[OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo community Maxed out?

[Venkatesh Raghavan]

I think we should prioritize on 5 target
setting a deadline as Feb, 2007 (first
anniversary of OSGeo) to achieve those
targets. My personal priority would be

1) Bring out an illustrative book on
    OSGeo Software reporting examples
    how OSGeo is being used in various
    projects. Focus on OSGeo use in
    local governments would be good.
    Examples from Americas, Europe,
    Asia, South America, Africa etc. would be
    great

2) Bring out one public geo-data set.
    Vmap0 could be a good initial set
    if ESRI copyright issues could be
    sorted out for some of the Vmap0 layers.

3) OSGeo Stack effort. Bring out the
    first OSGeo Software CD by consolidating
    efforts http://telascience.sdsc.edu/tela_data/foss4g/

4) Bring out a short OSGeo newsletter that
    can be translated to various language.
    And  widely circulate it by identifying
    various "Media Partners". Ask local Chapter
    Representative to give short descriptions
    of their activities.

5) Pursue the 501(c)3 status for OSGeo

After prioritize identify people who will
commit their time and energy and bring out
something by the Feb 2007 deadline.

Best Regards

Venka


Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> Cameron Shorter wrote:
>> I've noticed that OSGeo as a community seems to be Maxed out. When an 
>> good idea is thrown out into the ether, people comment on it, but are 
>> not following through with committment to the task.
>  >
>> This was not the case 6 months to a year ago when people were jumping 
>> in left, right and center to help out.
>>
>> I believe this is because the OSGeo community is now working at full 
>> capacity of its current membership.
> 
> Cameron,
> 
> I agree to a large extent, though I think that ever since the
> beginning we have talked about a lot more than we were capable
> of actually acting on.  Nevertheless, I can see a saturation or
> even over saturation being reached for many core folks, myself
> included.
> 
>> Solutions:
>> 1. Work more efficiently.
>> 2. Stop coming up with good ideas.
>> 3. Start recruiting around the edges of the OSGeo Community.
>> Eg: For packaging the OSGeo Stack, we could draw upon the linux 
>> packaging communities.
> 
> Working more efficiently is fine where it applies.
> 
> I don't think there is a need to stop coming up with good ideas.
> But I will say that it is to be expected that we come up with more
> good ideas than we can execute on, at least in the short term.
> Sometimes ideas are floated, there is some interest, but no one takes
> ownership so it sort of fades away.
> 
> This is the way of things in the open source world, and the world at
> large.  Hopefully if something is sufficiently important/interesting
> there will be someone willing to take on responsibility and it can
> proceed.  Otherwise it sits on the shelf as an interesting idea, and
> might be picked up at some point in the future.
> 
>> We are all Open Source community builders. No one should be more 
>> qualified than us at extending our community.
> 
> That sounds reasonable. I do think we need to find ways for more
> people to get involved.  In many cases there are people who are
> interested in helping, but don't know how to help.  In other cases,
> we haven't really reached out to the right people.  I think we need
> to improve on both fronts, and that we will do so over time.
> 
> I certainly agree that with the current set of core community contributors
> we are reaching a level of saturation.  The solution is new blood, and
> helping existing folks who feel left out get involved.
> 
> We will also just have to be realistic about how much we can actually
> accomplish.  Some worthwhile things will be left undone, and generally
> thats ok as long as we don't leave really key items undone.
> 
> By the way, the OSGeo Stack effort is definately an example of an important
> effort that is currently essentially inactive for lack of someone to
> really take ownership.  In other circumstances, I'd be interested in
> taking it on, but I'm feeling stretched very thin already.
> 
> I'd also say we don't seem to have quite reached a consensus on what
> we are trying to achieve.  For instance there is still a lot of debate
> about targetting specific linux distribution packaging systems, while I
> (for one) think that is a mistake, and we need to take a distribution
> agnostic approach even though I am very supportive of efforts by folks
> like the Debian GIS team.
> 
> Best regards,