[Board] December Board meeting

[Ari Jolma]

Hi,

I was going to write that I can, so and so, make it but now, as it is 
postponed to 12th, I have to write that I can't make it.

I'll try to say something about the marketing issue Howard brought up. I 
think too that it's a bit drastic to allocate close to 100% of non-fixed 
costs there, but the needs of SAC were not brought up so much in Cape 
Town. We also don't yet know what the marketing committee will propose - 
they seemingly haven't had any meetings after Oct 22 (I was on IRC then).

Howard's email is convincing - he should have brought the issue up 
at/for Cape Town f2f. But. As already mentioned, buying such services 
might be expensive and it may not be a good idea to tie ourselves to 
such services. I can't help but to think the one case where an 
institution offered to help us with manpower. That may have not been 
sysadmin work but we might find others willing to offer such. Also as 
Jeroen writes below, outreach is critical. My idea of "marketing" is 
also more than just printing and distributing leaflets. Outreach means 
empowering local groups. Indirectly that also helps SAC.

As we get more active towards potential sponsors we could also think 
more about sponsors that can provide us sysadmin type help (like 
telascience). Again I have a certain Finnish establishment in mind (and 
I have better links there than to those companies) with a long history 
of helping FOSS. What is it exactly that we need should be written down.

The other issue recently on the board list was the FOSS4G code sprint. I 
also support the point of view that the code sprint and the conference 
should be kept / moved closer together - than taken more apart, also 
economically.

Regards,

Ari

Jeroen Ticheler kirjoitti:
> Hi Arnulf,
> I won't make it unfortunately this friday :-(
>
> Please discuss the marketing strategy if you can. I feel we have to be 
> clear where we're heading with this. I thought the point brought up by 
> Howard are well worth discussing since some of that makes good sense. 
> At the same time I also feel that OSGeo as an inward looking systems 
> maintainer for OSGeo projects is not where we should go. Outreach is 
> critical, but has to be widely supported and contributed to by the 
> community.
>
> The other thing that I hope you can discuss is the strategy towards 
> potential sponsors. As we discussed f2f we might want to take that up 
> by drafting a letter to them soon. Also that would require board 
> support I think.
>
> Ciao,
> Jeroen
>
> On Dec 1, 2008, at 3:15 PM, Arnulf Christl (OSGeo) wrote:
>
>> Board,
>> the next meeting is scheduled for December 5th:
>> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Meeting_2008-12-05
>>
>> Please add to the agenda and let me know if you will *not* be able to 
>> make
>> it at all so that we can make sure we have quorum.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Arnulf.
>>
>> -- 
>> Arnulf Christl
>> President OSGeo
>> http://www.osgeo.org
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Board mailing list
>> Board at lists.osgeo.org
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Board mailing list
> Board at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board


-- 
Prof. Ari Jolma
Environmental Management Information Technology
Teknillinen Korkeakoulu / Helsinki University of Technology
tel: +358 9 4511 address: POBox 5300, 02015 TKK, Finland
Email: ari.jolma at tkk.fi URL: http://geoinformatics.tkk.fi