[Board] Eclipse foundation

[Michael P. Gerlek]

Daniel and I have been talking to the Eclipse Location Industry Working Group (http://wiki.eclipse.org/Location) about ways we could partner with them -- they have some strengths we don't (major engagement with industry) and we have some strengths they don't (huge codebase and community).

As a first step, we can clearly see an MOU forming. My opinion only, of course, but in the longer term, such an alliance might address some of the things we'd like to do but haven't shown good abilities at -- like fund raising for projects and getting major industry involvement. OSGeo might be considered as two different groups: the community and code development side, which is very good already, and the "business development side" which could be aligned with Eclipse. Again, just my early opinions at this point.

Anyway, they are holding their 1st meeting as a F2F at the Location Intelligence Conference in Washing DC in May, and would like OSGeo to be involved.

I propose we send an Ambassador or two. Daniel and I have started the conversation with them, but any one of us could do it.

Do we have any policies and cost structures for the Ambassador function yet?

-mpg