[Board] Fwd: Official expression of interest forming a European Chapter

Tue Jul 25 05:13:43 PDT 2017

Dear European charter members and OSGeo board,
I would like to express my support for an OSGeo continental chapter and
provide my point of view, that even if often considered uncomfortable, hope
will bring discussion to improve.

I hope that before starting the chapter:

* there is a clear and equitable rule for using the OSGeo name in European
bids (see h2020 for example) since this may be a competitive advantage.
It is totally unclear to me how OSGeo-EU would relate to H2020 projects for
example:
- Will it participate as a partner in any calls?
- How the selection of supported project will be done?
- How, in case of funding, allocated money will be distributed to members?

* there is a defined and focused coordination with local chapters
- synergies are needed to avoid duplication of efforts and adoption of a
common action line.
- ideally I'd like to see a hierarchical structure from international to
continental and national level "chapters" but this is a matter for the
board..

Here some proposed actions,
that in my opinion would demonstrate the open principle of the OSGeo
European Chapter  community:

* run a democratic election of the board representatives within 6 months
from the inception

* include all the OSGeo charter member that express their willing as "full"
member (was charter member in OSGeo not sure how "full member" is in
OSGeo-EU)

Regards,
Maxi

Il 24 lug 2017 2:56 PM, "Dirk Frigne" <dirk.frigne at geosparc.com> ha scritto:

> Maria
>
> "is a member of a local chapter also a charter
> > member of Eu Chapter? Or we will have a complex structure where local
> > chapter members can be not Eu charter members but charter members of
> > OSGeo as a whole?"
>
> No, as Jody and Lucca already mentioned, this is an organisation of
> volunteers. Everybody who wants to volunteer can become a member, but
> volunteers can also be 'only' OSGeo members.
>
> The "official" OSGeo-Europe members are responsible to guard the correct
> working of the organisation, as a legal structure. 22 volunteers
> expressed there interest to become a founding member and have signed the
> bylaws that we discussed last year as a google drive document, and
> during the BOF of July 19 2017.
>
> As a community we appreciate the help of everybody who wants to promote
> Geo free and open source software. Everybody who want's to support the
> local chapter can add his name on the wiki [1]. As of today there are
> already 27 names on the list. The bylaws have a mechanism to add these
> members as "full members" during the next general assembly (a similar
> process as for OSGeo.org).
>
> But as Lucca already mentioned: it is more important to be a member of
> OSGeo.org, although I hope we can make OSGeo.org stronger trough the
> initiative we are setting up.
>
> Once we've got our formal acceptance by the OSGeo Board, we will publish
> the bylaws in the Belgian Official Journal and create the legal
> structure. We will start to setup the agenda of the typical European
> points we want to work on this first year asap after acceptance.
>
>
> Dirk
>
> PS. I added the European list as I think this discussion also concerns
> the European list.
>
>
> [1] https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Europe
>
> On 2017-07-23 15:32, Luca Delucchi wrote:
> > On 23 July 2017 at 12:54, Jody Garnett <jody.garnett at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> All local chapters have the same relationship with OSGeo.
> >>
> >> A key reason to found a local chapter is to interact and advocate for
> open
> >> source on a regional city, state or national or union level - something
> the
> >> global osgeo organization is not in the best position to do.
> >>
> >> I do not think it is useful (or any of our business) to ask about
> members
> >> being automatically in a group. We are a volunteer organization and
> members
> >> volunteer where their hearts lie.
> >>
> >
> > I fully agree with Jody, OSGeo EU will be a local chapter with its
> > freedom as all the others, only the people who want be part of it
> > should be part of it (for example I'm in Italian local chapter but
> > right now I choose to not be part of OSGeo EU)
> >
> > As I already told during this days I don't fully believe on it right
> > now (maybe in the future will be different) and I'm a little bit
> > worried about the energy that it will take from other
> > activities/chapter.
> >
> > However with more than 20 founders, most of them really well known in
> > the OSGeo family, I think that OSGeo EU should be accepted as new
> > chapter.
> >
> > my2cents
> >
>
> --
> Yours sincerely,
>
>
> ir. Dirk Frigne
> CEO @geosparc
>
> Geosparc n.v.
> Brugsesteenweg 587
> B-9030 Ghent
> Tel: +32 9 236 60 18
> GSM: +32 495 508 799
>
> http://www.geomajas.org
> http://www.geosparc.com
>
> @DFrigne
> be.linkedin.com/in/frigne
>
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