[Board] Eclipse meeting report

Fri May 25 14:01:31 PDT 2012

Hey Michael,

I appreciate your thorough writeup and the time you have spent
investigating this.  Without having taken the time myself to be
involved in the Eclipse meetings, I still don't have a clear idea
about what the relationship between Eclipse and OSGeo is likely to
look like in the future.  I'm working separately on a project that is
being considered for one of the Location IWG lead projects, and I'm
curious to see where that goes as well.

Regarding your motion:

"""
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.
"""

I'm not sure you'll get consensus on a board statement here (nobody
else has voted one way or another).  I'd be in favor of having you
talk about your experience and ideas on the OSGeo discuss list.

Tim

On Fri, May 25, 2012 at 1:12 PM, Michael P. Gerlek <mpg at flaxen.com> wrote:
> Arnulf:
>
> Please reread my proposed board motion, as I chose the words in it very carefully. It does not imply OSGeo has failed in any way, nor does it say anything about "selling" OSGeo, nor does it say anything about FOSS4G.
>
> Eclipse may well be interested in becoming a sponsor of OSGeo: it's an interesting idea, but one that's not been talked about yet. However, that idea is also not related to my proposed board motion at all.
>
> -mpg
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Seven (aka Arnulf)
>> Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2012 9:35 AM
>> To: OSGeo Board
>> Subject: Re: [Board] Eclipse meeting report
>>
>> Michael,
>> thanks for the report and the time and thought you put into this. It is
>> well thought through but in some aspects I might want to shift
>> perspectives a bit and echo some of the remarks already posted. We are
>> not doing half as bad as it might sound here.
>>
>> >From what you write here I could well see Eclipse become a sustaining
>> sponsor of OSGeo. That would give them the visibility they want plus
>> high credibility in the community and closer contact to the projects
>> they are interested in. I really mean this, what will they say to this?
>> Can they help us develop a sponsorship opportunity that will address
>> their needs? I am all open to actively pursue this.
>>
>> Apart from that I do not really see any 'location working group' (no
>> matter whether W3C, Eclipse or anyone else) even coming near to what
>> OSGeo is doing. These groups currently pop up everywhere because
>> location is hype and everywhere in IT now. But none of these groups have
>> a handle whatsoever on the involved projects. Therefore I believe that
>> we don't have to "sell" OSGeo "under price".
>>
>> It is up to any OSGeo project to go through any other incubation process
>> they chose to, there is no uniqueness in what OSGeo offers. Same applies
>> to funding, if the OSGeo sponsorship program does not work for a project
>> they can get money elsewhere. If a project wants more strict "IP"
>> because they believe that this will foster adoption by "big business" -
>> go for it.
>>
>> Wrt to conferences I do not really see the need to have FOSS4G be
>> canibalized by anybody else than OSGeo itself. Even OSGeo itself is
>> readily questioned when bringing up a more 'commercial' take of FOSS4G.
>> At the same time it is a valid question whether professionalizing the
>> suit-version of FOSS4G should not be done with someone interested in
>> doing just that. Maybe diversify some more here?
>>
>> Coming back from FOSS4G-CEE in Prague I am still full of the vibe that
>> this conference brought on. It was well organized, instructive and fun.
>> All you need is a university, 100+ friendly people and no worries if it
>> looks a bit low key. And the next edition in Bucharest, Romania is
>> already in the pipeline, they are unstoppable and I think that this is
>> good.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Arnulf.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 05/22/2012 10:16 PM, Michael P. Gerlek wrote:
>> > Dear Board:
>> >
>> > I met with the still-forming Location Working Group (LWG) of the
>> > Eclipse Foundation today for a couple hours, the largest agenda item
>> > being possible interactions between OSGeo and the LWG. Attendees
>> > included OSGeo notables Geoff Zeiss, Chris Holmes, Andrew Ross, and
>> > Dave McIlhagga.
>> >
>> > My slides can be found here (for now):
>> > http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17690616/Eclipse-120522.pdf
>> >
>> > The Eclipse LWG page can be found here:
>> > http://wiki.eclipse.org/Location
>> >
>> > * * *
>> >
>> > The Eclipse Foundation is setting up group to develop, support, and
>> > promote open source projects in the geospatial arena, with a strong
>> > emphasis on being commercial-friendly. Their intended efforts
>> > directly intersect with the largest part of our charter here at
>> > OSGeo, and so it is of interest to both communities to make this be a
>> > positive situation for all.
>> >
>> > This new Eclipse LWG would like to be able to use some OSGeo
>> > projects, as determined by the needs of their members. They could
>> > choose to use an OSGeo project "at arm's length", just like any other
>> > consumer of open source code (and as they currently do for some
>> > Apache projects) -- but some projects they might wish to bring closer
>> > under their foundation, for reasons of stronger/different licensing
>> > models, collaboration between projects, etc. Such allied projects
>> > would, in turn, be likely to get significantly more funding and
>> > strategic support than OSGeo provides for projects do today.
>> >
>> > While Eclipse has made it very clear that they have no intention of
>> > "poaching" away our projects, this could potentially become a
>> > divisive situation in the open source geospatial world.  An OSGeo
>> > project steering committee might well wish to work within the Eclipse
>> > Foundation if they felt that would be better for their project in the
>> > long run -- such as money for codesprints,  more developers, broader
>> > industry adoption, and so on. Some projects already feel that being
>> > part of the OSGeo community has not brought them sufficient value. We
>> > need to address this very real issue.
>> >
>> > There are other aspects of mutual interest, such as conferences that
>> > we could collaborate on -- but the focus of discussions today was on
>> > the projects themselves.
>> >
>> > * * *
>> >
>> > Eclipse has asked us to work with them, and so it is now OSGeo's job
>> > to decide how to react to this situation. There are three possible
>> > reactions I see.
>> >
>> > First, we could declare Eclipse to be a "competitor" and discourage
>> > projects and people from working with them. This would harm and
>> > possibly fracture our community, benefitting no one and going against
>> > OSGeo's stated mission to "support the collaborative development of
>> > open source geospatial software and promote its widespread use".
>> >
>> > Second, we could ignore the issue. This too would fracture the
>> > community, albeit without as much rancor. In two or three years,
>> > however, we might find that the two organizations are competing for
>> > scarce resources -- developers, sponsors, conference attendees. That
>> > would be unfortunate. And, presumably, one of the two organizations
>> > would suffer in the long term.
>> >
>> > Third, we could proactively choose to work with Eclipse now. Projects
>> > that are of interest to Eclipse and whose members want to be part of
>> > the Eclipse stack could be encouraged to do so, with the Board's full
>> > support and blessing, because there is no reason a project can't be
>> > part of both OSGeo and Eclipse.
>> >
>> > I favor this third approach.
>> >
>> >
>> > * * *
>> >
>> > 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.
>> >
>> > * * *
>> >
>> > 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.
>> >
>> > * * *
>> >
>> > 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.
>> >
>> >
>> > _mpg
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________ Board mailing list
>> > Board at lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board
>>
>>
>> --
>> Exploring Space, Time and Mind
>> http://arnulf.us
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>
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-- 
Tim Schaub
OpenGeo http://opengeo.org/
Expert service straight from the developers.