[OSGeo-Discuss] Board Geographic Diversity

[P Kishor]

Thanks everyone for weighing in (even though I am responding only to
Frank's email here). Any discussion is better than no discussion.

That said, I actually respectfully disagree with most all of you. I
believe pegging Board-membership to geography is a good thing, and it
does not naturally extrapolate to other pegs such as language, gender,
political leaning, or vegetarianism. I do agree that it is not simple
to solve -- country? region? biodiv realm? continent? Or, should a
prerequisite be that there be an OSGeo chapter in the country of
origin of the member? (Where would I fit in? India, because that is
where I am from? Or the US, because that is my home? I think residency
should be an important criteria -- I believe that no matter how close
the interests of India are to my heart, those who physically live
there have more at stake than I do.)

The bottom-line is, we have to figure out some way to diversify the
geography of representation in the Board. Having the entire Board
composed of folks from NA/Europe is not the best thing in the long
run.

I also believe that while one can contribute as much while being an
ordinary member as opposed to a charter or a Board member (I became a
charter member only a couple of months ago), Board membership could be
an important label to find local support. After all, if there were no
difference then why even have these different labels? When one is
going around drumming up support, having a position carries a heft. (I
was in a meeting with a senior scientist from the Indian National
Science Academy yesterday in New Delhi, and being able to represent
OSGeo as an office-bearer of the Foundation carried a great deal of
weight.)

Nevertheless, thanks for the discussion. Always good to hear different
points of view. If nothing, we all became aware of this issue.



Now I go back to my remaining mangoes of the season here in the still
hot Lucknow, India.


On 8/17/07, Frank Warmerdam <warmerdam at pobox.com> wrote:
> P Kishor wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I would love hear from others about what they think of geography-based
> > Board seats. Please weigh in.
>
> Puneet,
>
> I'm coming to this late.  It is my opinion that "hard coding" specific
> numbers of board seats from specific geographic locales is not a great idea
> for some of the reasons already mentioned.  However, I strongly encourage
> voters to treat geographic, gender, project and other forms of desirable
> diversity as a criteria when voting for charter members and board members.
>
> I think Tyler's point that being on the board is not necessary for meaningful
> involvement is important.  Also, I think it is clear from this thread that
> it is important that the board, regardless of composition, acts to support
> our goals for foss4g use all around the world.
>
> I've yet to return to some of the interesting email since I went away on
> the challenges in the developing world (though many of them - at a glance -
> seems similar to the challenges we face in the developed world).
>
> Best regards,
> --


-- 
Puneet Kishor http://punkish.eidesis.org/
Nelson Inst. for Env. Studies, UW-Madison http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/
Open Source Geospatial Foundation http://www.osgeo.org/education/
S&T Policy Fellow, National Academy of Sciences http://www.nas.edu/
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