[OSGeo-Conf] PRE Conference FOSS4G/ OSGEO LATAM 2019

María Arias de Reyna delawen at gmail.com
Mon Feb 25 23:37:43 PST 2019


Hi Juan Manuel,

Sorry to the conference dev mailing list for hijacking your space, but I
think it is useful to have this conversations in public too to understand
how communities work and how to improve reaching to events and making
events get to more people. If you are not interested in that subject, you
can mute this thread and ignore it.

I think I see the problem here.

You are working with many groups and organize events working with local
comunities but I see no proper linkage back to OSGeo. As the information is
not flowing, we have chunks of participants from your countries that are
not aware of your community and your community is not aware that they exist
so you can't invite them to join. And that's very sad.

As I see it: the part of the geospatial community that is active in OSGeo
is not aware of the things you are doing. And that may pose a couple of
problems:
 * The moment you become disconnected from OSGeo, you may not be aware of
what the community is doing and how you can benefit from us.
 * The moment OSGeo is not aware of your events and your initiatives, we
not only can't participate in your community but also is kind of weird of
using FOSS4G and OSGeo brands.

So a first step, please, join the Spanish or discuss mailing lists and try
to share there the news of all things you do, so people in our community
are aware and can participate on your community. There is also a "news"
channel in OSGeo you can use, which is used to announce events and
highlight things done on the community. Maybe the mailing lists is not your
thing, communities evolve. We found that the Spanish community is slowly
moving to a shared telegram group, but we still use at least the "news"
channel for announcements.

I feel that you are working at a very "institutional" level checking the
links you sent. Is that so? I have seen it happening in other countries:
there is a geospatial community doing things but somehow disconnected from
OSGeo because developers join OSGeo and participate, but users and
institutions think they don't belong in our channels. Could it be that part
of the problem? We have a similar problem in Spain, so part of us, active
in OSGeo, is trying to get involved on those geospatial orgs to get
information running. But the tricky part is this one: you have to actively
have information running or that doesn't work.

I still have to check the status of your local chapters (I suspect they are
proposals and not full chapters), as I don't seem to find the proper voting
on the board for the formation of those chapters, but that's minor and can
be just me not finding it. I mean, there are many geoinquietos
micro-chapters working "inside" OSGeo and being completely functional, but
that works fine because a bit part of those members are active in OSGeo so
the feedback of information is fluid in both directions. Having a
formalized chapter can help information flow on the top level (your board
with our board) which can be a patch, but doesn't solve the issue at hand.
And even if they are full chapters, something is wrong because I don't
remember seeing any update from them on any of the AGM of OSGeo in the last
¿seven? years... which could have been a good place to start with :)

So to summarize: we have to work on improving communication so your
activities can benefit from the flow of participants from OSGeo and we can
benefit from your activities :)

In fact, the first issue we have is already here: in April the OSGeo active
part will be meeting at the FOSS4G Argentina, while your community is going
to meet in another place on the same week. Something that would have never
happened if we were properly in contact. We have to find some other common
place and date to fix this :)

Cheers,
María.



