[OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo/LocationTech relationship

Mon Nov 16 22:43:16 PST 2015

Even if I'm willing to accept narrative b, i cannot exclude narrative a and
thus i'm not willing in expose osgeo to this concrete risk.
For this reason i believe we should just suspend the "relations" until we
have clarified this.
It is too important not to make any mistake driven by th LT pressure
instead of taking the necessary time to start colaaborating a pice at a
time and build reciprocal trust among the two entities.

This is my vision of the facts, i don't say it is bad i dont say it is good
but trust is something has to be build day by day: i don't give the keys of
my house to someone i know from a week just becaouse he looks gentile ;-)

Maxi
Il 17/Nov/2015 03:30, "Jody Garnett" <jody.garnett at gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Thank you for the two narratives Rob, I find it a much more constructive
> presentation then the FAQ provided previously.
>
> Narrative B matches my own experience, although I have focused on
> project/developer level interaction (and largely ignored any capacity as a
> PCO). I think I can make the slightly stronger statement that as a
> committer representative on the LocationTech steering committee I have
> always sought a constructive engagement.
>
>
> --
> Jody Garnett
>
> On 16 November 2015 at 16:59, Rob Emanuele <rdemanuele at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I think there's two narratives that are at conflict in this entire
>> thread. I'm going to try to try to spell them out as I see them:
>>
>> A. LocationTech is a newer-than-OSGeo organization that is trying to make
>> a name for itself, capture market share, promote it's brand, in general act
>> in a way that makes itself grow. The intention behind LocationTech's
>> actions in offering services as a professional conference organizer is
>> mostly for it's own gain; LocationTech wants to smoothly slide into
>> becoming a part of OSGeo's annual conference for the profit and promotion
>> of itself, to the potential loss of OSGeo. For that reason, it is best for
>> the OSGeo community to protect itself from LocationTech, keep measured
>> distance between the organizations, not allow it to become part of the
>> FOSS4G international event, or at least to be suspicious of it's stated
>> good intentions in offering itself to be PCO. The real story is that
>> LocationTech's intentions are primarily about the profits and higher
>> visibility it will gain from being part of FOSS4G, and the help it is
>> offering plays a secondary role.
>>
>> B. LocationTech is an organization that was created out of intentions to
>> help parts of the community that were perhaps not best served by OSGeo at
>> the time. It has it's own governance and ways of doing things, which
>> include being backed by small and large companies looking to contribute
>> financial support to the open source community, which allows for things
>> like paid staff. The model is different than OSGeo, the structure is
>> different than OSGeo, and the aims are similar but have differences. One
>> differences is that it's parent organization is the Eclipse Foundation, who
>> have professional conference organizers on staff and a lot of experience
>> running successful conferences. Seeing this is a valuable thing that the
>> open source geospatial community can take advantage of, LocationTech offers
>> it's services as a professional conference organizer to the FOSS4G NA
>> regional conferences, and now has offered it's services to the
>> international conference in 2017. While certainly not eschewing the
>> increase in visibility in the community that being part of the conferences
>> would afford LocationTech, that plays a secondary role to the earnest
>> desire to help the open source geospatial community.
>>
>> Have I captured these narratives correctly or incorrectly? They are based
>> on impressions and implicit opinions that I've tried to understand from
>> these conversations. I think perhaps explicitly stating them would be
>> useful, so if I have failed to do so correctly please correct me.
>>
>> I obviously have a preference for believing that narrative B best fits
>> the reality of the situation. Self promotion surely must play some role in
>> LocationTech's actions, but is it naive to think that the intentions of
>> LocationTech are for the community first and itself second? Perhaps. I
>> don't think so though. The alternative is certainly not how I operate when
>> I participate in LocationTech.
>>
>> I prefer the narrative of openness and trust vs the narrative of mistrust
>> and suspicion that sounds like bad politics. I hope that this community
>> that I choose to participate in is not such a political mess that breeds
>> that sort of selfish market share power plays, and instead it is a
>> community of people and organizations that take actions based on how they
>> can contribute to an overall good.
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 6:23 PM, Mateusz Loskot <mateusz at loskot.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On 16 November 2015 at 23:11, Jody Garnett <jody.garnett at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> > If I was to sum up the difference in outlook between the two
>>> organizations
>>> > today it would more be along the lines of LocationTech being "developer
>>> > focused" and OSGeo being "user focused'. I think that is more a
>>> reflection
>>> > of where the projects involved are in their incubation process that any
>>> > strategic difference.
>>>
>>> Jody,
>>>
>>> I have to admit, to me as OSGeo member as developer (+SAC supporter),
>>> this whole thread has not clarified almost nothing.
>>>
>>> As much as I appreciate (and carefully read through) all your inputs,
>>> that summary leaves me with even more questions.
>>>
>>> And, BTW, I agree with you about the FAQ, it also reads naive and silly
>>> (e.g. comparing Apache vs Mozilla, two different scopes, to
>>> LocationTech vs OSGeo,
>>> two with clear overlap).
>>>
>>> Putting all the emotional cream whipped so far aside and objectively,
>>> clearly, that it is all about potential, capacity and market share.
>>>
>>> OSGeo has proved its potential, it is capable to paddle its own canoe
>>> for a decade or more,
>>> via large self-organized community and successful projects.
>>>
>>> LocationTech is a fairly new player with huge & rich organization behind,
>>> that has to prove it's capable to secure market share, and its position.
>>> Otherwise, the parent organization will simply shut it down as any
>>> failed project.
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>> --
>>> Mateusz  Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net
>>>
>>
>>
>
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