[OSGeo-Discuss] [Board] OSGeo is becoming irrelevant. Here's why. Let's fix it.

[Siki Zoltan]

+1

Zoltan

On Sat, 26 Sep 2015, Massimiliano Cannata wrote:

> Darrel YOU ARE WRONG.... BUT
> osgeo is a great and successful community and this alone desrve the OSGeo
> existence.
>
> Before we only had project oriented communities (mapserver, grass,  etc).
> But now we have a place in the network to get togheter with all projects
> and users. Aren't we using stack of softwere instead of a single solution
> very often?
> FOSS4G is where we exchange ideas, create innovation and get fun also.
>
> Some excellent work is done also in some working groups... incubation and
> geo4all for example...
>
> So you are WRONG!
>
> BUT.... i have to agree that things could even be better :-)
> In my opinion (and this is part of my manifesto even if i still have one
> more year to serve the board):
> - we need to redefine objectives of the association cause things have
> changed (reault framework...)
> - we need to better promote our valuable software and community (marketing.
> ..)
> - we need to review and redefine rules so that they are transparent and
> clear (communication... )
> - we need to lower the rates of our international meetings to be more
> inclusive
> - we need a plan for investment (investment plan..)
>
> So i call for a face2face meeting of 2 days of all the board members in the
> next months to discuss all these points.
> Apparently the last board was not able to set a date, but i'm keen that the
> new board will be able to do it. It will aslo he agood starting point to
> define our working plan...
>
> The i call all of you charter member to help and do things... continuing in
> shaking the community but also propose and act to make the world a better
> place. Then if you think the world would be better without osgeo... well...
> be part of the community is not mandatory :-)
>
> Best
> Proudly member of osgeo
> Maxi
> Il 25/Set/2015 21:57, "Darrell Fuhriman" <darrell at garnix.org> ha scritto:
>
>> The recent discussion on the board list
>> <https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2015-September/013172.html> that
>> came out of the question of the 2014 videos has got me thinking about a few
>> things again, and I want to try to get them out there.
>>
>> Grab a mug of your favorite liquid and hunker down, because I put some
>> time and effort into this, and your own well considered reply is
>> appreciated.
>>
>> Keep in mind that all of these comments are coming from my personal
>> perspective, which, like everyone˙˙s, is an incomplete picture of the whole.
>> Much of what I˙˙m going to say has been rolling around my head for a while,
>> so I˙˙m just going to put it out there.
>> I will start with a provocative thesis:
>>
>> OSGeo lacks visionary unified leadership and without it will become
>> irrelevant.
>>
>> Of course, making such a claim requires support. So let me break down the
>> statement.
>>
>> ˙˙Visionary leadership˙˙ is really two things, ˙˙vision˙˙ and ˙˙leadership.˙˙ I
>> will address each in turn.
>> OSGeo lacks vision
>> I looked at the list of ˙˙Goals˙˙ for OSGeo
>> <http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/about.html>. I wonder: when was
>> the last time these goals were evaluated for both success and relevancy?
>>
>> Here is my own opinion of success of some of  these goals. (In the
>> interest of brevity, I haven˙˙t tried to tackle everything. That˙˙s left as
>> an exercise to the reader.)
>>
>> Example 1
>> To provide resources for foundation projects - eg. infrastructure,
>> funding, legal.
>>
>> Allow me to break each of those examples down.
>> Infrastructure
>> It˙˙s true that OSGeo provides some infrastructure, such as Trac instance,
>> Mailman, SVN repos. If the budget is to be believed, we pay some $3,500/yr
>> to OSUOSL for said infrastructure. I wonder if such a service is necessary,
>> however. Issue tracking and source control are much better provided by
>> Github, which is free for organization such as ours.
>> I say this because a) that˙˙s money that could be better spent elsewhere
>> and b) supporting these services burns precious volunteer time (more on
>> that below).
>>
>> There are clear cost savings available, which are not taken advantage of.
>> For example, OSGeo could be hosting FOSS4G infrastructure: conference
>> websites and registration, a central location for conference videos
>> (regardless of platform/provider). This neglect is especially galling given
>> that FOSS4G is OSGeo˙˙s sole source of income.
>> Funding
>>
>> OSGeo does not fund projects. It has provided some funds to pay for Code
