[Board] Eclipse meeting report

Fri May 25 11:49:37 PDT 2012

Andrew has started a FAQ http://wiki.eclipse.org/Location/FAQ that might answer some of your questions about Eclipse - take a look, and then let me/us know if you have more questions and we'll expand it out.

I didn't mean my mail to sound defeatist. The opportunity that Eclipse is presenting to some of our projects does not detract from OSGeo in any way, because there's no reason a project can't live under both worlds. 

The Eclipse group may be providing some things to projects that OSGeo cannot provide; I have heard privately from some who do feel that they haven't gotten sufficient value from being an OSGeo project and would like to use an avenue like this to get more funding, contributors, integrations, etc. Since our mission is to support open source projects, I think it is well within our remit to help them take advantage of this opportunity in any reasonable way we can.

-mpg

From: Jo Cook [mailto:jocook at astuntechnology.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 2:01 AM
To: mpg at flaxen.com
Cc: board at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [Board] Eclipse meeting report

Dear All,

Please don't take my responses here as blockers- I am totally unfamiliar with Eclipse and I'm asking stupid questions to try and better understand what OSGeo would be getting into.

OK, so coming from a position of ignorance I went to the website and tried to get an understanding of the Eclipse Foundation from their "About Us" pages. To be honest, I didn't see much that looked different to what OSGeo provide around project infrastructure etc. I didn't see anything about funding. So, I'm curious to know a bit more about this side of things- exactly what is it that Eclipse provides that is so much better than what OSGeo provides? Are their licensing and "project approval" processes likely to conflict with OSGeo's or mean lots of additional work for projects trying to be part of both? If we are going to encourage projects to be part of both foundations then it would be counter-productive to make them duplicate the work of getting approval.

Historically, OSGeo hasn't been able to raise sufficient funding and sponsorship to promote and further projects in the way that many of us would have liked. The reasons for this are many, but it is my considered opinion that as an entirely volunteer-based organization made up of a very diverse set of interests OSGeo is not likely to be able to develop and sustain a successful fund-raising campaign. Indeed, in six years we have made little progress in this area. Others may disagree; my position in this letter is based on this premise, however.

A number of projects have goals they would like to achieve, ranging from attracting more developers to holding codesprints to writing better documentation to producing binary distributions.

Our charter says we must support and promote these open source geospatial projects: but how are we to support and promote those goals of our projects without significant funding or resources?

We now have one possible answer: by encouraging our member projects to work with the Eclipse Foundation.

As I posted here a few weeks ago, I think OSGeo has successfully achieved many of the goals we set out for ourselves six years ago. But just as the geospatial world has evolved over those six years, so to must OSGeo. Our market and ecosystem has grown, new players are entering, and there's no longer any reason we need to be the only voice for open source geospatial software. Where there are other such voices and where they can accomplish things we cannot, we should work with them on those things, and concentrate instead on the things we can do.

At the risk of sounding trite, we should, in fact, embrace the differences in the two foundations. Although writing code is the most significant effort we do, our charter is broader than that: we encourage data sharing, we promote academic curricula, we educate and inform potential new users. These are things that Eclipse does not directly represent, things that OSGeo needs to continue to stand up for.

We do have a significant sector of membership that sees all this additional stuff as being secondary to "OSGeo is just for coders" (and hence for projects). I think this is going to attract a lot of complaints, though I might be wrong...

* * *

In summary, then, I would like the board to discuss a motion saying that

 (1) We welcome the Eclipse Foundation as a new, valuable member of the open source geospatial world;

 (2) We recognize the Eclipse Foundation is aimed at commercial-friendly open source software and may be able to support the goals of some OSGeo projects towards that end, in ways better than OSGeo can; and

 (3) We encourage OSGeo projects that are of interest to the Eclipse Foundation to work with Eclipse, to the benefit of the project and its goals, the OSGeo Foundation and its community, and the Eclipse Foundation and its community.

This all sounds really defeatist to me! We may feel that way, but this should be a mutual thing and not something we just get involved with because we think we've failed. I would go for something like:

2) We recognise that the Eclipse Foundation may be able to provide additional benefits and exposure to OSGeo projects

3) We encourage OSGeo projects that are interested in the Eclipse Foundation to work with them, to the benefit of the project...

With the caveat that I mentioned above- that I'd like more information on exactly what that will mean in practice. 

* * *

As I mentioned, there are other areas where Eclipse and OSGeo could work together -- such as supporting the annual FOSS4G conference -- but there's no need to move on all fronts at once. I know some in our community have already expressed fear of a takeover by Eclipse, it's commercial orientation, and a dilution of the OSGeo brand. I believe that moving towards the motion above represents a good, solid first step to build mutual understanding, trust, and confidence between the two Foundations.

Thanks for going Michael, and thanks for this really comprehensive email!

Jo

-- 

Jo Cook
Astun Technology Ltd, The Coach House, 17 West Street, Epsom, Surrey, KT18 7RL, UK 
t:+44 750 095 8167 <tel:%2B44%20750%20095%208167> 

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