[Board] Commercialize OSGeo?

[Arnulf Christl (OSGeo)]

On Sun, June 1, 2008 12:11, Arnulf Christl (OSGeo) wrote:
> Board,
> I have stated that I am against commercializing OSGeo. Paul hinted in the
> other direction. Are there any more opinions at this level of the
> organization?
>
> As far as I went into detail there is no precedence for a "Teach-in" of
> the proposed format by other organizations like Apache, Mozilla,
> OpenOffice.org or PostgreSQL. If there are I am very interested in
> getting more information. I am sure that we are not the first to have this
> kind of discussion.
>
> Best regards,
> Arnulf.

Way back right after the inception of OSGeo a few ideas were brought up
regarding certification:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Certification_Committee

This would be one way how to decide who can give officially endorsed
"OSGeo Teach-ins". It would remove the need for highly subjective and thus
volatile definitions like members-in-good-standing or -in-best-faith, etc.

I do not bring this up because I support this idea, instead I still think
that we should not go in this direction but at least it something that we
could build on.

As I learned end of last year there seem to be regions in the world
(especially Asia) where a "certificate" is a highly required asst to be
able to be accepted as an expert. IOSN (International Open Source Network,
a friendly org we had some previous contact with) actually certifies Linux
engineers. This is seems to be an important ticket into commercial
activity for businesses in that region, especially start ups and small
companies.

I can imagine building a commercial brand (potentially as a consortium of 
several existing companies) who provide trained staff for organized
Teach-ins. But I do not see this as an option for OSGeo.

Then again - I do not really see the need for a lot more funding wihtin
OSGeo. I am myself having trouble spending the Marketing budget in a
meaningful(!) way. Adding more money to OSGeo's account will raise the bar
considerably how and more so *where* to spend that money. I promise that
raising and then needing to spend any larger amount of money will
invariably lead to enormous stresses within the community at a global
level. The funny little NA/EU skirmishes will look silly by comparison.

Ah - back to spatial: look what my dictionary turns up for Spannungen
(stress):
http://dict.leo.org/ende?lp=ende&lang=de&searchLoc=0&cmpType=relaxed&sectHdr=on&spellToler=on&chinese=both&pinyin=diacritic&search=spannungen&relink=on

OSGeo will experience considerable spatial factor of stresses (welding
security [tech.]).

Best regards,

-- 
Arnulf Benno Christl
http://www.osgeo.org
(OSGeo Board Member)
+50.7342N   +7.0707E