[OSGeo-Discuss] What is North America?

[Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas]

El 11/11/11 11:29, Seven (aka Arnulf) escribió:
> Now that a North American Regional Chapter is emerging I wanted to
> understand what the term "North America" actually means. Just a few
> example:
> 
> In my cultural context (Germany) the Unites States on their own are
> typically called "Amerika" which in reality is a whole continent. To
> many Germans Kanada (yes, with a "K") is just a US wilderness adventure
> park (Canadians: no offence meant). In many South American countries US
> citizens are nowadays called "Gringo" which originally meant "Green Go"
> and relates to US "interventions" in Middle and Southern America.
> 
> So for many non-North-Americans the term might be really, really fuzzy
> which is why I thought it would be a good idea to define it more
> closely, started here:
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Talk:North_America_Regional
> 
> Looking at the typical roles of a local chapter (or in this case a "meta
> local chapter" or "regional chapter") I would suggest that this chapter
> would be the primary point of contact for the organization of a FOSS4G
> event in English language in either the US or Canada. Extending it
> beyond these two countries would probably raise a whole lot of
> additional issues starting with language (Spanish) and ending with
> politics (Cuba) - which will probably complicate things beyond
> recognition. I can also see other meta chapters forming with a more
> Spanish speaking background in the Middle Americas, so there is no
> exclusivity here at all. The Spanish speaking Local Chapter might also
> be a good template to see how this could look.
> 

Yes I'm willing to see OSGeo-es becoming more a kind of regional chapter
as people from different countries want to start doing things.

Spain could have had their own LC some time ago but we haven't pushed
that as far as other countries communities are not strong enough so we
prefer staying "lingual" rather than "geographical" to no dilute efforts
so far.

That also has the difficulty of not being able to start a legal
organisation as far as that would mean "settling" somewhere and most
important, overcomplicating everything when we are right now not so many
people. Right now we are in fact an small group of (sometimes tired)
volunteers, simple is better.

Cheers
-- 
Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas
http://es.osgeo.org
http://jorgesanz.net