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

[seven@arnulf.us]

Tim, 
I received several off list comments stating that my wording was good to make feel others offended. I did not mean to do that or harm the image of OpenGeo and want to apologize if I made that impression. Quite the contrary, I believe that OpenGeo is a great player in the FOSS ecosystem.

Maybe the background is that I exert quite some time and effort to spread word and educate about OSGeo's mission and in general get good feeback (in the sense that people understand what OSGeo stands for). On a global level the confusion is also much less so an issue and people seem to understand much better what the roles of both organizations are. So I do need help to better understand why this is so, or someone else better educated in the NA market take this on. 

All the best, 
Arnulf.

--
Arnulf Christl (aka Seven)
http://arnulf.us

----- Reply message -----
From: "Tim Schaub" <tschaub at opengeo.org>
To: "seven at arnulf.us" <seven at arnulf.us>
Cc: "OSGeo Board" <board at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: [Board] Some food for thought from Directions magazine ahead of our board meeting
Date: Wed, Jan 4, 2012 14:06


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.

>> 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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>



-- 
Tim Schaub
OpenGeo http://opengeo.org/
Expert service straight from the developers.
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