[Board] [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source Users Charter

[Bob Basques]

All,

Lurking on this topic a little.

Something I think related this is how to provide for support of openSource.  I'm coming from the Municipal Government 
side and one thing that is hard to do is trying to figure out how to hire Open Source groups/individuals for work 
items.  There is a percieved deliverable that needs to be described for most if not all funding streams for each cycle 
of development, and going at this from the professional services side of the equation has us running into Insurance 
requirements that are usually too restrictive to consider hiring any smaller OpenSource development groups.

We've had most success by purchasing "Thing" and not needing to get into the Professional services side of contracting.

I've wondered lately if there isn't some sort of separate category that needs to be described as a means of 
procurement.  A new type of product if you will.  I've only been thinking about this, and not really put anything to 
type yet, but it has been a major historical hurdle to get over in almost every attempt at trying to provide for 
OpenSourcers as they work.  The pity is that many smaller government units are using OpenSource since it's so 
inexpensive to get something going vs buying off the shelf software.

I'm just relaying the idea of adding into the topic related to procurement processes and such.

bobb



On 05/04/2014 10:57 PM, Jody Garnett wrote:
> You may like to at what Arnulf has been doing towards certification. Endorsing is a trickery game indeed.
>
> For GeoServer we simply list organizations, noting what kind of work each is known for ( but not offering an 
> endorsement).
>
> http://geoserver.org/display/GEOS/Commercial+Support
>
> On Sunday, May 4, 2014, Steven Feldman <shfeldman at gmail.com <mailto:shfeldman at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Thanks Jody
>
>     I would like to have a document or web link to point at as the start of a conversation with an organisation. It
>     can't be mandatory but we might want to consider community endorsement of organisations which adopt the charter or
>     'social contract'
>
>     I'll start a wiki page with a few thoughts and open it up for others to contribute their views
>     ______
>     Steven
>
>
>     On 2 May 2014, at 12:14, Jody Garnett <jody.garnett at gmail.com
>     <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','jody.garnett at gmail.com');>> wrote:
>
>>     I think you are leaning towards the "social contract" associated with being part of a community.
>>
>>     For organisations that do not wish to participate, that is fine. Participation is one way of minimising the risks
>>     associated with the use of open source software, as long as they are making that decision with a decent
>>     understanding that is fine.
>>
>>     The way I figure it they will get burned a few times before taking interesting in participation :) But yeah if
>>     you are talking to managers speak in terms of risk and change control, not community/participation - know your
>>     audience.
>>
>>     I think I had a rant about the social contact
>>     <http://www.how2map.com/2013/09/opensource-and-social-contract.html> last year, it produced one more tester of
>>     GeoServer - making the process of issuing release candidates suspect.
>>     -- 
>>     Jody Garnett
>
>
>
> -- 
> Jody Garnett
>
>
>
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