
present at the meeting (which were only a couple of us) hoped we  
could focus on provide printed material and brochures, rather than  
providing funding for booth space and shows.  We'll continue the  
debate in the future as we discuss budgets.

Website
-----------
The www.osgeo.org site has had some recent troubles, mainly around  
the search indexing.  I've been helping to fix some of the bugs that  
have crept in.  I will be looking within and beyond WebCom and SAC to  
try to find more Drupal support help to clear up some of the issues  
that remain and provide a bit more support so I'm less of a bottleneck.
A few of the other apps we've been trying out including the Open  
Conference System for providing an event management framework and  
Moodle courseware for the education committee.  The education  
committee is evaluating and likely going to select Moodle as its  
platform of choice.  Several curriculum contributors already use it.

Financials
--------------
Our new finance committee is about to get off the ground.  I've spent  
some time last week balancing/reconciling our accounting software  
with the last couple months of transactions.  I will be meeting with  
Ken to review our account categories and with Dave and others on the  
committee to generally approve a format and frequency for reporting.   
We'll also work to help take over tasks that have been on Laura's plate.

501c3
US Charity Status
----------
I've been discussing our possibilities with a consulting lawyer who  
has done several incorporations of nonprofits - including the  
background work and filing of the documents with the state and the  
federal gov't for around $1000.  More on this as we discuss costs and  
requirements, but I'm glad to have the prospect of working with  
someone who's done it before.

Local Chapters
--------------------
It feels like spring, with all these new local chapter initiatives  
popping out of the ground.  Ottawa started discussing some ideas of  
helping start a Canada chapter.  Then out of the blue a British  
Columbia provincial effort popped up.  Fortunately I have a layover  
in Vancouver on the day of the first BC chapter meeting, so I'll be  
able to attend.  A Romania and California chapter also are starting  
to organise.  The Francophone and Spanish chapters are really moving  
now too - with lots of discussion for planning for events (GeoTunis  
and gvSIG Days).

Upcoming Events
----------------------
A few of us (Markus, Lorenzo, Geoff Zeiss and I) will be heading to  
Japan to participate in an open source event in Osaka - Venka has  
been helping organise this event Nov 9-10th.  After this, there is a  
follow-up event held in Tokyo for those who could not attend Osaka.   
I will be travelling to both of these and hope to meet more of our  
Japan Local Chapter delegates and users while sharing more about OSGeo.

gvSIG days comes up on Nov 14th in Valencia, Spain.  I believe Jeroen  
and Lorenzo will be attending (others?) as well as the many local  
chapter folks.  Around the same time, Géo-Tunis will be running in  
Tunisia.  Many of the companies, i.e. Camptocamp and other  
individuals from Francophone Chapter will be attending.    I won't  
able to attend either gvSIG or Géo-Tunis.

A couple other events that I'm watching or thinking about - if you  
are attending or interested, please let me know:
* The end of Nov. is when Autodesk's big annual conference/training/ 
expo is held.
* http://picisoc.org/tiki-index.php?page=PacGISRS2007Registration
* http://www.events.cto.int/opensource07
* http://www.afei.org/brochure/8a03/index.cfm

2008
* http://www.grassmeeting2008.unipg.it/
* http://www.sigte.udg.es/jornadassiglibre/
* http://www.fossgis.de/wiki/index.php/Main_Page