[OSGeo-Discuss] project not found in list

[Jeff McKenna]

Hi Adrian, comments below:

On 2013-05-19 11:50 PM, Adrian Custer wrote:
> 
> 
> Yes, OSGeo has been primarily focused on its own projects and
> historically has been weak at recognizing and promoting other efforts.
> 
> Now that spatial has become ubiquitous it is more obvious that there is
> great work going on in lots of different places. The R statistical
> library, for example, has done a huge amount of work on spatial analysis
> over the past decade but does not get mentioned much. More recently, the
> Eclipse foundation has started a major push as well and there are many
> new projects online.
> 
> OSGeo is one player among many others and is slowly being forced to
> recognize that. OSGeo might eventually change from seeing its role as
> promoting itself and its projects to taking on an expanded role of
> promoting all the geospatial software that provides its users with
> various freedoms. Unfortunately, the organization has been structured
> around insiders and outsiders in its membership and its projects so that
> split has become a deep part of its psyche---it will be hard for OSGeo
> to complete such a change though many are willing.
> 
> 

I must say, having spoken to you face-to-face about this at FOSS4G-BA
helps me understand your points.  You make very good points.  However it
is clear that OSGeo has become *the* voice for Open Source geospatial;
look at how OSGeo was/is involved in the recent OGC standards discussion
(even you came into the discussions with OSGeo, when you could have done
this through any other group), and also take a look at the proposals for
the 2014 FOSS4G event, OSGeo's flagship event (there are proposal teams
from the groups you mentioned above).

What does this tell us?  It tells us that yes there are many groups out
there in the geospatial world, but, through the hard work of the OSGeo
community since 2006, OSGeo has become the leader in Open Source
geospatial today, and the other groups realize this.

I personally will take what you mentioned in this email (which you told
me to my face at FOSS4G-BA) and adapt my message to promote other groups
as well, but, it is clear to me that we/OSGeo does have a strong voice
in the geospatial world.

-jeff