[Board] OSGeo-OGC MOU

[Frank Warmerdam]

Multi-reply...

Michael P. Gerlek wrote:
 > If you're asking for review and discussion, we'd need more than one day
 > before you move to adopt it.  This is (to me) a fairly big deal, and I
 > don't think we as a community have had a chance to see the details until
 > now, so I'd like to see some community input before moving ahead on
 > it...?

Michael,

First, it's my fault for distributing this later than I should have,
and for dragging my heels through the summer.  It isn't critical, but
I had hoped to approve it at this board meeting.  However, if there
are an controversial points, or a perceived need for further review,
we could certainly just discuss, and defer final approval for a month.

I will leave it to the board to decide when to proceed.

jo at frot.org wrote:
> "OGC provides OSGeo with six one year Individual Memberships in the OGC 
> at no charge"
> - Is this six one-year memberships in total or six per year that the MOU 
> runs? If the former, can the years be used in serial (by the same people)?

Jo,

My understanding is that it is six one-year memberships per year.
So essentially on an ongoing basis we could have as many as six
folks involved in OGC through this mechanism.

> "OSGeo will collaborate with OGC to identify open source technologies 
> that can
> be used as reference implementations"
> - This places a burden of expectation on OSGeo-as-organisation. The OGC 
> liaisons cited are both full-time staffers; is it expected that the 
> OSGeo liaison will be a volunteer role?

I anticipate the liason will be a volunteer role, though we might
consider having Tyler be one of the liasons.  I don't anticipate the
liason being a particularly onerous role.

> - Have you or others already identified Foundation projects that are 
> ready or willing to take up the generous OGC offer of waived license 
> fees on acceptance as a reference implementation? 

I believe that the MapServer project that I am involved in would
be interested in this.  I haven't investigated particular interest
in other projects, but I am optimistic that there will be additional
projects interested.

 > Is there a sense of
> how much new interest this will create in projects not already part of 
> the "OGC loop"? 

I do not have a sense of how much interest will be created.  I do
think this provides a mechanism for some folks in other projects
to get involved in standards activity that wouldn't otherwise have
found it practical.

 > How do you see this aiding collaboration between
> projects already doing bits of OGC work? (deegree, Geoserver, GeoNetwork 
> - others?)

It is not obvious to me that this would aid in collaboration
between OSGeo projects already involved in standards work.

> I found this blog entry to be a useful summary of the conditions of 
> individual membership: 
> http://www.digitalearth.com.au/2007/12/07/ogc-individual-membership
> As Jody has noted on the standards list this is going to exclude many 
> OSGeo members from taking up the offer. :/ However I would like to do 
> so, please add my name to the prize draw.

Certainly we need to recognise that the individual memberships are
a fairly restricted class.  Loosely speaking they will not be
appropriate for anyone employed in an organization that might be
a reasonable candidate for another class of membership in OGC.  But
it is a useful avenue for individual consultants and hobbiests.

This agreement does not stipulate how we will allocate these memberships
(assuming we have more call for them than we have slots available).
Arnulf and I have taken the preliminary step of allocating one to
Klokan Petr Pridal (forgive my failure to transcribe accents), a
Google summer of code student working on WMS/TMS related stuff for
the GDAL project.  I would anticipate in the future we might have one
of the liasons make the decisions, perhaps based on discussion and or
project originated nominations on the standards list.

Assuming your employment arrangements do not preclude your using one
of the memberships, I imagine you would be a great candidate.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent