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

[Venkatesh Raghavan]

Chris and all,
....
On 2012/01/05 20:21, christopher.schmidt at nokia.com wrote:
> 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.
I agree with your statement about OSGeo's message being
poorly delivered. The delivery could be improved by having an
OSGeo Board that is representative of the wider community
(Academia, Government, intergovernmental organizations,
charitable foundations, etc). 88% of current OSGeo Board
members own or work for private geospatial businesses in the
northwestern hemisphere and the remaining 12% in the
northeastern hemisphere.

I think that formulation of a broader vision for the
OSGeo Foundation requires a more  unbiased representation
of the community in the OSGeo Board. Recent requests for more (direct)
involvement of Charter Members in the OSGeo decision making process need
to be considered seriously. FOSS4G Conference, the present OSGeo flagship
was born before OSGeo came into existence. GeoServer and OpenLayers
are among the few new thing that has happened after OSGeo was born.  Let us
celebrate (and learn from) these new successes and deeply introspect on
the panacea for some of our shortcomings.

Best

Venka