[OSGeo-Discuss] domains

[P Kishor]

On 8/23/07, Frank Warmerdam <warmerdam at pobox.com> wrote:
> P Kishor wrote:
> > That, and
> > the fact that I don't particularly care for this foss4g business... I
> > am surprised no one has yet chimed in with floss4g
>
> Puneet,
>
> I assure you, all the possible disparaging remarks about the name FOSS4G
> have already been made.  I'm not fond of it myself, but it was selected after
> a somewhat acrimonious debate by a somewhat close vote of the conference
> committee.
>
> It seems the name was seen by some members as helping to emphasize the
> "free" concept they feel is otherwise a bit lost in OSGeo and that the
> FOSS4G name is somehow more international than calling the conference
> OSGeo'07.

Democracies make wrong decisions. Want to make it international? Put
the word "international" in the name. I can't imagine why FOSS4G is
more international than OSGeo. Both are goofy acronyms, but the latter
is necessary while the former is not. "OSGeo has an international
conference every year; it is called FOSS4G. WTF!"

Well, in democracies we live with wrong decisions until we feel too
strongly about them. For now, I don't... I just think it is goofy and
uninformative, and as is, requires registering for a new domain every
year just for the conference.

..
> Frankly, I was quite surprised at the selection of South Africa for the
> 2008 conference.

Oh well. Another year that I won't be able to attend the conference.

>
> Likewise, democratic decision making may hinder OSGeo's ability to
> select more charter members and directors from the developing world.
>

Now, that would be plain sad and wrong. Again, for now, I am
"ambivalent leaning to disagreeing" with the above, but OSGeo is still
young. When it really becomes a problem, I hope to use all the
legitimate processes available in a true democracy to try and
overturn/change such a decision-making.

Time to go to bed in the world's largest democracy.

-- 
Puneet Kishor http://punkish.eidesis.org/
Nelson Inst. for Env. Studies http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/
Open Source Geospatial Foundation http://www.osgeo.org/
2007 Summer S&T Policy Fellow, The National Academies http://www.nas.edu/
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