>> Sprints ˙˙ $15k in 2014 according to the budget
>> <http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Budget_2014>.
>> Legal
>>
>> I see nothing that has been done on this front recently. Please feel free
>> to correct me.
>> Conclusion
>>
>> OSGeo, where it actually does what it claims, has not adapted in ways that
>> could save money.
>>
>> My grade: D
>> Example 2
>> To promote freely available geodata - free software is useless without
>> data.
>>
>> The geodata working group is dead. As near as I can tell by perusing the
>> mailing list archives, and the wiki, there has been no meaningful activity
>> in the past two years (maybe more).
>>
>> My grade: F
>> Example 3
>> To promote the use of open source software in the geospatial industry (not
>> just foundation software) - eg. PR, training, outreach.
>>
>> The Board of Directors
>> <http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_of_Directors#Packaging_and_Marketing>
>> page says:
>> Packaging and Marketing
>>
>> OSGeo˙˙s marketing effort has primarily been focused around the packaging
>> and documentation efforts of OSGeo-Live, and to a lesser extend[sic],
>> osgeo4w. [˙˙] It has been entirely driven by volunteer labour, with 140
>> OSGeo-Live volunteers, and printing costs have been covered by local events
>> or sponsors. In the last couple of years, OSGeo has covered local chapter
>> expenses required to purchase non-consumable items for conference booths
>> (such as a retractable banner). In moving forward, OSGeo hope to extend
>> marketing reach by providing co-contributions toward printing costs of
>> consumable items at conferences, such as toward OSGeo-Live DVDs.
>> Local Chapters
>> Much of OSGeo˙˙s marketing initiates are applied at the local level. In
>> many cases, this is best supported through as little as an email list and
>> wiki page. OSGeo also supports local chapters by offering to pay for an
>> Exhibition starter pack for local chapters. Local chapters are also usually
>> the coordinators of conferences and related events, as mentioned above.
>>
>> Exhibition starter packs almost never happen; OSGeo-Live explicitly gets
>> no support; and OSGeo struggles to staff a booth at its own conference to
>> say nothing of any other conferences.
>>
>> Note: Local chapters certainly do do marketing and outreach, but these
>> efforts are essentially unsupported by the OSGeo Foundation. In fact, this
>> goal and the Board of Directors webpage seem to be explicitly
>> contradictory.
>>
>> My grade: F.
>> Commentary
>> I could go on with my own personal evaluations, but I˙˙m not sure that˙˙s
>> necessary. The only place I see that OSGeo has unquestionably succeeded in
>> the past few years is the final goal, ˙˙To award the Sol Katz award for
>> service to the OSGeo community˙˙.
>>
>> So, what˙˙s my point here? It˙˙s simple: there is no longer a coherent
>> vision for what OSGeo should be. I˙˙ll return to that below, but let me
>> continue with my other point.
>>
>> OSGeo lacks leadership
>> Again quoting the Board of Directors˙˙ page:
>>
>> The board˙˙s primary responsibility is to efficiently and effectively make
>> strategic decisions related to the running of OSGeo.
>>
>> I won˙˙t bore you with the details, but a perusal of the board meeting
>> minutes would indicate that strategy is rarely, if ever, a part of the
>> meetings.
>>
>> The emphasis on consensus-based decision making often leads to no
>> decisions being made. I can˙˙t count the number of discussions that have
>> come up on the board list only to devolve into a morass of nit-picking and
>> eventual lack of action when everyone tires of the discussion. What action
>> that is taken is often to ˙˙delegate˙˙ to a (possibly inactive)
>> sub-committee, then never follow up.
>>
>> Instead what we have is a great deal of inertia, little interest in
>> changing things, and no clear indication of what the Board˙˙s priorities are.
>>
>> If priorities do exist, they˙˙re lost in a maze of confusing, incomplete
>> and often contradictory information on the wiki. (Wikis ˙˙ like abandonware
>> for documentation.)
>> On pending irrelevancy
>> I encourage you to ask some random people in the open source geospatial
>> community what OSGeo means to them. I would make a bet that the most common
>> answer is a blank stare.
>>
>> I would ask the board members to come up with three things, other than
>> FOSS4G, where the OSGeo membership has shown its importance to the
>> community as a whole in the last two years. Something where people say,
>> ˙˙Did you hear about [exciting thing] OSGeo is doing on X?˙˙ To be clear, I
