[OSGeo-Discuss] We won. It's time for OSGeo 2.0.

[Michael Gerlek]

I don’t have hard data, and I do know many people have very worked hard on some projects, but anecdotally I've heard that our incubation program has been a very slow process.

*IF* that is true, I’d like to understand why. And what new projects see as the value they will get by going through incubation, and how we differ from what LocationTech is offering...

That said, my underlying point still remains: of all the many things various people have under the OSGeo umbrella, I’m not sure that OSGeo is the best venue to serve all of them all the time. We are a loose and volunteer-based community, and the idea of becoming more "formal" (as some of the survey options seem to imply) scares me. I’d rather see us become “looser” rather than “tighter”.

-mpg



> On Jul 31, 2015, at 7:00 PM, Jody Garnett <jody.garnett at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> We are a foundation to "support collaborative development of open source geospatial software, and promote its widespread use". 
> 
> Not sure we won quite yet - we have a few projects in incubation that could are love and support :) And plenty more that would love to joint the party.
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Jody Garnett
> 
> On 31 July 2015 at 10:49, Michael Gerlek <mpg at flaxen.com <mailto:mpg at flaxen.com>> wrote:
> I've stayed out of the pre-survey discussions on charter membership and whatnot, but after taking the survey yesterday, I’m starting to think that
> 
> 
>         OSGeo has accomplished what it set out to do some years ago, and as currently construed OSGeo will no longer serve a useful purpose.
> 
> 
> Back when OSGeo was formed, open source GIS was a new area — islands of people here and there, looking for ways to collaborate on relatively young projects. Recall that hosting source code repositories was a big issue back in the day — but now we have GitHub and the problem no longer exists. Open source, and open source GIS, has reached mainstream acceptance, with lots of projects and lots of communities. To the extent that OSGeo helped get us to the broad level of practice we’re at today, we’ve won.
> 
> OSGeo has always been about several different things: code development, of course, but also advocacy, education, live DVDs, and more. Open source GIS is now of a size that it is increasingly hard to keep all these interests aligned and under one big umbrella. The domains of these interests areas are large enough that they should perhaps now be looking to sustain themselves as independent projects — not looking to OSGeo for sponsorship or mentorship.
> 
> Indeed, one of the things from the survey that brought me to this point was the question about whether or not some outside party “taking over” OSGeo was a concern or not… and, upon reflection, it turns out that I’m not the least bit concerned: if OSGeo went away, all the various communities of various sorts of open source GIS — MapServer users, LocationTech projects, GeoForAll initiatives — would just keep on doing their own thing.
> 
> Where can OSGeo add value? Overseeing the annual international conference? Yes, that’s something that needs to have a home. Beyond that? I’m no longer sure.
> 
> 
> We won. It may now be time for OSGeo 1.0 to take its bows and exit the stage, making room for an OSGeo 2.0 with a new charter aimed at the world for 2016 and beyond.
> 
> -mpg
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org <mailto:Discuss at lists.osgeo.org>
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss <http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20150801/643a1ff2/attachment-0002.html>