[Board] Renew mandate to act as admin for GSoC 2018 edition

Mon Jan 8 13:09:28 PST 2018

Thank you Jody, apologies again for the tone, reading again my first email,
it didn't come out as was thought.
For what concerns the freedom to dispose of the gsoc budget, this is too
much for our team. As you know,  this is the first year we make a budget
request, and we did it only because the idea is very easy to handle: giving
small travel grants to gsoc students that request them to present their
gsoc project in international conferences. As you also know, the budget
that comes in from gsoc is larger, but we purposedly have no intention to
handle it directly. This is because there is no agreement among mentors on
which should be the use of these money. Each year mentors volunteer their
time as we admins do, so we don't think it's appropriate to exclude them
from the decision. On the other hand, when consulted, they didn't reach
agreement. So we decided (or abstained from deciding) that those money
remain to OSGeo and projects keep requesting the money they need directly
from the OSGeo budget. This simplifies things a lot. Perhaps in the future
mentors will reach agreement and things will change again, but for us
admins it is very convenient that the budget is administered by OSGeo.

Thanks,

On Mon, 8 Jan 2018 at 21:44, Jody Garnett <jody.garnett at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for the longer reply Margherita, that helps.
>
> I think we may have different ideas of how committees can work, many of
> the committees set strategy at a meeting (say participate in google
> code-in) and then get to work in the manner of you describe.
>
> The intention, and why the idea keeps coming up, is to offer your team
> some independence from the board to tackle both gsoc and and code-in with a
> budget under your control. Still the board can set up an initiative, and
> pass motions for any financial requests that come up - we cautiously put
> aside money as seen above since this is an important and successful
> activity.
>
> --
> Jody Garnett
>
> On 8 January 2018 at 12:19, Margherita Di Leo <diregola at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Angelos, all,
>>
>> sorry I didn't mean to jump to any conclusions, maybe I was tricked by my
>> poor understanding of words, but we really have replied to this committee
>> thing in several occasions now, see  for example
>> https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2017-October/010739.html and the
>> same answer was repeated in other occasion, I also remember one email of
>> Helmut citing it. We really don't understand where is the need to frame
>> gsoc into a committee. On the contrary, we would like to stress that gsoc
>> is NOT a committee. When we call for volunteers we want to be very clear
>> that we're not calling to join a committee, as an activity that a volunteer
>> carries out at their own pace. Gsoc has a schedule, that depends on google,
>> decisions must be tackled instantly, not sitting and voting. Any member of
>> the team is entitled to act independently from the others, because
>> otherwise if we need consultation for any action, we're over. The team is
>> action oriented. The members of the team respond on their own action. We do
>> tackle important decisions together, but it doesn't happen as a standard
>> modus operandi. And we don't wait that we reach majority for a decision:
>> when I have a problem I call for the others and who is available replies.
>> Besides, I have been in contact with tens of other organizations
>> participating in gsoc and none of them occurred to have formed a committee,
>> which in my opinion is an unsolicited overcomplication. If all these
>> argument still don't convince you, please just respect our wish to not be a
>> committee.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 8 Jan 2018 at 19:55, Angelos Tzotsos <gcpp.kalxas at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Madi,
>>>
>>> Please let's not rush into conclusions.
>>> GSoC has been listed under initiatives:
>>> https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Budget_2018#OSGeo_Initiatives
>>> so there is no catch there, you can allocate the budget without any
>>> problems.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Angelos
>>>
>>> On 01/08/2018 08:35 PM, Margherita Di Leo wrote:
>>> > Jody,
>>> >
>>> > Il giorno lun 8 gen 2018 alle 18:40 Jody Garnett <
>>> jody.garnett at gmail.com>
>>> > ha scritto:
>>> >
>>> >> Started the electronic voting here:
>>> >> https://www.loomio.org/d/YPeGSkyx/gsoc-2018-participatio
>>> >> <https://www.loomio.org/d/YPeGSkyx/gsoc-2018-participation>n
>>> >>
>>> > Thanks
>>> >
>>> >> I during our 2018 budget we talked about setting this up as a
>>> committee
>>> >> with a slightly more general mandate.
>>> >>
>>> > Honestly, I don’t get this. This idea of forming a committee seems to
>>> > return again and again when we have clearly stated that we are no
