[Board] GeoNode as participant in a german research call (NFDI4Agriculture), formal signing process unclear

Thu Aug 13 00:20:14 PDT 2020

Dear Board,

-- the first mail yesterday was not properly sent to the board list, sorry --

We as GeoNode PSC have discussed (see below) our participation in a german research call called 'national research infrastructure' in the consortium NFDI4Agriculture (https://www.nfdi4agri.de/index.php/en/). The PSC voted to participate in the call and the consortium. Our idea is to foster synergies with german research sites for using GeoNode as spatial research data hub and working on better interoperability in the scientific context.

To do so we would have to sign a letter of committment [LOC], which states the general motiviation to work together with the NFDI4Agriculture consortium and broadly describe the actions which will be performed by GeoNode (like discussing proposals for technical developments, supporting in gitter / the mailing lists, reviewing pull requests, etcpp). Since GeoNode PSC and the project itself is not a legal entity we can not sign any LOC.

But OSGeo is a legal entity and we would like to kindly ask, if OSGeo would sign LOC and state that GeoNode as OSGeo project will activly participate in the consortium NFDI4Agriculture. OSGeo does already work in the scientific domain, for example with the Open GeoScience group. I think participating in the consortium is a good idea to strenghten this part of OSGeo, since the general idea and vision of the national research data infrastructure and Open GeoScience does align very well. >> If OSGeo itself << wants to be prominently listed as participant in the call, we would need >> your informal approval << until today (!) evening.  I am very sorry for that harsh deadline. The signed LOC itself must be sent to the consortiums administration group until mid of september (15.09).

If there are any questions regarding the LOC and the participation, please do not hesitate to ask me for clarifications.

DISCLAIMER: I am part of the GeoNode PSC AND of the NFDI4Agriculture call consortium as co-applicant.

yours,
Florian
-- 
MSc Florian Hoedt
Head Geoinformatics | OpenData Representative
Thünen Institute, Centre for Information Management
Bundesallee 44
38116 Braunschweig

Tel:  +49 531 596-1428
Mobil: +49 162 92 50 275
Fax:  +49 531 596-1499
Mail: florian.hoedt at thuenen.de
Web:  www.thuenen.de

The Johann Heinrich von Thünen Institute, Federal Research Institute for Rural Areas, Forestry and Fisheries – Thünen Institute in brief – consists of 14 specialized institutes that carry out research and provide policy advice in the fields of economy, ecology and technology.

----- Ursprüngliche Mail -----
Von: "Angelos Tzotsos" <gcpp.kalxas at gmail.com>
An: "Florian Hoedt" <florian.hoedt at thuenen.de>
CC: geonode-psc at lists.osgeo.org
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 12. August 2020 12:18:22
Betreff: Re: GeoNode as participant in a german research call (NFDI4Agriculture), formal signing process unclear

Hi Florian and PSC members,

Thank you for reaching out.
In order to get OSGeo signing, we would need an approval by the OSGeo 
board. Afterwards I can sign the document.
Can you please send this request to the Board mailing list?

The next board meeting is at Aug 31, where we can discuss and approve 
this request, would this be ok?
If we need to approve earlier, then it has to go through a Loomio motion 
which I can make.

Best regards,
Angelos

PS. I hope the PSC has already seen the invitation from OSGeo for a 
short report at the AGM (max 2 slides) like last year.

On 8/12/20 11:14 AM, Florian Hoedt wrote:
> Hello Angelos,
>
> We as GeoNode PSC have discussed (see below) our participation in a german research call called 'national research infrastructure' in the consortium NFDI4Agriculture (https://www.nfdi4agri.de/index.php/en/). The PSC voted to participate in the call and the consortium. Our idea is to foster synergies with german research sites for using GeoNode as spatial research data hub and working on better interoperability in the scientific context.
>
> To do so we would have to sign a Letter of Committment, which states the general motiviation to work together with the NFDI4Agriculture consortium and broadly describe the actions which will be performed by GeoNode (like discussing proposals for technical developments, supporting in gitter / the mailing lists, reviewing pull requests, etcpp).
>
> Since the OSGeo is a legal entity we would like to kindly ask, if OSGeo would like to sign the letter. OSGeo does already work in the scientific domain, for example with the Open GeoScience group. I think participating in the consortium is a good idea to strenghten this part of OSGeo, since the general idea and vision of the national research data infrastructure and Open GeoScience does align very well.
>
> yours,
> Florian

