[OSGeo-Board] Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo: Taking stock of OSGeo after six months

[Arnulf Christl]

Jody Garnett wrote:
> Gary Lang wrote:
>>
>> As a board member, I’d like to throw out a question to our audience, 
>> as we reach the six-month mark.
>>
>> I’d be very interested to hear the general public’s description of the 
>> following, from their perspective:
>>
>> What’s not working about OSGeo?
>>
> - incubation process is a bottle neck
> - developer and user community benefit (so far has been work for no 
> visible gain, I have hopes FOSS4G will change this, and OSGEO is a long 
> term play for us so I am not surprised)

Hi,
the Mapbender project has profited by having a new requirement resulting 
from Incubation (learn to use a bug/project tracker). Enhanced 
visibility, though that obviously is hard to quantify. MB uses the SVN, 
mailing lists and web space provided by OSGeo. (Sure, we're gonna be 
movin on soon but its a benefit to have services provided). German 
speaking users (as well as other languages) start to gather around Local 
OSGeo Chapters - to what avail will have to work out. But they are 
gathering.

Community starts to profit (at least that is what a tiny percentage of 
my business customers say) by having one address to go to when looking 
for something. We need to make sure people find what they are looking 
for which seems to be a rather complex task.

> - feedback on several issues (documentation license, site look and feel 
> etc...)
> - viscomm: coordination on promotional materials (only found geotools 
> handout by accident - and name is GeoTools not Geotools, and project 
> logo not present )

I believe that VisCom's job can only be requesting for deliverables from 
The Projects (software and others). VisCom ca provide for a common 
layout. ((admittedly we just stumbled on that one because it comes as 
PDF and Skribus only)). So we copied what we had from A to B and then 
pasted it to C, etc. We use A4 and not US letter, blabla. Why should 
only Geo people have a format problem. Could be enhanced -> VisCom Todo:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Tenth_VisCom_Meeting#New_Business

WebCom went one step further and provided an intro page to each object 
(thanks Jason). He just posted it around on IncCom. Please read, correct 
and send back.
https://incubator.osgeo.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=incubator&msgNo=398

> - procedures, could not quickly find out how to announce a recent 
> release (I am sure it is my fault but still)

We (Mapbender) post it to the announce list of the CN project 
environment - but I dunno where that ends up... There is the news-list 
and we have news editors (FrankW and zool) and proceedings are in the Wiki.
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/News_Queue

Any suggestions where to better place this? Category: internal 
information dissemination. Currently we have this:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/On_The_News_Queue
But it is only linked from the above page. If you are quick add the 
suggestion to the VisCom meeting agenda.

> - committee communication with projects (ie community is not in the 
> habit of checking out the flurry of email lists and committees have not 
> contacted project representatives as needed)

Which committee needs to contact which projects? Suggestions? It seems 
like people end up writing to IncCom when they need something from the 
projects. Maybe this is good habit we should just keep? Do you see the 
need for a communicator, linker, glue? Would Ed help?
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Executive_Director

Best regards,

>> What is working about OSGeo?
>>
> - Incubation process is a bottle neck (yes this is on both lists)
> - Incubation forcing a us to address many issues that have always waited 
> for a driver
> - publicity at conferences
> - wiki (as collaborative tool)
> - IRC channel (meet and greet)
>>
>> Thanks ahead of time for your comments.
>> Gary
>>
> Thanks for all you hard work Gary, and the board it has been an 
> interesting ride, and I hope participation picks up in the months ahead.
> Cheers,
> Jody
> 
> 
> 
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