[OSGeo-Discuss] Board member position statement for mpg [resent]

Krishan Sharma gisext at gmail.com
Tue Mar 14 05:25:44 PST 2006


Dear Mr. Michael P. Gerlek,

Very immpresive defination, and true majorty of professionals feel this is
ome kind of associations where we won't matter. I'm sure with such clear
expalnations as done by you many of us can take interest.


On 3/14/06, Michael P. Gerlek <mpg at lizardtech.com> wrote:
>
> [I'd like to thank Chris Holmes and Gary Lang for nominating me, and
> also the others who suggested I go ahead and pursue this avenue.  I am
> submitting the following short note describing why I am interested in
> being on the OSGeo board.  This may seem like shameless and unseemly
> self-promotion, and in fact I suppose in some sense it is...  Therefore,
> I am going to restrict myself to 500 words, and will refrain from any
> follow-ups to this list until after the election closes; I encourage the
> other nominees to submit their own position statements to the list as
> well.]
>
>
> I attended the Chicago meeting in large part because my company relies
> heavily on some open source packages and we wanted to see what we could
> do to help foster and support their growth.  Also, we wanted to see if
> the organization that came out of it would be a group we could work
> with, should we decide to open up some code of our own.  In the
> subsequent weeks, the answers to these questions has been decidedly
> positive, and my company and I are fully behind what is now "OSGeo".
>
> We have now doubled our membership size, and we have an excellent pool
> of candidates to fill out the remaining board seats.  However, I'm
> worried about the diversity of interests represented by the foundation.
> Specifically, while we have great representation from various long-time
> OS project leaders and advocates, I worry about generating enough
> interest and support from the corporate side of the geo industry (Gary
> and AutoDesk being the notable exceptions).  Even more specifically, I'm
> worried about our ability to reach out to the significant part of the
> corporate community out there for whom open source just means "Linux" --
> or, worse, the part that immediately (and unfairly) dismisses as open
> source discussions as over-zealous advocacy, anti-IP/patent models, and
> GPL poison.
>
> My "agenda", then, is to make sure we reach out to that part of the geo
> community that is today just trying to build good products and make some
> money -- to get them to understand the business proposition of the reuse
> and quality value in existing open source geo packages.  To teach them
> that they can use open source internally and within their products,
> without necessarily having to give up their IP or open up their entire
> product line.  To teach them about the value of submitting patches back,
> and to consider donating some money or manpower to these projects.
> Later still, perhaps, to consider opening up some of their own lesser
> projects, and to go on the record about their use and support of open
> source software.
>
> This education can be done in a variety of ways: obviously talks at
> conferences and articles in trade magazines are one way.  Informal and
> indirect means are often more effective: one-to-one conversations with
> people at various levels of corporations can get more attention than a
> slide set.  To do this, we would need to prepare materials like talking
> points, informal case studies, short white papers, and so on, for OSGeo
> members to use.
>
> Having helped move my company from a wholly proprietary model to one
> that strategically relies on open source and open standards, I know
> first-hand some of the arguments against open source, and I also can
> speak first-hand to the fact that open source is not incompatible with
> the traditional, closed world.  And so in turn, I'd like help OSGeo help
> other companies join OSGeo's efforts.
>
> Thanks.
>
> -mpg
>
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--
Hello !!!
Dear sir,



Thanks & regards,
*********************
With best wishes,
Krishan Sharma, Ph.D. (USA)
www.gisextechnologies.com
Mobile: 987-029-4791

" My Excellence You Can Map"
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