[OSGeo-Discuss] Many Question about the OSGeo

Thu Feb 22 05:13:02 PST 2007

Frank,

Thanks for taking the time to answer the questions. It is awesome how
much OSGeo has done and in how little time!

Rich

On 2/21/07, Frank Warmerdam <warmerdam at pobox.com> wrote:
> Richard Greenwood wrote:
> > I thought these were some pretty good questions, but I never saw a
> > repy. Did I miss it?
>
> Rich,
>
> I think Tyler answered directly to Kai, with references to the FAQ
> and so forth.  For kicks, I'll try and answer the questions I can.
>
> On 2/9/07, Kai Behncke <kbehncke at igf.uni-osnabrueck.de> wrote:
>  > Hello list,
>  >
>  > for an article in a German Newspaper I have a couple of questions about the
>  > OSGeo. The aim of that article is to give informations to a broader public and
>  > to promote the OSGeo in a professional journal.Maybe you can help me?
>  >
>  > I need to produce an organigram, so:
>  >
>  > 1. Is it correct, that the "Board of Directors" is elected by the 45 "charter
>  > members"?
>
> Yes
>
>  > 2. Who is electing the 45 "charter members"? How do people get the status
>  > as a "charter member"?
>
> The initial 25 or so were based on who was at the formation meeting in
> Chicago.  The next 20 were selected by the initial members.  Likewise
> future charter members will be selected by the existing charter members.
>
>  > 3.There are 9 committees.Everyone has a "chair-person". Who is electing that
>  > "chair-person"?
>
> The Committee chairs are appointed by the board of directors, though
> generally speaking they are appointed at the recommendation of the
> committee.  The chair's are generally considered to be "officers" of
> the foundation, so the board reserves the right to approve committee
> chairs.
>
>  > 4. What is the job of the Executive Director?
>
> I think the most official description can be found at:
>
>    http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Executive_Director_Job_Description
>
> Generally speaking they act as a facilitator for the various activities
> of the foundation, and help make sure stuff that needs to get done, gets
> done when there is no volunteer available to do it.
>
>  > I would write down some examples about what the OSGeo has done practically.
>  > On the homepage it`s written:
>  >
>  > "The foundation provides financial, organizational and legal support to the
>  > broader open source geospatial community."
>
> A good summary of accomplishments so far can be found in Tyler's
> blog post, which I have discovered is not too evident on the web site:
>
>    http://www.osgeo.org/tyler/osgeo_1st_anniversary
>
>  > 5.Does that mean, that the OSGeo spends money ,for example, to develop the
>  > code  of special OS-Software?
>
> This is possible, but generally speaking OSGeo doesn't spend foundation
> funds on direct development.  It does provide a mechanism - "Project
> Sponsorship" - where by projects can collect and disperse sponsorship
> funds for specific tasks on a given project.  This could be software
> development or other activities.
>
>  > 6.Which projects where sponsored concretely?
>
> Currently on the GDAL project is participating in the Project Sponsorship
> mechanism.  We have collected sufficient funds to contract Mateusz
> Loskot for six months (600 hours anyways) of general maintenance activities
> on the GDAL project, which should start March 1st.
>
> Note that we also have the concept of Foundation Sponsorship.  These funds
> are used for purposes such as legal support, promotion (booths at trade
> shows for instance), infrastructure (ie. internet hosting) and Tyler's
> salary.
>
>  > 7.Is there somewhere an overview how much money the OSGeo spends for what?
>  > Just to have an impression of the dimensions.
>
> We have a budget, but this is highly contingent on what funds are actually
> raised:
>
>    http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Budget_2006-2007
>
> Practically speaking, the pdf attached to the following email summarizes
> actual funds spent so far, not counting a variety of expenses that were
> paid directly by Autodesk as an in-kind contribution.
>
>    http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2007-February/001827.html
>
> Note that this is a preliminary financial report and has not yet been
> approved by the Treasurer.
>
>  > 8.Can you give me some practical examples what the OSGeo has concretely done?
>  > So that we can write down some "hard facts".
>  > Can you give me an example for the legal support?
>
> Legal support so far has taken the form of general and specific legal
> advice on various project "intellectual property" issues.  These include
> the drafting, and revision of contribution agreements, and copyright
> assignment documents.  We have also received a variety of legal advice
> related to setting up the foundation (bylaws, etc).
>
>  > 9. Do you have a statistic how many hits the site https://www.osgeo.org/
>  > has per day, or maybe a statistic how many users are registered in
>  > the various mailing lists of the OSGeo?
>
> There are a few statistics at:
>
>    http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/VisibilityStats
>
> We are currently working on better web site statistics handling.
>
> Best regards,
> --
> ---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
> I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
> light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
> and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org
>
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>

-- 
Richard Greenwood
richard.greenwood at gmail.com
www.greenwoodmap.com