[Board] Advisory Board?

[Michael P. Gerlek]

After thinking about this over the weekend, I'm -0 on the Advisory Board idea. It may be that it could be defined in such a way that I'd support it, but (1) I don't see the our governance Board being as effective as it should and (2) we have a community of the best and brightest of the open source geo world already. Until we get better at leveraging those two, and until OSGeo has a better handle our our mission and direction, I'm reluctant to go further.

I do recognize that there are some high-level, influential people out there who could help us, and I'd like to see that happen eventually, but I'm just not sure I'm ready for that yet.

-mpg



On Sep 10, 2012, at 9:08 AM, Daniel Morissette <dmorissette at mapgears.com> wrote:

> Hi Cameron,
> 
> I fully agree with your pragmatic concerns.
> 
> For the record, I am neither in favor of nor against an advisory board at this point. I don't see a need for it myself, but am not against someone else spending their time/energy making a case for it and defining how it would work either. My suggestion about the sponsors was simply to make sure they are considered *if* we go that route.
> 
> Daniel
> 
> 
> On 12-09-08 2:41 AM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
>> I'm hesitant of setting up an "advisory board" due to the practicalities
>> associated with it.
>> In particular:
>> 
>> 1. How would you determine who is on the board? Will we allow anyone who
>> volunteers to be part of the board? If so, we already have such a board
>> - it is called the OSGeo discuss list.
>> 
>> 2. If we decide to be selective about the "Advisory Board" then we could
>> point to the existing OSGeo Board, or maybe existing OSGeo Charter
>> members, or event "OSGeo Advocates". But I'm concerned about the level
>> of engagement that you would get from each of these groups.
>> 
>> 3. And what would be the level of time commitment expected from the
>> "Advisory Board"? To be valuable, there will likely be a reasonable time
>> commitment. And the experienced OSGeo members we have access to already
>> have competing time commitments.
>> 
>> 4. Alternatively, if we want non-trivial time commitments from
>> experienced OSGeo members, then payment should be considered. This would
>> align with OSGeo acting as a recruitment company, which I think is
>> beyond the mandate of OSGeo. Instead, I believe such recruitment should
>> be done outside of OSGeo.
>> 
>> Hence, I suggest that we avoid setting up an "advisory board" and make
>> use of our existing communities instead.
>> 
>> On 08/09/12 07:11, Daniel Morissette wrote:
>>> Just another tought, but if we consider setting up an advisory board,
>>> we may also want to think about how we could involve our sponsors more
>>> in this as well. If they are ready to put some of their money in
>>> OSGeo, then they are probably good candidates for an advisory board too.
>>> 
>>> Daniel
>>> 
>>> On 12-09-06 12:05 PM, Mark Lucas wrote:
>>>> I recently visited Digital Globe in Longmont Colorado and reconnected
>>>> with their team.  They are in the process of acquiring GeoEye and they
>>>> are the predominant collector of commercial satellite imagery in the
>>>> world.  With the combine assets they sit on, if memory serves me
>>>> correctly, something like 12 Billion square miles of collected imagery.
>>>>  Their worldview sensor will introduce high resolution spectral bands.
>>>> 
>>>> I was in several discussions about open source software, OSGeo, and
>>>> remote sensing in general.  They are interested in potentially providing
>>>> imagery data sets for testing, evaluation, and to derive new application
>>>> areas.  It was clear that they would like to engage with us to make some
>>>> of these efforts happen
>>>> 
>>>> I believe Dr Walter Scott is in the process of joining the OGC board.
>>>>  I've know him for over a decade, here is a writeup:
>>>> 
>>>> http://www.afcea.org/events/stratcom/11/documents/scottwalter.pdf
>>>> 
>>>> Should we consider establishing an OSGeo Advisory board made up of
>>>> leaders in the industry that might help advance our cause?
>>>> 
>>>> Like to hear what everyone thinks of the idea.
>>>> 
>>>> Mark
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Board mailing list
>>>> Board at lists.osgeo.org
>>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Daniel Morissette
> http://www.mapgears.com/
> Provider of Professional MapServer Support since 2000
> 
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