[OSGeo-Discuss] Board meeting 2014-07-17: minutes

Fri Jul 18 09:02:39 PDT 2014

Thank you Anne,

to give us the possibility to speak up on these important topics.

I was on the FOSS4GE[6] conference this week and had the opportunity to
talk to several other members of the organisation.
I also attended (remotely) the BOF OSGeo business meeting yesterday
and I did some reading (f.i. the blog of Steve Feldmann [1])

So here are my 2c on the different topics:

about the trivial aspects:
---------------------------------
First some easy things (where everybody is agreeing)
- the conclusion of the BOF OSGeo business meeting is the creation of an
industry list[2] and everybody interested in the topic is welcome to
register on this list. I forwarded this mail also to that list as to
kickstart the discussion.

about grant early bird price to FOSS4G for Charter members[4]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I agree. It is important for an organisation that people have the chance
to meet face to face with each other to build trust relationships and
friendships.
We are a community of #people and human beings.

about the travel budget and other costs for the organisation:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- As indicated above, I think we should discuss this topic more deeper
in the above list[2]. But to enable me to try to formulate an answer
that makes sense on the budget discussion I feel free to post a
statement here.
So please react on this statement in the industry list, as this is the
right place to further discuss this topic.

*axiom 1* OSGeo is a non for profit organisation of #people with a
passion about #Geo&#opensource
        (see also my mail concerning membership fees [3] )

*bydefinition* Business should remain *outside* OSGeo
        (as it doesn't fit with a non profit organisation)
        (but some members of OSGeo - if not all - are involved in
business processes, as users, customers, developers or part of an
administrative, academic or industrial organisation, sometimes in
different roles)

*axiom 2* OSGeo is a professionally governed organisation

Well, in a professional governed organisation, you have a board,
representing the organisation,  responsible and acting on behalf
everything the organisation does. The board is allowed to do that and
get the trust to do that every year expressed on the general assembly.

*axiom 3* OSGeo aims to be and stay a growing, strong and Healthy
organisation

An organisation such as OSGeo is just like a living organism.
Like all living organisms, an organisations starts, grows, falls, stands
up learning from previous mistakes, becomes stronger and survives for
living a long and prosperous live. In this process it is important that,
from a financial point of view, you earn more than you spend. This also
applies to non for profit organisations as for  profit organisation.

Today OSGeo is already 10 years old (young). This is not yet a mature
individual, an important period of teenager is coming into sight. A
necessary process to become an adult.
Like a child of 10 year old, I think we should progress handling issues
as money and business and relationships.
Money is important to cover the necessary costs, at a minimum.

So here I follow the decision of the board to use a certain amount of
travel budget to represent the organisation physically on places where
this is appropriate to do. I think the board is wise enough to make
these decisions on her own. Also other costs to fix broken servers, or
do something else that is necessary for the good continuation of the
organisation fall under these decisions. Of course the board is
responsible not to spend more than the income statement allows.
But this way of working is only temporary  in my eyes.
It is also the task of the board to help the 10 year young OSGeo
organisation to transform into a professional, open and transparent
governed mature vehicle.
(without losing the strong points of childhood).

i.e.:
- a clear vision should be formulated about the further direction of the
organisation
points like:
    - how to help the OSGeo projects in their shared mission
    - how to treat all the OSGeo projects as equal
    - how to motivate new projects to become a full incubated OSGeo project
    - how to respond to non OSGeo GIS projects, convincing them to join
OSGeo
    - how OSGeo should embrace her members
    - how OSGeo should treat her sponsors
    - how OSGeo should partner with other organisations
    - how OSGeo should look to and promote #respectfull and #transparent
business
    - ... []

- an estimate should be made of the to expecting income in 2015 (before
the FOSS4G conference 2014 preferable - but ambitious, better do this
for 2016)
- an estimate should be made of the expecting costs in 2015.
- the exercise should be made to have more income than costs.
- the result of this exercise is the budget for next year. This can be
presented on the general assembly, so all the members can approve this
budget. As long as the board respects this budget, the board can decide
on be halve all the members to do their job and take their
responsibility. If things are happening such as the board can no longer
respect this agreement, an escalation to the discuss mailing list or a
new general assembly should be organized.

