[Board] Some food for thought from Directions magazine ahead of our board meeting

Wed Jan 4 19:25:43 PST 2012

I agree there is scope for confusion, but to some degree that is inevitable
- none of us can have a monopoly on the word "open". The Directions folks
didn't say that the two organizations were trying to do the same thing, and
I don't believe they think that. What they said was that in their opinion
OpenGeo is doing more to increase usage of open source geospatial software
than OSGeo is. You might or might not agree with that, but I think it's a
legitimate opinion to hold and you can make arguments to support it. I
certainly feel there is more that OSGeo can do to help grow usage of open
source geospatial software (but in quite different ways from what OpenGeo
is doing), and that's one of the main things I want to discuss in Seattle.

On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 7:40 PM, Seven (aka Arnulf) <seven at arnulf.us> wrote:

> On 01/04/2012 02:06 PM, Tim Schaub wrote:
> > On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 10:40 AM, seven at arnulf.us <seven at arnulf.us>
> wrote:
> >> On 01/03/2012 02:19 PM, Michael P. Gerlek wrote:
> >>> I heard this too, but never got around to writing anything down about
> >>> it.  My quick thought was that OpenGeo’s charter is (I claim)
> >>> fundamentally different from what OSGeo’s charter is/should be -- I
> >>> don’t see any there is or should be any “competition” between the two
> >>> groups.
> >>
> >> Folks,
> >> I do not really like the idea of calling OSGeo and OpenGeo both a
> >> "group" as if they were anything that you can compare. They are not
> >> comparable, they do different things with different goals but they can
> >> profit from each other and they collaborate.
> >>
> >> Unfortunately OpenGeo chose to choose a name and TLD that is meant to
> cause
> >> confusion - but nothing much we can do about this.
> >
> > It's common practice in the US for 501(c)(3) to register .org domains.
> >  OpenGeo is a division of OpenPlans, a nonprofit corporation.  Please
> > rest assured that registering for a .org domain name was in no way
> > "meant to cause confusion."
> >
> > I typically refrain from responding to jabs like this, but I don't
> > want the misstatements to be perpetuated.
>
> Tim,
> this is not meant to be a jab at anything but is a day-to-day reality
> which I am faced with. People even mix up OGC and OSGeo regularly and
> having OpenGeo on top of this did not help at all.
>
> And in my opinion it does make a difference whether you add a .org or a
> .com to your domain and I will continue to say so. Is this a problem for
> you? If yes, how can we resolve it? What do you suggest what we can do
> to explain that OSGeo and OpenGeo have different goals, if even the
> DirectionsMag experts are not quite clear on it. Or do you really think
> we should be doing the same thing? Then OSGeo would have to hire people
> to offer services for money, apply for tenders and become competitors to
> OpenGeo. But this is definitely not what I set out to do.
>
> It is apparently not simple. Lets talk in Seattle.
>
> Cheers,
> Arnulf
>
> >>> It would be a useful exercise for the meeting to try and agree on a
> >>> “response” to their statement quoted below.  Not for publication or
> >>> anything like that, but rather just using their quote as a strawman
> >>> position for exploring the design space.
> >>>
> >>
> >> Yes. My first knee jerk reaction actually was to congratulate us
> because if
> >> there is no more need for OSGeo it means we have done our job. :-)
> Albeit I
> >> do not quite believe that yet.
> >>
> >> So instead we should take this as constructive input and work on how we
> can
> >> improve our outward facing vision.
> >>
> >> Looking forward to do some good work in the two days, and good to see
> Aaron
> >> and Paul join us.
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >> Arnulf.
> >>
> >>>
> >>> -mpg
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> *From:*board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
> >>> [mailto:board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] *On Behalf Of *Peter Batty
> >>> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 03, 2012 11:06 AM
> >>> *To:* board at lists.osgeo.org
> >>> *Subject:* [Board] Some food for thought from Directions magazine ahead
> >>> of our board meeting
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I don't know if any of you have listened to this podcast from Adena and
> >>> Joe at Directions magazine, with their predictions for 2012:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> http://www.directionsmag.com/podcasts/podcast-predictions-for-the-geospatial-marketplace-2012/219405
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> They talk about open source starting at around 13:30. The interesting
> >>> thing is that they predict that OpenGeo will "become the go to company
> >>> for information about open source tools ... it doesn't seem like OSGeo,
> >>> which had been that leader before, is taking on that role."
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Now I don't always agree with Joe and Adena, and I've told them that on
> >>> occasion :), but they are widely listened to in the broader geospatial
> >>> world, and their views are probably representative of a lot of folks in
> >>> that space. And I can see where they're coming from to some extent -
> >>> part of it probably relates to letting Tyler go, and part of it I think
> >>> is that (IMO) we are not doing enough to get the word out about open
> >>> source to the broader geospatial community (which of course will be a
> >>> topic of conversation in Seattle). I might try to connect with Joe
> >>> and/or Adena before we meet to talk more about their perspectives (in
> >>> particular Joe said he was disappointed in FOSS4G - I suspect that he
> >>> felt it was too technical with not enough content for newcomers, and in
> >>> that regard it's a shame he didn't attend the newcomer day which I
> think
> >>> he would have got more out of, but it would be interesting to chat in
> >>> more detail about his thoughts).
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I plan to write more on my thoughts about our strategy etc before
> >>> Seattle, and encourage others to do the same, but thought this was
> worth
> >>> sharing just as an input to the thought process.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Cheers,
> >>>
> >>>     Peter.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Board mailing list
> >>> Board at lists.osgeo.org
> >>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> President, OSGeo
> >> http://www.osgeo.org
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board
> >>
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Exploring Space, Time and Mind
> http://arnulf.us
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