[Board] OSGeo involvement in οfficial project

[Cameron Shorter]

Thanks Dimitris, your insights and comments are valuable.

Maria,
I think I have missed the beginning of this email thread and am not 
clear about what specifically is being requested of OSGeo and what is 
the value OSGeo will be providing?
Is OSGeo being asked for co-sponsorship? Commitment in the form of man 
hours? Or maybe just a "We like the idea of this proposal" letter?

On 12/03/14 22:24, Dimitris Kotzinos wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> this is a very interesting discussion.
> Having tried to do that for a number of non-profit organizations 
> mainly in Greece my experience is rather negative, especially for 
> organizations relying solely on volunteers.
> There are two main problems as I see it:
> 1/ severe legal obligations coming mainly from the fact that official 
> participation (and here I exclude advisory boards, etc.) usually 
> entails some kind of budget and management of this budget in an 
> official way (and according to EC or national regulations). Most of 
> these kind of organizations lack this structure and do not really want 
> into the trouble of establishing one (leaving alone issues of 
> non-profit that might also inhibit this).
> 2/ participating or sometimes even endorsing competitive projects on 
> an official capacity (e.g. as OSGEO) can create all sorts of troubles 
> on "why endorsing him/her and not me" or at a later stage "who handles 
> the money and who gets"paid" from the money" that come through these 
> sources.
>
> I am not saying all these to sound negative; as I said I investigated 
> this couple of times myself. So investigating this for OSGEO might 
> worth it. In any case I am in favor of revisiting the guidelines for 
> OSGeo.
>
> Finally, from Jachym's e-mail I would also like to keep the point on 
> establishing a European legal presence for OSGEO, something like maybe 
> a European OSGEO chapter. I am not taking a stance of being in favor 
> or against; I am saying this is a valid idea to investigate in the 
> future.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Dimitris
>


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Cameron Shorter,
Software and Data Solutions Manager
LISAsoft
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