[OSGeo-Discuss] Ideas for a future OSGeo Board

Mon Oct 16 16:04:13 PDT 2017

Hello Cameron,

Thank you for your well structured vision.

Although I agree with almost everything you describe, I respectfully
disagree on the following:

As OSGeo is a community where all the members are private persons, we
don't need to vote for positions, as we will accept roles from
volunteers, in a naturally way. There is i.m.h.o. an exception.
As a community we want to create partnerships and represent the
organisation to like minded organisations.
To represent OSGeo, we need people volunteering for that role, to be
recognised at least by the board, so they can speak in the name of OSGeo
for that purpose.

f.i. the volunteers representing OSGeo in the UN work group, or talking
to the world bank should best have an 'official' role. This is the case
for preparing partnerships, representing OSGeo in a community like OGC,
or others, but I agree this role can only be executed by a volunteer,
when there is enough trust and respect from the other members.

A very powerful way to accomplish this is to raise your voice by
supporting volunteers who stand up and +1 them when they express their
interest in volunteering for some task. This will give the volunteer the
extra energy he/she needs to go for it.

I also think it is very important to try to use this power in a positive
stimulating way and try to avoid to hold people doing something by
giving criticism without providing a decent alternative.
Respect for the other volunteers is a very important feature for all
charter members, we should care about using it!

I see a great community of fantastic people, promoting open source for
Geo is the core element that unite us, receiving respect and encourage
each other is what drives us. I am happy to have the feeling to belong
to this community. Sometimes we loose strong and powerfull people
because they where discouraged for voluntaring for OSGeo. We should be
inclusive and try  to help them to volunteer again, and try to
understand why things went wrong. We should learn from the past, but we
should give a volunteer always a new chance. Otherwise, we can't call
ourselves an inclusive community.

my 2c
Dirk.

On 16-10-17 13:39, Cameron Shorter wrote:
> Helmut,
> 
> Your question is good, and I only have a partial answer which extends on
> Jody's response.
> 
> I feel that while people are comfortable to openly disagree on technical
> concepts they feel very uncomfortable speaking ill of others on a
> personal level.
> 
> Organically grown Open Source communities naturally form a hierarchy
> around principles of Meritocracy and Do-ocracy. There is not need for
> voting for positions, people naturally assume a role based on what they
> are doing. Open Source communities are successful if they master
> collaboration.
> 
> The concept of voting for positions, as we do in elections, is a concept
> borrowed from command-and-control hierarchies, and I feel doesn't fit
> well with our Open Source ethos. I could expand, but I think I've
> written more than my quota on this email list for the moment.
> 
> Cheers, Cameron
> 
> On 15/10/17 12:54 pm, Jody Garnett wrote:
>> I think Cameron described the reasoning, not wanting to disrupt
>> relationships. Cameron is probably in an awkward position, as if often
>> the case when people reach out privately, where he stuck determining
>> if people are asking him to speak for them or they simply want someone
>> to listen.
>>
>> OSGeo is an open and friendly community and we strive to have our
>> communication and decision making in a transparent manner (the same
>> standards we hold our project steering committees to during incubation).
>>
>> Nevertheless we have a number of private channels of communication in
>> our organization, for example during charter member nominations there
>> was an opportunity to contact the CRO privately if anyone was troubled
>> by a nomination. During incubation we make a mentor available for
>> private communication, as often there are legal questions to discuss.
>> The projects have a private list for security vulnerabilities. The
>> board also has a private email list which is useful for negotiating
>> partner relationships.
>>
>> With respect to the board elections I really appreciate Gert-Jan's
>> approach of asking candidates questions, it was illuminating, explored
>> some important issues and gave everyone a chance to respond. 
>>
>> --
>> Jody Garnett
>>
>> On 14 October 2017 at 15:14, Helmut Kudrnovsky <hellik at web.de
>> <mailto:hellik at web.de>> wrote:
>>
>>     Cameron Shorter:
>>     >I've had a number of people reach out to me privately, related to the
>>     >upcoming OSGeo Board elections.
>>
>>     Cameron, any idea why a number of people aren't
>>     articulating/communicating by themselves here on
>>     the OSGeo discuss ML related to the upcoming OSGeo Board elections?
>>
>>     OSGeo, as I understand it, is an open and friendly community and
>>     every discussion input is welcome.
>>
>>     kind regards
>>     Helmut
>>
>>     OSGeo charter member
>>     _______________________________________________
>>     Discuss mailing list
>>     Discuss at lists.osgeo.org <mailto:Discuss at lists.osgeo.org>
>>     https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>     <https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> 
> -- 
> Cameron Shorter
> Open Technologies Consultant
> Geospatial & Software Architect
> Information Demystifier
> 
> M +61 (0) 419 142 254
> http://shorter.net
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> 

-- 
Yours sincerely,

ir. Dirk Frigne
CEO @geosparc

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