about OSGeo-Europe:
-----------------------------
Although I know there are several local chapters having their own legal
structure, I want to break a lance for maintaining one team, one group
of #people, one #OSGeo. Local chapters are a good thing and should be
promoted, but the strength of open source is to share and to help each
other to create strong technology, public available source code,
documentation, idea's, fun and friendships. I want to break a lance than
to go further what we do today, and really bridge gaps between the
different projects, but that are thoughts for another topic, another
time ...

Last week I heard several comments on the restrictions a US based legal
non for profit organisation has, and the will and feeling that OSGeo
could do more, if we decide better and clearly what to do with the
money. It should be used in steering the GIS Open Source Future in the
right direction.
These remarks and comments did me think of creating a European Fund.

- having a US based org and a EU based Fund will spread the organisation
in an organic way further over the globe.
- Money can be collected from sponsoring activities into the fund.
- A European fund should be able to participate in European programs
such as Horizon2020 and others. [to be investigated]
- The money can be governed by the EU Fund, but the decisions what we
should do with the money could be decided by the board of OSGeo,
respecting certain rules:

- Specific European funded projects still need a budget to complete, so
the fund can be used to complete these budgets
- With the available money, OSGeo can sponsor innovative idea's, where a
valorisation factor can be included. Innovative idea's can be sponsored
by a vehicle that understands the needs of an Open Source Business.
- If a project is successful it should result in new value for the fund,
giving more budget to sponsor other innovative projects. This should be
managed like a professional investment fund, so that the balance remains
positive and the leverage OSGeo can maintain on open source related
business grows year after year.

I think I can help setting up a team that has the right technical and
legal expertise to create such a vehicle.

OSGeo managed to grow from not existing into a world wide organisation
with #many members. OSGeo wishes to further grow into a professional
governed organisation (*axiom 2 and 3*), so I think we should have the
ambition to take this path further and create the right environment to
be able to reach that ambition.

I want to end this mail by expressing my personal believe that doing
things voluntary, because we (the committing members) really are
convinced that sharing and working together to make the world a better
place and to give the opportunity to all (committing and involved
members) to use, distribute, document, improve gives a personal benefit
in happiness and satisfaction which can not be reached by money.

Have a nice weekend!
In Ghent where I live 10 Days of party are starting tonight [5] and I
will leave now to drink a couple of beers (which I will pay myself :-)

Dirk Frigne

[1]
http://knowwhereconsulting.co.uk/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-free-lunch/
[2] *industry at lists.osgeo.org*
[3] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2014-July/013030.html
[4] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4GDiscount
[5] http://www.gentsefeesten.be/en
[6] http://www.osgeo.org/node/1422

On 18-07-14 12:42, Anne Ghisla wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> here are the minutes and logs of yesterday's Board meeting:
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Meeting_2014-07-17
> (Minutes and motions are yet unapproved.)
>
> There has been discussion over elections 2014, strategic funding, OSGeo
> and Europe, and finally OSGeo's business model.
>
> My comment is that this has been one of the (few) meetings where there
> was less of the usual large consensus.
> Therefore I feel important to get thoughts from OSGeo members other
> than the current Board, as it is already happening in last emails. At
> the moment we have no better way to collect opinions and comments
> besides mailing lists and in-person discussions, that are notoriously
> difficult to summarise. (A wiki page is good to summarise, but not to
> discuss.) Nevertheless, I encourage members to speak up on these
> important topics.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Anne
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

-- 
Yours sincerely,

ir. Dirk Frigne
CEO

Geosparc n.v.
Brugsesteenweg 587
B-9030 Ghent
Tel: +32 9 236 60 18 
GSM: +32 495 508 799

http://www.geomajas.org 
http://www.geosparc.com

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