[OSGeo-Conf] FOSS4G-NA

Fri Jun 8 15:05:22 PDT 2018

What were the attendence numbers at the 2018 (St. Louis) FOSS4GNA?

Thanks

bobb

On Jun 8, 2018, at 4:50 PM, Rob Emanuele <rdemanuele at gmail.com<mailto:rdemanuele at gmail.com>> wrote:

Hello Paul and the conference list -

I'd like to send out some background information that might be useful to anyone who is curious about where FOSS4G NA is in it's governance, and where it is headed in the future. I'm speaking on behalf of the FOSS4G NA Core Committee, of which I'm a member.

TL;DR: we have begun working on 2019, and we will do our best to keep the community updated on the progress going forward.

For historical context:

There was an effort to try and formalize the running of FOSS4G NA several years back. This culminated in a Governance document, available here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WlgmJgtl0LaV0EO0NtDDSnloTgsIvxu9KwddPDwX1WU/edit . This included a core committee, which are tasked with making decisions about where the conference will be held, who will run the conference committee for that specific year, and  selecting the Logistics Organizer (the event organizers that manage conference logistics). There is a time window for a selection period, and in the past this has been pretty straight forward, since the Eclipse Foundation has been both the Logistical Organizer and also a member of the LocationTech staff was the conference chair. For more details, there are posts on the public google group at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/foss4gna_selection that should serve as a historical record. Also, feel free to ask questions if there that doesn't clear things up.

Where we're at now:

After graciously being both the financial backstop and the Logistics Organizer for the 2015, 2016, and 2018 events, LocationTech and the Eclipse Foundation are stepping back from these roles moving forward. We appreciate the tremendous amount of work they've put forward in performing these roles.

LocationTech will continue being involved as a member of the community and as a sponsor, as well as being represented in the core committee as an organization supporting the open source geospatial community. Eclipse has also indicated that they are happy to provide guidance to the new organization or group of folk that will run FOSS4G NA 2019 in order to ease the transition.

This means, for next year, we need to find who the next group is going to be to "take the ball" for this conference, and make it as great or better than it has been in the past. Maybe this is YOU! But, if it is, please speak up quick. It's difficult to plan a conference in less than a year, so there is a bit of a time crunch for who ever will take this on. Given that, the FOSS4G NA core committee voted to suspend the governance document, and will rely on excited and engaged community members to find a group that is ready, willing and able to take on this responsibility, both in the roles of conference committee and logistics organizer.

A bit of the background of compision of the core committee, and who is in it now:

- Eddie Pickle was the chair of 2013 and originally on the core committee.
- David Bitner was the chair of 2014 and originally on the core committee (and still is, explained below)
- Andrea Ross was the chair of 2015. As such she had a position on the core committee, which was abdicated to the Program Chair (that'd be me)
- Andrea Ross was also the conference chair of FOSS4G NA 2016 -  she put Sarah Cordivano in her place, who performed the role of conference chair and served on the core committee
- Prior to FOSS4G NA 2018 ending, the core comittee was comprised of David Bitner, Sarah Cordivano, Jim Hughes, Mark Lucas, and myself.
- Since then, Mark has passed his position to Jody.
- David would have been removed from the core committee, since he was the oldest conference chair on it. However, since Sarah has not been involved in the geo community any more, we asker her if she would be willing to swap her spot with David. She agreed.
- As part of getting more people on board to find a solution to running FOSS4G NA 2019, we've brought on the brand new OSGeo US local chapter onto the core committee. Thank you Guido for joining us.

This is how we've resulted in the core committee as Guido outlined it:
    - David Bitner (previous FOSS4G NA Chair, standin for Sarah as Conference Chair, 2016)
    - Rob Emanuele (previous FOSS4G NA Program Chair, stand in for Andrea 2015)
    - Marc Vloemans (previous FOSS4G NA Chair, 2018)
    - Jim Hughes (LocationTech Representative)
    - Jody Garnett (OSGeo Representative, replaces Mark Lucas)
    - Guido Stein (OSGeo US Local Chapter Representative, new representative)

Current plan:

With less than a year to go, the pressure is on. During the FOSS4GNA 2018 the committee was approached by a member of the community who wants to chair the 2019 Local Organizing Committee (LOC). Due to the short time frame to get this event off the ground we are going to explore this avenue - however we don't have a firm committment yet for that person chairing FOSS4G NA 2019. After the 2019 LOC gets going we will re-evaluate the selection process so that the community can have more input in the future.

Hope this helps clarify some things about how FOSS4G NA has been running, and how it will be run in 2019 and in the future.

Best,
Rob

On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 12:56 PM, Paul Ramsey <pramsey at cleverelephant.ca<mailto:pramsey at cleverelephant.ca>> wrote:
Thanks bitnerd, glad to know the ball is in someone’s hands :)
P

On May 31, 2018, at 1:55 PM, David William Bitner <bitner at dbspatial.com<mailto:bitner at dbspatial.com>> wrote:

Hey Paul,

Yes, you heard correctly that LocationTech/Eclipse have stepped back from acting as the professional conference organizer for the next FOSS4GNA in 2019.

The FOSS4GNA Core Committee which has been responsible for choosing the conference organizer for all events after 2013 is currently figuring out a plan for 2019. Our intent is to be as public as possible, but we are getting ourselves reorganized right now with this major change.

The makeup of the committee is the three most recent FOSS4G NA Chairs who are willing to serve (currently myself, Rob Emanuele, and Marc Vloemans), a representative from LocationTech (Jim Hughes), a representative of OSGeo (Jody Garnett), and a representative from OSGeo US (this is a rep we have just added - Guido Stein).

David

On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 12:31 PM Paul Ramsey <pramsey at cleverelephant.ca<mailto:pramsey at cleverelephant.ca>> wrote:
At the risk of bringing an avalanche down on my head, is there anyone
who can explain what the state of play is for FOSS4G-NA?

Are LocationTech/Eclipse "returning" (for lack of a better word) it to
the community to organize next year? I heard parts of phrases but
didn't really hear a full story. Just more practically: is there
anyone who is holding the ball for 2019?

P.
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