[Board] A possible view of the world

[Michael P. Gerlek]

Although I have significant questions about the NA chapter idea, I think that the path being suggested leads to some good ideas that can be made to work.

(please consider the following as just rough ideas, still being thought out and welcome for discussion)

I am thinking "OSGeo" could become "OSGeo International", defined as a loose Federation of OSGeo Chapters.  Those chapters may take on several different forms:

  - local (like CUGOS here in Seattle) - a small, local, in-person community
  - large-territorial (US+Canada) - largely dedicated to hosting an annual North American conference
  - language (Francophone) - for supporting translations, culture-specific issues, etc
  - Educational - for supporting academic curricula, getting open source into GIS courses, etc
  - "Mission-specific" (e.g. US DoD or UK Govt) - for working with specific govt sector
  - Humanitarian - worldwide, for working with HOT, OSM, etc

You get the idea.  (In fact, the development projects could be considered Chapters, too -- like a "MapServer Chapter" -- but I'd not take things that far)

In such a world, OSGeo I11N would become this:

 - take responsibility for the "main" mission/charter and own the "logo"/"brand"
 - a light-touch oversight group, helping to coordinate the chapters and their interactions, as well as picking up slack where there is not an existing chapter to fill a need
 - provide centralized place for main website, source control hosting, etc
 - annual FOGG4S international conference (which may be delegated out to an LOC or a specific regional chapter)

Funding and sponsorship opportunities would devolve down to the chapters aligned with the specific funder/sponsor mission and objectives.

A percentage of the proceeds from each of the chapters would return to the OSGeo parent organization, to support hosting services, etc. (only if the chapter's proceeds are greater than a certain amount).

Comments?

-mpg