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

Mon Sep 28 00:17:56 PDT 2015

Hi all,

I am a fairly new charter member, so maybe the two following comments 
here will be irrelevant.

 From my perspective, having Orfeo ToolBox as an incubating project 
definitively helped us to move in the right direction. I am not saying 
that it would not have occured without OSGeo, but the organization gives 
the momentum and defines the standards to reach. As such, it is useful 
and somehow efficient. The fact that the process is long is mostly on 
the project side in our case.

I think that the Github move is hazardous. Sure, it is easy, free for 
open-source projects, and really really cool. Granted, it helps a lot in 
getting fluid contributions to open-source projects. But ... in two 
years, they may start shipping sponsors links at the end of the Readme 
files, and in a moments notice you have to watch 20 seconds ads before 
cloning. At this point, you will want to bail out, only to find out that 
in fact you can not, because you can not delete the project anymore, or 
the issue tracker database can not be exported ...

My point is, OSGeo should care about long-term protection of GIS 
open-source, and if this goal aligns for now with services that Github 
provides, it may no longer be the case in the future .Of course we need 
to be on Github: it is a public place to be, like twitter & co. But 
completely giving up code hosting and developers exchanges to a private 
company is the opposite of what I think the organization should do.

I know proper hosting services requires time and money, I do not have 
the solution to that, but for me OSGeo should provide a sustainable 
alternative, up-to-date and tailored for its purpose.

My 2 cents,

Regards,

Julien

Le 25/09/2015 21:57, Darrell Fuhriman a écrit :
> 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 
> explicitlygets no support; and OSGeo struggles to staff a booth at its 
> own conferenceto 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 strategyis 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 wholein 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 
> needOSGeo. 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 shouldhave 
> 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?”
>
> 3.
>
>     Create measureable objectives for achieving those goals. Ask the
>     question, “How will we know if we’ve succeeded?”
>
> 4.
>
>     Prioritize the goals.
>
> 5.
>
>     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.
>
> 6.
>
>     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.
>
> 7.
>
>     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
>

-- 
Julien MICHEL
CNES - DCT/SI/AP - BPI 1219
18, avenue Edouard Belin
31401 Toulouse Cedex 09 - France
Tel: +33 561 282 894 - Fax: +33 561 283 109

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