[Board] Intel - 23May11

[Tyler Mitchell]

Hi Brian,
I'd be interested in helping anyway that I can.  We could talk through it and come up with a proposal.  From coordinating some complimentary events to finding ways to integrate OSGeo software into their stacks.  

Thanks for the good summary of your meetings and I hope we can talk about it further.

Tyler

On 2011-05-23, at 9:50 PM, maplabs at light42.com wrote:

> 
> Dear OSGeo Board of Directors -
> 
>   I want to tell you about a recent contact at Intel, their mission,
> and outline some possible synergies between Intel and OSGeo.
>   
>   On Monday, May 23 I attended an international developer conference
> in San Francicso centered on mobile devices and open source software,
> convened in a large part by Intel Corp. The Intel "Moblin" project has
> merged with the Nokia Maemo project to emerge in a new form called
> "MeeGo." The vast majority of the developers in attendance were
> europeans of various sorts. 
>   
>   MeeGo is based on a linux kernal, and uses QT heavily, along with
> WebKit, to form the basis of their software stack. MeeGo is targeted at
> mobile devices (phones), tablets and in-vehicle navigation systems.
> Hardware manufacturers are looking for software platforms to bring
> customer facing GUI, while handling short market cycles and price
> competitive environments. The MeeGo project and Intel have chosen the
> Linux Foundation to play a prominent role in reaching out to the
> developer communities, I believe, to emphasize that no single
> corporation is in control of the software ecosystem - specifically in
> contrast to Android and iPhone/iPad. The MeeGo Developer Conference has
> FOSS community people sprinkled through it (they are playing "werewolf"
> at the hotel right now as I write this letter, reinforcing the
> "community connection" to FOSS). The MeeGo Developer Conference is
> heavily funded, with every extra amenity at every turn of the head.
> Total attendance was fair but not large. The QT development people,
> many Germans and scandinavians, are there in abundance.
>   
>   Bill and Kelly
>   
>   Intel is building an app store, to sell MeeGo applications to
> consumers. After speaking with "Kelly" a marketing professional with
> Intel, I was invited to a private developer relations event after
> hours. There, I met with "Bill", the senior director of the new App
> Store initiative from Intel. I dont know the total staffing and budget
> for this initiative, but it was clear that it is not insignificant.
>   
>   I explained to Bill that OSGeo was founded about 5 years ago, that
> it is fashioned after the Mozilla Foundation, and in fact advisors from
> the Mozilla Foundation were part of creating the founding letters of
> OSGeo, that there were a dozen or more mature projects that had been
> accepted as OSGeo project, some of the scope of the projects, etc.. I
> explained that OSGeo had something to offer prospective developers in
> the way of significant software stacks, and that OSGeo was interested
> in opportunites to be seen and heard by wider developer audiences. (I
> can tell you that of the many highly informed people, mainly
> developers, at the conference, only three that I found had heard of
> OSGeo. Two of those three were very familiar with OSGeo)
>   
>   Opportunity?
>   
>   Bill began to ask about consumer facing applications, and what
> OSGeo might have to offer. I explained that although Google had
> excellent technology in the form of Google Maps, for reasons of license
> to use data, offline use cases, styling and branding control, there may
> be reasons that developers and partners would choose not to use Google
> Maps (or Bing). I explained a little bit about OpenLayers, and about
> server-side tile generation. 
>   
>   I believe that there may be a significant opportunity to partner
> with Intel, to further their offerings to their mobile developers on
> their MeeGo platform,  to substantally increase the visibility of
> OSGeo, and the use of OSGeo projects. 
>   
>   I would appreciate guidance from the Board and staff on the
> interest level OSGeo may have in such a partnership, and if needed,
> starting to plan how to move on partnering with Intel for this
> developer outreach, should the relationship develop.
> 
>   best regards from the San Francisco Bay Area
>   Brian M Hamlin
>   OSGeo California Chapter
>   
>