[OSGeo-Discuss] Next steps for OSGeo

[Mark Lucas]

Tyler, thanks for the nomination.  I've enjoyed working with you and watching you grow our organization.

Lets start with what is working well.  In a very short period of time, an idea in Tyler's mind became a small meeting in Chicago where OSGeo was formed.  Gary Lang and Autodesk provided the financial backing to make us a real organization- leading to infrastructure for hosting projects, conferences, and notoriety.  The number of volunteers, committees, and projects that formed around us has allowed us to cast a large shadow and spread around the world in a very short period of time.  Countless hours by Tyler, Frank, Arnulf, Jo, Chris, Hobu, Dave, Daniel, Geoff, Paul, Markus, Jody, Chris, Ned, Ravi, Tim, and many others have made us successful.

I support the following efforts which are currently well led by others:

• More international participation, our technologies are ideal for areas with limited resources, 
we also have demonstrated rapid response to natural disasters around the world.
• Focus on how members without programming skills can contribute - education, documentation, marketing, coordinating and helping to integrating OSGeo projects into larger solutions.
• Live Disk efforts, more marketing
• Course materials for academia
• Enhancing and evolving the OSGeo project infrastructure

Where could I add the most value?

My desire would be to keep the culture and environment thriving while focusing on bringing in more revenue so that we can do more.  Our conferences are enabled by a number of corporate sponsors.  Many of us are making our livings working on open source technologies.  I'd like to expand those opportunities and bring in more financial resources to the organization.

In particular, downsizing of government budgets creates significant opportunities for open source geospatial solutions and support.  The OSGeo is in a position to help those organizations and agencies connect with open source resources and follow best practices.  

• Outreach to government agencies 
• Outreach to related organizations: OGC,  MIL-OSS, OSFA, OSSI, Disaster relief, humanitarian projects.
• Acting as a bridge between government agencies and OSS based companies and consultants
• Encouraging open geospatial collaboration between international governments
• Focusing on additional sponsors and revenue streams so we can do more
• I believe we should also assist proprietary companies to make the transition to open technologies and business models

Many years ago, in Chicago, we declared we wanted to move open source geospatial projects to the next level.  We have already accomplished that, but there is much more that we can do.




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