[Board] So what is the purpose of OSGeo?

[Arnulf Christl]

Mark Lucas wrote:
> Sorry, couldn't ignore this one....
> 
> I'm really surprised and confused about some of the negative reaction to 
> Paul Ramsey's proposal to provide training for OSGeo projects and 
> solutions.

I missed my point again. Sorry. I'll try to be more terse.

I am not against Paul Ramsey to provide training for OSGeo projects and solutions. I wanted to raise a warning index finger wrt wrapping it up as an OSGeo event as it is suggested in the proposal. The longer I think about it the less I like it. It looks good (as everything Paul does) but I think there are too many implications. I immediately support the event and all but the mixing up with OSGeo gives me a headache. 

> It is clearly a good thing in my mind.  We have several active members 
> of the OSGeo projects proposing to spread the word and provide a much 
> needed service.  They are offering to take the risk and provide both 
> financial and advertising benefit to the OSGeo.

All perfectly clear. To me. But I fear to many others not. We have this very same discussion here wrt FOSSGIS organization. We (the WhereGroup) proposed to operate it as a for profit conference and we take on the financial risk, share percentage of the revenue. It was not accepted for good reasons. I just want to spare us this discussion.

> It is in our best interest to raise the bar for all OSGeo solutions - 
> training is a much need part of that.  OSGeo needs to participate in 
> these types of things to stay in the public eye and raise the financial 
> resources to carry on its cause.

Yes and no. I think it is important to isolate what OSGeo's role should be. Maintainer of collaboratively created education material. Yes. Political tool to convince organizations and governments to go for GeoFOSS: Yes. Event roof for commercial educational activities. No. Because this will endanger OSGeo's impartiality and parts of the community will begrudge those earning money through this event their success and commercial revenue. I expect the damage done that way to be far larger than the positive effects of joint marketing and promotion.

Frank read one of my famously twisted posts to board-priv and came up with this summary (thank you): 

There are two key points:

1) Is it wise to set ourselves up to compete with private workshop/training
   activities?

2) If we intend to offer other private vendors the OSGeo branding for training
   activities how do we intend to vette them?

> It is quite true that it is extremely difficult for many to justify 
> travel outside their own countries to the agencies or organizations they 
> work for.  It is naive to think that we are going to change that fact.  

This is completely right. Therefore we operate a local conference. We have even more need for it because our people speak a different language. Therefore to us it is so natural. 

If Canadian government servants are not allowed to attend FOSS4G in Victoria they will obviously not be allowed to attend a teach-in in the US Bay area. If they would be I'd be interested in hearing the arguments. :-)

> There is a customer need for OSGeo training all over the world - OSGeo 
> should be encouraging a thousand flowers to bloom.  

Yes. I am fully with you. And there are many flowers already blooming, why trample on them by starting something that looks bigger?

> None of this happens for free.  

Yes, some does. When we want to spread word we lower the barrier for people to come and we invest time and money as "volunteers" to work on goals that can only be done without a commercial interst. 

> Open source should not be confused with 'free', it costs 
> money and resources to do these things and we need to encourage all of 
> the help we can get.
> 
> We should be putting our energy into positively encouraging our 
> solutions and their promotions, raising more resources for OSGeo so we 
> have the ability to help those in need.

Exactly. We are fully in line here. 

> Mark,
> a has been board member ;-)

Thanks for your continued free support! 

:-)