[Board] New MOUs proposed...

[Michael P. Gerlek]

The MOUs predate me being a board member, so please view my following
comments as coming from way out in the uninformed peanut gallery:

What do these MOUs actually mean to OSGeo? 

I'm familiar with agreements/statements between two organizations that say
"we're both in favor of X, and we'll work together to make X happen".  Often
these sorts of agreements have no deliverables behind them, they are just
statements of principles aimed at making the organizations be friends.
That's good and needed, sometimes.  Is that what these MOU are intended to
do?

I see statements like "mutual promotion of...", "formation of the...",
"develop collaboration opportunities for...", and "to provide expertise and
support for...", and so I have to wonder if instead the MOUs represent
specific tasks that have been scoped out, e.g. with people on board to lead
them and funding commensurate to meet the objectives?  Or is the MOU
intended to be read as saying these are goals that we'd like to mutually
achieve, but for which we have no hard plans as yet?

To be blunt, I guess I'm asking what OSGeo resources are potentially going
to be committed by these agreements, if any?

-mpg



> -----Original Message-----
> From: board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:board-
> bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Tyler Mitchell
> Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2011 4:03 PM
> To: OSGeo-Board List
> Subject: [Board] New MOUs proposed...
> 
> As briefly discussed at the meeting earlier, we have two new memorandum
> of understanding agreements drafted and ready for your review, questions
> and, hopefully, your approval.  We've discussed them briefly over past two
> month board meetings.
> 
> 1. ICA: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/MOU_ICA - Agreement to work with
> International Cartographic Association.  Much is already happening by its
> members who also happen to be OSGeo members.  So I don't anticipate
> much work on OSGeo's end to support this agreement.
> 
> 2. SIGTE: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/MOU_SIGTE - One request was to pass
> academic MOUs through the OSGeo education committee for feedback, that
> has been done, resulting in no changes for the MOU.  SIGTE is a leader in
> running various events and open source geo training, so this is a strong
> connection to that community and another step toward a broader global
> education network for OSGeo.
> 
> Any questions?  If not, I'm looking for a motion to adopt these so I can
sign
> them off.  The coordinators are excited about having this connection.
> 
> Thanks,
> Tyler
> 
> p.s. I'm still working on minutes from the board meeting today, but you
can
> see some of the discussion http://logs.qgis.org/osgeo/%23osgeo.2011-09-
> 01.log - some of which relates to the
> above._______________________________________________
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