[OSGeo-Discuss] Geo4All - Empowering academics and educators globally - requesting colleagues to share Geo4All ideas at Geography Awareness Week

[Suchith Anand]

Hi Henrique,

Thank you for your mail. I am finding it difficult to understand your exact aims as in your previous mail you mention that there is some license fees for your tools [1] and now you mention they are free, open and libre. Will these conditions keep changing?   Also if what you are proposing is  a potential standard for orientation , then you should be talking to organisations like OGC.

So first please clarify what exactly is your aim ?

Geo4All is fully inclusive and welcome ideas for involving more user groups. So any opportunity to engage more with  visually impaired user groups will be greatly welcome. In fact, in ICA  there is a Commission on Maps and Graphics for Blind and Partially Sighted People?? [1]  which i think will be a really good way to proactively engage with the community. I will email the chair of this commission and explore how Geo4All can further world-wide co-operation, communication and education in the use of maps and graphics by blind and visually-impaired people.

For education it is important  that all tools that Geo4All  endorse are fully open and free. It is not just software, it is also the open educational materials, open data etc that we are interested. We will welcome any opportunity to make us more inclusive. You can email the Geo4All Advisory Board (cc in) your suggestions/ideas .

Best wishes,

Suchith

btw  Education is about true empowerment of young minds. It should not be aimed for getting new consumers!


[1] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2016-August/016476.html

[2] http://visualdisabilities.wixsite.com/icahome


________________________________________
From: Munich Orientation Convention <volksnav at volksnav.de>
Sent: 05 September 2016 8:34 AM
To: discuss at lists.osgeo.org; Standards at lists.osgeo.org; Anand Suchith
Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Geo4All - Empowering academics and educators globally - requesting colleagues to share Geo4All ideas at Geography Awareness Week

Hi Suchit,

nowhere in the world there are so many visually impaired people as in India.

For more than 100 years, most of them use imaginary clocks for orientation purposes and with this get GeoAwareness for directions and angles. Counting steps, they get additional GeoAwareness for locations and distances, having an alternative to lat/lon. The same tools use boy scouts, soldiers, pilots, children, people who can't read maps, illiterate etc.

The mentioned tools are doubtless free, open and libre, so why do OSGeo, Geo4all etc. insist on ignoring them?
Because it's not software?
Because digital clocks are trendy?
Because God dictated that the horizon has to be divided into 8 (see UN logo) or 360 directions?
Because a convention for such imaginary tools could favor the merit principle?

The topic is Geo Awareness Week, that means, education for young consumers. Would you really recommend "here" www.volksnav.de/YouAreHere<http://www.volksnav.de/YouAreHere>, Open Location Code www.openlocationcode.com<http://www.openlocationcode.com> and others just because they are free and open? Do they improve awareness for 1) locations, 2) directions, 3) distances and 4) angles? What about quality and excellence?

Now that you're spiritually recharged, I'm sure that we could find an open minded win/win/win level and show that OSGeo/Geo4all  aren't closed user groups but open user groups which e. g. also consider visually impaired people.

I affirm that the actual black/white criteria concerning openness can cause the following collateral damages:
- generate many win/lose products.       After 5 years, Munich thinks about abandoning the expensive Linux/Limux.
- demotivate to be creative                     A lose/lose situation.

Henrique






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