[OSGeo-Discuss] Should we write a FOSS4G Cookbook?

[Stephen Woodbridge]

Hello,

I think the 'cookbook' is a great idea! It is about capturing our 
collective knowledge and experience, it not about limiting creativity or 
change. Just like in software when you have an individual contributor 
that has passion, vision and drive can create wonderful things, you also 
have to help the other contributors that are not so visionary to do a 
good job. The 'cookbook' gives us a recipe for success, it is the basic 
stuff that you need to know to get the job done successfully. To 
continue with the analogy a visionary chef looks at the recipe and 
changes it to suit his creative talents.

So it all depends on whether we "require" people to only follow the 
recipe or we use it as a guideline for people that are volunteering to 
help but may not have had past experience to get things done correctly.

The cookbook is a great idea in my opinion.

-Steve W

On 9/6/2012 10:14 AM, Jeff McKenna wrote:
> Hello Cameron,
>
> Making sure that a transfer of knowledge happens from one FOSS4G local
> committee to the next is something that I've championed for a very long
> time now - it is a thankless invisible task that not many are aware is
> happening (archiving documents, pinging committee members over and over
> to openly archive documents and logos and files, making sure such
> critical parts of FOSS4G are kept - ribbon in logo, t-shirts for
> attendees, hands-on workshops - to the point that local committees kind
> of become annoyed with me).
>
> My vision of FOSS4G (credit here to original "FOSS4G Heroes" such as
> Venka and Markus of course) has always been very simple: to spread the
> Open Source Geospatial passion all around the world.  It has not been
> about money or politics.  The result has been FOSS4G local committees
> are free to take this passion and mold it into their own vision.  Events
> such as FOSS4G Cape Town in 2008 are proof of this.
>
> I worry that such a 'cookbook' will hinder this open passion and vision
> for a local committee.
>
> The first drafts of such a cookbook came many years ago from Paul
> Ramsey, from his 2007 experiences.  Since then I've heard rumblings from
> Arnulf, Cameron and others.
>
> I guess it is time for such guidelines.  For sure we need a conference
> Content Management System internal to OSGeo that is required for all
> FOSS4G local committees to use (not external systems such as Basecamp);
> this is critical.
>
>
> -jeff
>
>
>
>
>
> On 12-09-05 7:34 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
>> In analysing the downfall of FOSS4G 2012 [1] one of the key lessons that
>> became apparent to me is that we are not very efficient at passing on
>> Lessons Learned from one conference to the next.
>>
>> Could we do a better job of knowledge transfer by building an OSGeo
>> Conference Body of Knowledge? Something like a FOSS4G Cookbook [2]?
>>
>> If so, what should be the scope of the cookbook? Should it only be for
>> the international FOSS4G event? Should it cover regional conferences
>> too? Should it also cover FOSS4G steams in other conferences?
>>
>> Who thinks this idea is important enough that you would like to help
>> write sections of the Cookbook, or help with editing?
>>
>> What format should we use to write the Cookbook? Maybe a wiki?
>>
>> I'm interested to help push this idea forward if we as a community think
>> that there will be value in such a collaboratively edited document.
>>
>> If you have an interest, please respond on the OSGeo conference_dev
>> email list (rather than OSGeo Discuss)
>>
>> [1]
>> http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/analysing-downfall-of-foss4g-2012.html
>>
>> [2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_Cookbook
>> [3] http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev
>>
>
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