[OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo

Wed Sep 30 07:28:20 PDT 2009

Hi,

I read these interesting answers and I'd like to bring my point of view. I
know, I'm quite new in the OSGEO world (1 year, previously by Autodesk and
other "porprietary" structures), but I'm sorry (and unhappy) to say that the
GIS leaders (ESRI, Autdoesk, Intergraph etc...) don't see OSGEO has an
important contradictor: from my point of view, this is what needs to be
changed in the next 5 years.

I see several reasons that explain the current situation:
- The majority of OSGEO software are dependent of a few heroic developers or
a few heroic companies that have nothing in comparison with the GIS leaders.
With the same idea, the OSGEO is depending of a few persons that have
another job and do that "as extra" (how many incubation requests pending ?)
- There is almost no marketing (comparing to GIS leaders) done around the
OSGEO Software
- A large part of the GIS market is not addressed by OSGEO Software. I'm
particularly thinking to the industry that need to invest billions of
dollars (if you don't believe me, please ask Geoff ;-) and OSGEO has for now
no stacks that is able to answer these need.
- The OSGEO is very developer centric and probably need more input from
management, end user, marketing etc...

That's only my analysis of the situation. But I think that if the OSGEO
foundation wants to reach its gooal: "Created to support and build the
highest-quality open source geospatial software. Our goal is to encourage
the use and collaborative development of community-led projects.", it needs
to define a clear direction and make some consequent investments.

Sorry if theses comments are crude, only my 2 cents,

Cédric

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 8:25 PM, Frank Warmerdam <warmerdam at pobox.com>wrote:

> Arnulf Christl (OSGeo) wrote:
>
>> I want to add that for me it is also a goal to limit OSGeo's growth wrt
>> the number of paid staff and budget. We can make good use with 100k more
>> for hardware, services and to have more reserves for the conferences.
>> But I believe that we should not let the budget grow beyond ~half a
>> million - not even in five years. If there is money to make then it
>> should be made by businesses. They in turn are welcome to sponsor OSGeo.
>> By supporting FOSS business development OSGeo automagically supports
>> itself.
>>
>
> Arnulf,
>
> I also am not keen on a big budget organization, though I wouldn't
> want to put any specific limit on it.  Areas I *would* like to see
> grow budget wise is "project sponsorship" as a mechanism for user
> organizations to share in supporting project development.  Of course, that
> will depend to a large part on the success of projects in soliciting funds
> and putting them to effective use.
>
> One thing I am leery about, but that has been suggested by some, is OSGeo
> trying to provide professional services as a way of raising money.  I think
> this is best left to the FOSS business community.  I feel this way for
> two reasons.
>
>  (1) OSGeo does not really have the managerial strength to effectively
>     deliver customer oriented projects.
>
>  (2) I don't want to compete against our partners in the business
>     community who are already providing so much of the important "push"
>     for free geospatial software development and deployment.
>
> I would like to see growing sponsorship funds to help support educational,
> promotional and community oriented efforts by OSGeo.  Quite a bit of this
> can be effectively done at the local level by local chapters.
>
>  Local Chapters should grow by themselves, in most cases an small initial
>> stub created from "within" OSGeo "Global" is enough to get going. And as
>> Howard said - the life of OSGeo is within the local chapters.
>>
>
> I think local chapters are important, but I'm not sure I'd go as far as you
> on this.  I think global project, and osgeo special interest group mailing
> lists can also be where a good deal of the "life" of OSGeo is.
>
> My "next 5 years" list might look something like:
>
>  - A broad set of quality software projects under the OSGeo banner
>   that feel they are getting good value from OSGeo in terms of
>   promotion, branding and systems support.  Furthermore that the
>   developer and user communities feel they have a fair (equal
>   opportunity) environment to contribute and effect their projects.
>
>  - Educational support resources sufficient to be deployed directly
>   for post-secondary educational organizations wanting to roll out
>   a GIS/geospatial program based on free software *and* a significant
>   number of organizations who have done so and are publically involved
>   in supporting further improvements to the materials.
>
>  - Lots of local chapters pursuing a diversity of local initiatives
>   with lots of inter chapter, chapter-project, and chapter-osgeo
>   linkages.  Hopefully local chapters will be hot-beds of innovative
>   activities even when "OSGeo" is somewhat slow moving.
>
>  - OSGeo facilitated delivery of vetted, integrated software stacks
>   "ready to use" for user organizations, and considered "enterprise
>   ready".  Think of OSGeo4W, Debian GIS and the recent FOSS4G
>   LiveDVD as examples of forms this might take.
>
>  - A continued strong FOSS4G, acknowledged as the primary global
>   meeting of the tribes, though it might not be significantly
>   larger than it is now.
>
>  - Financial income coming from a wide diversity of sponsors, most
>   of which are end-user organizations.  Also some money coming
>   in the form of grants in support of specific activities (such
>   as work on educational products or standards participation).
>
>  - The organization has sustained income sufficient to support an ED,
>   project systems requirements, with enough money left over to
>   pursue a variety of initiatives.  I think sufficient funding would
>   be in the $250000 to $400000 area.
>
>  - OSGeo pursuing a variety of modest cost, non-permanent initiatives.
>   Things like holding special meetings with travel support for
>   "desktop integration" or "standards development and implementation
>   sprints".
>
> 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<http://pobox.com/%7Ewarmerdam>
> and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>

-- 
CTO Geospatial Camptocamp SA
Cédric Moullet
PSE A
CH-1015 Lausanne
www.camptocamp.com  / www.mapfish.org / twitter.com/cedricmoullet /
mapfishblog.blogspot.com/

+41 79 759 69 83 (mobile)
+41 21 619 10 21 (direct)
+41 21 619 10 10 (centrale)
+41 21 619 10 00 (fax)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090930/5120b157/attachment-0002.html>