[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission

[Tyler Mitchell]

On 28-Mar-07, at 10:36 PM, Jeroen Ticheler wrote:

> Thank you for your information. I have to say I find that pretty  
> frustrating and annoying knowing that GeoNetwork opensource is one  
> of the incubator projects of OSGEO, the number of OSGEO projects is  
> (still) limited and FOSS4G is the OSGEO conference.
>
> Participating with the project in OSGEO has multiple reasons, one  
> of them being that it provides opportunities to work on synergies  
> and work on marketing the OSGEO software stack. Now how does the  
> intent of OSGEOs mission fit with refusing a (single) workshop on  
> one of its projects. Maybe I miss something, but I'd assumed there  
> was at least some kind of a relation!?

There are some other nuances to the argument that have been somewhat  
buried.  During the past debate about what to name the conference  
(FOSS4G vs OSGeo Conference), there was very strong interest in  
keeping the conference much broader than only OSGeo projects - hence  
the re-use of the FOSS4G name, to show it was not just OSGeo.  Had  
the committee chosen to give OSGeo projects a priority, then many of  
the folks from the historic FOSS4G (and other) conferences would have  
felt usurped.  Now if it was not called FOSS4G perhaps that  
constraint would be less of a concern.

Also, if a majority of workshops ended up being for OSGeo projects,  
then this would really only be an "outward facing" event - marketing  
outside of our known group of users/members.  By having other  
projects represented in workshops, it provides our community  
opportunities to learn about other projects outside the normal fold.

That said, with my marketing hat on, I'd love to see all OSGeo  
projects get a priority in workshop submissions.  How would this look  
from year to year?  Does it just become same old projects doing same  
old presentations year after year?  Or would we only give newly  
joined projects from the last year the opportunity to showcase in a  
workshop?  Better yet, how about projects that have recently  
graduated from incubation!  Then there is some more incentive to get  
through it.  Now I think we're on to something....

Tyler