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

[Michael P. Gerlek]

The string "OpenGeo", unfortunately, does sound very similar to "OSGeo" and that they are both nonprofit dot-orgs makes it even more confusing for outsiders to keep straight.  And many times I've had to explain to people that OSGeo is not the same as OGC, especially since I've been involved in both groups.  And I'm old enough to recall the discussions +5 years ago in Chicago about what to name ourselves, and whether "open" + "geo" was simply too generic and too close to OGC.

But all three organizations have existed peacefully for some years now, and so that's all water under the bridge.  Peter's mail is a great start towards what we all need to focus on: let us refine our mission and goals to reflect the activities the our foundation should and can support, and decide as well how much effort we'd like to spend on publicizing that to the geo masses.

-mpg

[I wonder if Carl Reed ever has to explain that OGC is not the same as OSGeo?]