[Board] Resurrecting the Eclipse discussion

[Geoff Zeiss]

Thanks, Mark.
I couldn't put it better.
Geoff

From: Mark Lucas [mailto:mlucas17 at mac.com]
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2012 06:58 AM
To: osgeo-board List <board at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [Board] Resurrecting the Eclipse discussion

OSGeo future and Eclipse…

Sorry I haven't gotten back to this earlier.

I hope this won't be misinterpreted so let me emphasize a couple of points:

I believe the OSGeo is the global leader in open source geospatial development
We have the top projects as members,
we have infrastructure that supports development,
we host great international, regional and local conferences.
I am also very impressed with the caliber of the committees and board members

I would like to see us preserve all of that an enhance it.

There is always room for improvement and areas of concern, maybe some of those could be addressed through a relationship with another entity - such as Eclipse.

1) We have no staff
2) Our president is stepping down - who is the face of OSGeo?
3) We spend much more time discussing how we spend the little money we have then how we raise more funding
4) There is not any real focus on open source business models
5) Many of the ex Directors, open source geospatial companies,  and key contributors are focusing on other avenues
(DM Solutions, OpenGeo, Autodesk, RadiantBlue, ESRI, Oracle just off the top of my head).
6) I'm worried how we sustain and grow the organization

Please don't take this as a doom and gloom forecast.  We have success and inertia behind us, as the board we have the obligation to guide the organization.  Now is the time to think about the way ahead.  I'm all for exploring a relationship with Eclipse if we believe it preserves our strengths and helps to address my concerns.

Mark








On Jun 11, 2012, at 9:12 AM, Jo Cook wrote:

Hi All,

I have been chatting to someone who it turns out is peripherally involved in the Eclipse LWG and is going to be in on a conference call with them on Thursday. He has a small open source GIS project, and they have offered to put it under their banner. He is ambivalent, but I've asked him for some more background on what they offer, and any process that projects would need to go through. I'm hoping that this will fill in some of the gaps that those of us (me in particular) had about what Eclipse are offering, so that we can kick-start the discussion again- hopefully a bit more positively this time with the additional background.

I hope that's useful, and that people feel the discussion is worth kick-starting- I certainly do. If so, I'll report back towards the end of the week when I have some more information.

All the best

Jo
--
Jo Cook
Astun Technology Ltd, The Coach House, 17 West Street, Epsom, Surrey, KT18 7RL, UK
t:+44 750 095 8167
iShare - Data integration and publishing platform<http://www.isharemaps.com/>

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