>> don˙˙t mean just things that OSGeo has a finger in, but things that need
>> OSGeo. If OSGeo disappeared tomorrow, would any of these projects be
>> significantly affected?
>>
>> I don˙˙t think it can be done. The OSGeo Foundation is sliding into
>> irrelevancy ˙˙ and it may already be there.
>>
>> If anything should be seen as strategic for OSGeo, it˙˙s FOSS4G, the
>> foundation˙˙s primary (sole?) source of income. Even regarding its flagship
>> public event, the board is largely absent. Rather than provide adequate
>> resources and planning, they instead rely on burning out volunteers, then
>> make post-hoc demands on the way they should have done it, provide no
>> future support for organizers to heed those demands, rarely follow up, then
>> go on to repeat the same mistakes the following year.  Honestly, it˙˙s
>> surprising that FOSS4G has failed only once. (I think this is a reflection
>> of the demand for the conference, not the blazing competence of OSGeo.)
>>
>> Michael Gerlek brought this up
>> <https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2015-July/014521.html> on the
>> osgeo-discuss list in July, and probably has a more generous spin on it. He
>> essentially argues that it˙˙s time to declare mission accomplished and shut
>> down or rebooted. I agree with his points, and I˙˙m arguing that OSGeo can
>> have something to offer, but it will require a major re-think of its
>> mission.
>>
>> Fixing things
>> I hinted at this in my recent questions to the board candidates, but I
>> want to be explicit here: OSGeo needs to evolve or die.
>>
>> Here˙˙s how I would do it:
>>
>>
>>    1.
>>
>>    The board needs to evaluate all of its goals, as defined on the About
>>    page, to decide if they are still truly goals. Define any new goals.
>>    2.
>>
>>    Ask the question: ˙˙What does it mean to succeed at this goal?˙˙
>>
>> If the goal is vague, or ongoing, give a timeline: ˙˙What does success look
>> like for this goal one year from now?˙˙
>>
>>
>>    1.
>>
>>    Create measureable objectives for achieving those goals. Ask the
>>    question, ˙˙How will we know if we˙˙ve succeeded?˙˙
>>    2.
>>
>>    Prioritize the goals.
>>    3.
>>
>>    Allocate resources to the goals.
>>
>> Obviously this is a tricky one, but I think we can look at this a balance
>> between Importance and Effort.
>>
>>
>> Spend money to reduce to the effort required, more money if the goal is
>> more important ˙˙ this might be the hardest cultural shift. Volunteer time
>> is precious and easily discouraged. Make sure that you make it as efficient
>> as possible by spending money when you can.
>>
>>
>> For example, many of the infrastructure services OSGeo provides can be
>> easily outsourced to more featureful services that are more responsive and
>> rely less on volunteer labor.
>>
>>
>>    1.
>>
>>    Close the loop on tasks. When a task is delegated to a committee or
>>    individual, track its progress, both to know that it is or isn˙˙t happening,
>>    and to be able to acknowledge and incorporate the work when it˙˙s done.
>>    Failing to acknowledge people˙˙s labor or to use the results of that labor
>>    will virtually guarantee that the volunteer does not continue to help.
>>    2.
>>
>>    Evaluate success and failure.  GOTO 1.
>>
>> Aside: none if this will happen without a strong executive. Whether that
>> position is paid or not is up to the board, but it˙˙s clear that there needs
>> to be someone who can make decisions without endless rounds of fruitless
>> discussions. The board as currently constituted is not dysfunctional, but
>> it is mostly afunctional.
>>
>> I˙˙m will go so far as to suggest this: Fly every board member who is
>> available to a two or three day retreat. Get everyone in the same room, a
>> professional facilitator to speed the process, then figure out what OSGeo
>> is going to be and how to get there. Don˙˙t fret excessively about the
>> expense ˙˙ this isn˙˙t about saving money, it˙˙s about saving OSGeo.
>>
>> If you ask me, irrelevancy is a fate worse than death. Be bold! It˙˙s
>> better to try to do something big and new then fail than to simply fade
>> away and be forgotten.
>> Though my comments above may sound harsh, they are sent with the very best
>> of intentions. I want OSGeo to succeed, but OSGeo is never going to succeed
>> if it doesn˙˙t know what it˙˙s try to succeed at. Without real reform, I
>> don˙˙t see success happening, just irrelevance. Here˙˙s hoping this gets the
>> ball rolling.
>>
>> Darrell
>>
>>
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>