-- 
Angelos Tzotsos, PhD
President
Open Source Geospatial Foundation
http://users.ntua.gr/tzotsos

----- Ursprüngliche Mail -----
Von: "Florian Hoedt" <florian.hoedt at thuenen.de>
An: "Francesco Bartoli" <francesco.bartoli at geobeyond.it>
CC: geonode-psc at lists.osgeo.org
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 12. August 2020 09:54:26
Betreff: Re: [GeoNode-PSC] GeoNode as participant in a german research call (NFDI4Agriculture), ASAP action required

Hi Francesco,

You are right, the PSC is not a legal body and formally can not sign the Letter of Commitment later. Tonis company CSGIS can´t sign the leter, because its a commercial entity - which I just realized. I will have to fiddle out the details on how this will work, but for now the general acceptance (4x +1, 2x 0 as of now) for going forward into participating in the research call is enough.

I will try to get OSGeo onboard, which I think is easier, if I could explain, that the GeoNode project would like to participate (which is part of OSGeo).
Many thanks for the quick replies!
yours,
Florian

----- Ursprüngliche Mail -----
Von: "Francesco Bartoli" <francesco.bartoli at geobeyond.it>
An: "Toni Schönbuchner" <toni.schoenbuchner at csgis.de>
CC: geonode-psc at lists.osgeo.org
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 12. August 2020 08:56:33
Betreff: Re: [GeoNode-PSC] GeoNode as participant in a german research call        (NFDI4Agriculture), ASAP action required

Hi Florian,

No objection from my end so definitely YES. However, I have just a concern from your explanation.
Given that the PSC is not a legal body I guess nobody of us can represent it officially/legally so I believe the letter of Commitment signed by Toni’s company cannot represent the GeoNode project from a legal perspective IMHO. Even more LoCs from all of us cannot. Likely the cleanest solution would be to ask Angelos the same from OSGeo. He is currently the president as far as I can remember.