On Tue, Feb 26, 2019 at 4:58 AM Juan Manuel Delgado Estrada <
juanmanueldelgado at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear MALENA, thank you for your communication and the opening to it from
> geoinquietos.
>
> We from geography and social sciences are part of the International
> Geographical Union with the Commission of Latin American Studies
>  https://igu-online.org/organization/commissions/
>
> With CLACSO with the Working Group: Latin American critical geographic
> thinking
>
> https://www.clacso.org.ar/grupos_trabajo/detalle_gt.php?ficha=642&s=5&idioma=
>
> In 2017 the LATAM event of Open Street Map - OSM was organized in Lima and
> we also activated in those spaces with Peruvian companions
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/State_of_the_Map_Latam_2017
>
> We are part of the UNIGIS Academic Network in Latin America that is a
> postgraduate educational platform in GIS,
> https://americalatina.unigis.net/
>
> For us it is important the meeting / conference / workshop in
> Quito-Ecuador as a small but effective event with agreements and
> commitments, because we are going to join many teachers, students, groups
> of geographers and social sciences that work free geospatial software in
> their projects of research and dissemination.
>
> I hope that the communication will be more fluid from now on with the
> GeoInquietos collective, I send a greeting and very soon we will send the
> publicity of the FOSS4G Peru 2019 so that it can be disseminated in the
> OSGEO networks as it was done in 2016.
>
> Best regards,
>
> *Prof. Juan Manuel Delgado*
> National University of San Marcos
> International Geographical Union
> Latin American Council of Social Sciences
>
> El lun., 25 feb. 2019 a las 8:24, Malena Libman (<malena.libman at gmail.com>)
> escribió:
>
>> Hi Juan Manuel,
>>
>> Mi name is Malena Libman and I'm from Geoinquietos/OSGEO Argentina.
>>
>> I'm really glad to see that there is so much activity in Latin America
>> and we are eager to join forces with you all to build a stronger network of
>> communities.
>>
>> I looked to see if we had any contact from you or any other from Perú,
>> but couldn't find anything. I'm sorry to hear you had trouble contacting
>> us, with whom did you speak? or to what channel of communication did you
>> try to contact us?
>>
>> These are the channels of communication we have open:
>> Telegram Group: https://t.me/geoinquietosar
>> Email list: argentina at lists.osgeo.org
>> Gmail account: geoinquietosarg at gmail.com
>> Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/GeoinquietosArgentina/
>> Twitter account: https://twitter.com/geoinquietosarg
>> email from the FOSS4G organization: info at foss4g-ar.org
>>
>> We would love to be able to contact the other communities you know, in
>> order to be able to have a more fluent communication and solve the problems
>> you mention. The Cambalache team participated in the pre activities for the
>> last FOSS4G, they been participating in our activities for year and know
>> who we are.
>>
>> I'm surprised because in this case we have activities in the same dates,
>> something I would like to avoid, as to not divide efforts, because there
>> aren't that many opportunities of free and open source software in the
>> region.
>>
>> From Argentina, we have been working on building an OSGEO community from
>> Geoinquiet at s, doing several events since 2012, we had participation from
>> other countries like Bolivia, Chile and Paraguay, but never a mention of
>> another existing community or the need to reach out. The organization of
>> the local FOSS4G in Argentina has been from Geoinquiet at s. Just a few
>> weeks ago we been able to formalize our effords into an Official OSGEO
>> local chapter, something that didn't existed before
>>
>> Is there a mailing list or a forum where you gather?
>>
>> Hoping we can stay in touch.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Malena
>>
>>
>>
>> El dom., 24 feb. 2019 a las 19:09, Juan Manuel Delgado Estrada (<
>> juanmanueldelgado at gmail.com>) escribió:
>>
>>> Dear Maria,
>>> Thank you very much for answering my communication.
>>> Since 2013, we created the chapter OSGEO Peru and we had direct
>>> communication with Jeff McKenna who was president of OSGEO years ago. In
>>> 2014 we formalized the chapter OSGEO Peru with the conference, meeting of
>>> users and programmers to invite them to be part of the local chapter,
>>> unfortunately we could not find the economic funds for the invitation to
>>> the or any member of the OSGEO board of directors activities such as OSGEO
>>> o FOSS4G, this year we expect to have these funds.
>>>
>>> Years ago the OSGEO Bolivia Chapter was created by Bolivian friends with
>>> the support of Arnulf Christl and we have permanent contact with them and
>>> we organize events in Bolivia and Peru, with respect to Chile and Argentina
>>> we have tried various communications for their experience of organizing
>>> FOSS4G and it has been As you say you have not answered to date, which we
>>> also regret.
>>>
>>> In 2016 we presented the candidacy of Lima to organize the FOSS4G but we
>>> did not reach the goal but it was very rich to learn about the candidacies
>>> and objectives of the international events FOSS4G
>>>
>>> In 2016 I suffered an accident and I am recently leaving therapy, we got
>>> economic funds and sent the Bolivian teacher Javier Nuñez to the FOSS4G in
>>> Bonn and met with some OSGEO managers, unfortunately the registration fees
>>> for the FOSS4G events were beyond the possibility to send another
>>> representative.
>>>
>>> In 2017 I traveled to Boston and met with Guido Stein who was part of
>>> the local organizers FOSS4G - LOC and who supported us in answering many of
>>> our questions on how to organize a FOSS4G event.
>>>
>>> We have always informed Jeff McKenna of our interest and ideas for Peru
>>> and Latin America, and since 2015 we have always had the support and
>>> collaboration of Ragi Burhum who is part of the OSGEO Board of Directors,
>>> we regret not participating in the list that you tell us exists in the
>>> Spanish language, but we have not received an invitation communication
>>> despite being visible in the wiki, also years ago we had a website like