>>> committee
>>> > and don’t intend to form one, thanks but no thanks.
>>> >
>>> > The net result was marking $3000 for the activity, and action item to
>>> reach
>>> >> out to this years volunteers.
>>> >>
>>> > So if I understand correctly, we cannot be granted this budget as an
>>> > initiative but we must form a committe? Is this what the board decided
>>> > during the last meeting? Sorry if I hadn’t understood that. I’m glad
>>> that
>>> > we didn’t allocate these money yet, because at this condition we don’t
>>> wish
>>> > to proceed.
>>> > So please let us know if we can prceed at least for gsoc application
>>> > without being a committee, as was done for 11 years now, or else if you
>>> > wish gsoc for OSGeo ends this year.
>>> >
>>> > Best regards
>>> >
>>> >> --
>>> >> Jody Garnett
>>> >>
>>> >> On 8 January 2018 at 06:36, Margherita Di Leo <diregola at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >>> Great! Please let me know if you need any additional info from our
>>> side
>>> >>>
>>> >>> On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 3:34 PM, Jody Garnett <jody.garnett at gmail.com
>>> >
>>> >>> wrote:
>>> >>>
>>> >>>> We can make an electronic motivation to sort this out ahead of
>>> deadline.
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 3:25 AM Margherita Di Leo <
>>> diregola at gmail.com>
>>> >>>> wrote:
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>>> That's great, thank you Angelos. Hope the board doesn't mind if for
>>> >>>>> practical reasons we are going ahead with the organization and
>>> eventually
>>> >>>>> the submission of the application which is due by Jan 23. Keeping
>>> in mind
>>> >>>>> that in the event of negative answer by the board, we can still
>>> withdraw it
>>> >>>>> by that date.
>>> >>>>>
>>> >>>>> Best regards,
>>> >>>>>
>>> >>>>> On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 12:20 PM, Angelos Tzotsos <
>>> gcpp.kalxas at gmail.com
>>> >>>>>> wrote:
>>> >>>>>> Dear Margherita,
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>> Thank you for the update.
>>> >>>>>> The next Board meeting is on Jan 17, I have added your request on
>>> the
>>> >>>>>> agenda:
>>> >>>>>> https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Meeting_2018-01-17
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>> Best regards,
>>> >>>>>> Angelos
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>> On 01/08/2018 12:14 PM, Margherita Di Leo wrote:
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>> Dear members of the Board,
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>> GSoC 2018 has already opened the applications for open source
>>> organizations
>>> >>>>>> [1]. The timing this year makes things a bit hectic because as
>>> organization
>>> >>>>>> we are still focussed on GCI contest, which, by the way, is so
>>> far a great
>>> >>>>>> success! However, thanks for the great commitment of the members
>>> of the
>>> >>>>>> admin team and our mentors, we are still able to make shifts and
>>> work on
>>> >>>>>> the application for GSoC at the same time.
>>> >>>>>> So we are writing to the Board to update you about the
>>> composition of the
>>> >>>>>> admin team for 2018 edition and to formally receive mandate to
>>> act on
>>> >>>>>> behalf of OSGeo, applying for GSoC 2018. The members of the admin
>>> team for
>>> >>>>>> 2018 are:
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>> Florin-Daniel Cioloboc,
>>> >>>>>> Werner Macho,
>>> >>>>>> Helmut Kudrnovsky,
>>> >>>>>> Jeff McKenna,
>>> >>>>>> Margherita Di Leo,
>>> >>>>>> Anne Ghisla  (as emeritus - will offer guidance and advise in
>>> case of need)
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>> Best regards,
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>> [1] https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/timeline
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>> >>>>>> Board mailing listBoard at lists.osgeo.orghttps://
>>> lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>> --
>>> >>>>>> Angelos Tzotsos, PhD
>>> >>>>>> Charter Member
>>> >>>>>> Open Source Geospatial Foundationhttp://users.ntua.gr/tzotsos
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>> >>>>>> Board mailing list
>>> >>>>>> Board at lists.osgeo.org
>>> >>>>>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>
>>> >>>>>
>>> >>>>> --
>>> >>>>> Margherita Di Leo
>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________
>>> >>>>> Board mailing list
>>> >>>>> Board at lists.osgeo.org
>>> >>>>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board
>>> >>>> --
>>> >>>> --
>>> >>>> Jody Garnett
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>
>>> >>>
>>> >>> --
>>> >>> Margherita Di Leo
>>> >>>
>>> >> --
>>> > Margherita Di Leo
>>> >
>>>
>>> --
>>> Angelos Tzotsos, PhD
>>> Charter Member
>>> Open Source Geospatial Foundation
>>> http://users.ntua.gr/tzotsos
>>>
>>>
>
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