Hope this can help
Good luck for the project

Cheers,
Francesco

Inviato da iPhone

> Il giorno 12 ago 2020, alle ore 08:22, Toni Schönbuchner <toni.schoenbuchner at csgis.de> ha scritto:
>
> Thanks Florian,
>
> here is my YES ;)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Toni
>
>> Am 11.08.2020 um 17:11 schrieb Florian Hoedt <florian.hoedt at thuenen.de>:
>>
>> Hi PSC,
>>
>> I would propose that the GeoNode project will be participating in the german research call "national research data infrastructures" as part of the consortium NFDI4Agri (which I am part of). I need a quick response for this, I was on vacation and had the deadline slipped.
>>
>> The projects role is to discuss together with other participants how and if GeoNode is a valid base infrastructure for research data in the agricultural field (spoiler alert: yes it is and will be). More details here: https://www.dfg.de/en/research_funding/programmes/nfdi/index.html
>>
>> What is in for the project: I try to get funding (person months) to enhance scientific data sharing capabilities, like agroscience thesauri and metadataschemas and others which will make GeoNode more FAIR (according to the FAIR guidelines). Furthermore hopefully many institutions will use GeoNode as technical basis which fosters colaboration. Additionally GeoNode will be aligned with other infrastructure services which will help scientists (and data analysts) to get the most out of their data.
>>
>> What threats are waiting for GeoNode: If no funding is granted, I had a lot of work for nothing. If funding is granted, there will be more discussion about future extensions and community modules for GeoNode, meaning the chat and dev list will have more traffic. We will have to discuss architectural designs and there will be GNIPs and PRs to check.
>>
>> See these three example use-cases for more detail which are part of the NFDI4Agri concept:
>>
>> core use-case for GeoNode is the 'spatial data hub' (=fork of GeoNode): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w0_TTQaA_jAX6aTAKZdUcarGWd4MdKY1tHshsp3mNPc/edit
>>
>> And two examples of enhancing services around the spatial data hub:
>> data integration infrastructure: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Kx6wNdgV9EoihuJFGH2GOvJ27W7QBJXbIHDVOZz381U/edit#heading=h.dz6ldtz5zhrj
>> sensor ingest API: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p7stl5CZ3f4glzJ7DjftGzD4iiL2vx3_I5cd89FdY3A/edit#heading=h.dz6ldtz5zhrj
>>
>> If the PSC is ok with this, I would propose Toni Schönbucher as german PSC member to be spokesperson for the project and signing a Letter of Committment (due to mid-september). I just need a informal YES ASAP to get the project listed.
>>
>> What do you think?
>>
>> yours,
>> Florian
>> ----- Ursprüngliche Mail -----
>> Von: "Toni Schönbuchner" <toni.schoenbuchner at csgis.de>
>> An: "Florian Hoedt" <florian.hoedt at thuenen.de>
>> CC: geonode-psc at lists.osgeo.org
>> Gesendet: Mittwoch, 24. Juni 2020 08:00:08
>> Betreff: Re: [GeoNode-PSC] Summit 2020 and GN3 webinar
>>
>> Dear Florian,
>>
>>> **Therefore I would vote to cancel the on-premise summit for 2020 but doing a virtual one end of Q3 (eg. September).**
>>
>> this sounds like a wise decision! (Taking the latest "Tönnis story" / North Rhine-Westphalia into account
>> a virtual conference -sadly- again sounds much more realistic.)
>>
>> +1 for shorter presentations, code sprints or as Alessio nicely said lean coffee meetings.
>>
>> In addition it could be useful to have a common space to share ideas and host the presentations during the sprint.
>> As the simplest google docs, GitHub or a bit more "private" with nextcloud.
>>
>> Thanks for your efforts and please, let me know if I can help!
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Toni
>>
>>
>>>> Am 23.06.2020 um 10:30 schrieb Florian Hoedt <florian.hoedt at thuenen.de>:
>>>
>>> Dear PSC,
>>>
>>> Should we use the summit website to announce the GN3 Webinar? I think it would be a good idea. If you like I can do a PR for this, if you give me some texts and infos.
>>>
>>> Furthermore, after reading Alessios Mail about the GN3 webinar, I would like to share the latest info about the summit2020 with you:
>>> Currently our administration does not like to host the summit 2020 since we still are in a kind of corona lockdown here. Therefore it is vital for the project to show the new version in a webinar and I am very glad to see GeoSolutions tackle that issue and providing the webinar.
>>>
>>> We, the Thünen-Institute, are currently looking for a web-conference software (like cisco webex) which would allow us to host web-conferences with participation and up to 200 visitors. I hope this could be used for a virtual summit later this year, after we have done some internal testing of the system.
>>>
>>> **Therefore I would vote to cancel the on-premise summit for 2020 but doing a virtual one end of Q3 (eg. September).**
>>>
>>> Since it is virtual I think we all have better chances to attend and host sessions. I would propose to do a two days virtual conference. Each day has a ~2h long conference session including breaks and split in several talks and workshops. We should use a UTC late evening timeframe to enable many timezones to attend. Maybe the workshops could be pre-recorded and instead of showing them as live coding/... events, we flip the idea and being online just to answer questions and give assistance about the workshops content.
>>>
>>> I personally do not like long virtual conferences and therefore would like to keep the overall session length under 3h (~2h is the sweet spot imho).
>>>
>>> What do you think?
>>>
>>> yours,
>>> Florian