>>> osgeoperu.org but was attacked by malware and spyware.
>>>
>>> Our proposed activity for April 2019 is within the XVIII EGAL 2019 QUITO
>>> https://egal19.puce.edu.ec/, Latin American congress of geographers, we
>>> are going to meet users, programmers and leaders of free software projects
>>> in their majority QGis from different countries of Latin America. The
>>> activity is more informative, more than creating networks, commercial and
>>> academic contacts. Although there is already a lot of expectation because
>>> it is the first time we try to do an OSGEO activity within the Latin
>>> American event.
>>>
>>> I am not new creating national or Latin American networks and events
>>> because at this moment I am the coordinator of the Working Group on
>>> Critical Geographical Thinking of the Latin American Council of Social
>>> Sciences - CLACSO and chairman of the Commission of Latin American Studies
>>> of the International Geographical Union - IGU, to whom I sumo to OSGEO as
>>> allies in all the activities I do as you can see in the attached posters.
>>>
>>> In the last years I have been traveling through Latin America between
>>> Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Chile and Argentina where I have had
>>> contact with local users of OSGEO software and I have done advocacy and
>>> training so that they can be socially grouped in a local chapter, I think
>>> Soon there will be results. In the case of Argentina, I am very surprised
>>> that it is a FORMAL CHAPTER because since 2014 we have tried to communicate
>>> with them and the communication has been bad, I think that from
>>> GeoInquietos communication is more dynamic, such is the case in November
>>> 2018 At the University of Buenos Aires we held a QGis social and
>>> participatory mapping event with the friends of the CAMBALACHE and CLACSO
>>> cooperative, we invited the organizers of the FOSS4G Argentina in various
>>> ways and the objective could not be achieved, days later we learned that it
>>> already existed a local chapter Argentina and recently created in wikipedia
>>> because it was not visible in any case on the web, we hope that the
>>> community grows and can work together.
>>>
>>> As a university professor in Peru we have created an electronic magazine
>>> and we are going to propose a dossier for 2020 on geotechnologies and
>>> geospatial free software, in Latin America
>>> http://revistasinvestigacion.unmsm.edu.pe/index.php/espiral/index
>>>
>>> We hope to create a LATAM event or failing to apply to organize an
>>> international FOSS4G event and thus show the industry, the innovative
>>> ecosystem and the utility of free geospatial software for the good living
>>> of our peoples.
>>>
>>> I hope not to disturb you, thanking you for your communication and I am
>>> at your disposal for any comment about it.
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>>
>>> *Prof. Juan Manuel Delgado*
>>> National University of San Marcos
>>> International Geographical Union
>>> Latin American Council of Social Sciences
>>>
>>>
>>> El dom., 24 feb. 2019 a las 8:57, María Arias de Reyna (<
>>> delawen at gmail.com>) escribió:
>>>
>>>> Dear Juan Manuel,
>>>>
>>>> I am a bit confused, maybe you can help me. The working meeting event
>>>> you are referring is this one, right? http://foss4g-ar.org/
>>>>
>>>> About the OSGeo Perú I see you have an OSGeo Perú Facebook account and
>>>> an intention to create a chapter in 2014, but that was never formalized,
>>>> right? Do you intent to pursue this further and become an official chapter
>>>> as Argentina just did?
>>>>
>>>> About the FOSS4G Perú, I have been trying to get some information as I
>>>> wasn't aware of it besides the intention to get into the global FOSS4G and
>>>> a conference back in 2014. I can only find things in facebook, is that
>>>> right? Am I missing some other channel of communication here?
>>>>
>>>> Having more regional conferences is good and I totally encourage you to
>>>> continue, but I am a bit worried that this has happened all outside the
>>>> OSGeo channels of communication, with not even a note on the Spanish
>>>> mailing list (which is the one you are officially covered by at this
>>>> moment). Specially worried if it is true that everything is only on
>>>> Facebook, which is not a very public and easy to access forum. Do you think
>>>> we can improve this and get a better communication from now on with the
>>>> rest of OSGeo?
>>>>
>>>> I am worried about LatAm being too disconnected from the general OSGeo
>>>> and have been working on the past years to try to reach out, but even then
>>>> I wasn't aware we had this working chapter in Perú going on. Please, can
>>>> you share more info on what you have been doing and what are your plans for
>>>> the future?
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> María
>>>> OSGeo President.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Feb 23, 2019 at 4:12 AM Juan Manuel Delgado Estrada <
>>>> juanmanueldelgado at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Dear Sirs of the FOSS4G Conference Committee, As part of the
>>>>> dissemination of the OSGEO community in Latin America we have contacted the
>>>>> OSGEO Bolivia communities and OSGEO users in Ecuador, where collectives
>>>>> from Puerto Rico, Mexico and Colombia will participate and it has been
>>>>> proposed to carry out a user activity and local OSGEO chapters of Latin
>>>>> America, to align activities of each country and to explore a Latin
>>>>> American one.
>>>>>
>>>>> In April 2019 the most important event of geographers of Latin America
>>>>> is held and within that event as OSGEO community and local chapters we have
>>>>> proposed a conference and work meeting.
>>>>>
>>>>> The proposal is open and complying with the OSGEO and FOSS4G protocols.
>>>>>
>>>>> Kind regards,
>>>>>
>>>>> *JUAN MANUEL DELGADO*
>>>>> *OSGEO - Perú*
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Conference_dev mailing list
>>>>> Conference_dev at lists.osgeo.org
>>>>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Conference_dev mailing list
>>> Conference_dev at lists.osgeo.org
>>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev
>>
>>
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