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

Thu Jan 5 03:21:03 PST 2012

On Jan 4, 2012, at 9:40 PM, ext Seven (aka Arnulf) 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.

I don't think that it's at all fair to indicate that OpenGeo's choice of using a .org
TLD was 'unfortunate'. If OSGeo has such a hard time branding itself that 
anything else with a '.org' TLD is causing confusion, I certainly don't think
that can be considered the fault of other organizations!

(I also don't think there would be less confusion if OpenGeo was OpenGeo.com;
it's not the '.org' which is confusing, it's the fact that OpenGeo and OSGeo work
in a similar space and share many similar goals and even approaches.)

Trying to blame this on a TLD is silly. Trying to even make that an *issue* is
silly.

(If you want to argue the name itself is confusing, I won't disagree -- but there's
only so many words, and I don't feel that the OpenGeo choice was 'unfortunate'
in any sense, just something that can lead to confusion.)

In a similar vein, I don't think it's unfortunate that 'GeoTools' chose the name 
GeoTools -- despite the fact that there are several issues related to that name,
and that it's a very general name which competes with other names in the space.

If there's anything that's unfortunate, it's that the OSGeo mission has either been
so poorly understood or so nebulous that OpenGeo and OSGeo don't have 
differentiation in the eyes of people who are familiar with the industry. That
is an issue that should be fixed. But to snipe at the choice of a domain name as a 
primary cause for this is in poor taste. OpenGeo is run by a non-profit organization;
this was the entire original *intent* for .org domains, this isn't even a case where a
corporation is mis-using the TLD in its original sense, so let's concentrate on 
real issues instead -- issues like the fact that OSGeo's message is so poorly
delivered that it's not distinct from the commercially-targeted offerings that OpenGeo
has.

-- Chris

> 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.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board
>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
>>> President, OSGeo
>>> http://www.osgeo.org
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Exploring Space, Time and Mind
> http://arnulf.us
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