<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div>Michael- thanks for the clarification!<br><br></div>You are mentioning maturity, by referring to a premature stage for the community to "mutate" into a professional society.<br><br></div>From my experience in the NGO/activitsm sector, which started in 2002 and has covered also other themes, such as cultural mediation, ancient seeds, or live music, the possibility of understanding the level of maturity of a community is essential.<br><br></div><div>here is my thought in response to a prompt for issues (suggested soundtrack: Ravel's Bolero)<br><br>a) if OSGeo is able to define over the next 4-5 months its level of maturity as a community, it will be possible to people to understand where to go from there.<br><br></div><div>b) If not, no major damage will be done, but I would figure that individuals/chapter/project steering committees who feel they have a different level of maturity or clearer objectives (starting from *****market***** objectives) will just "go for it", develop their own operation, and reduce their level of commitment in a joint effort.<br><br></div><div>c) I have seen this happening in the Italian scenario ....actually: this is my story ;), and I know a couple more from others..... so I don't see why this should not happen at a different level. <br><br>We Italians are weltmeisters in individual ventures, and find it hard to build and maintain coalitions... at the same time, as Depeche Mode used to say, "People are People" ;)<br></div><div><br></div><div>d) note: this scenario may not be detrimental for the geospatial open source ecosystem in the end. It's just a matter of perspective.<br><br></div><div>In Italy there are two sentences we use when commenting the value of collaborations.<br><br></div><div>"chi fa da sé, fa per tre": when you do things on your own, the outcome is like if you had three people<br><br></div><div>"l'unione fa la forza": strength comes from unity<br><br></div><div>interestingly, both make sense...it all depends in sensing the context where you are operating<br><br>e) I hope this can happen for OSGeo over the coming months ;)<br><br></div><div>With the small NGO I created in 2011 with three other folks (one of which is Stefano Costa, one of the pillars in the creation of GFOSS.it and one of the drivers in Italy for the first steps of OKFN in this country) we will be glad to contribute to this process. <br><br>Even though free/open-source is not at the core of our mission, it is an organic part of initiatives we develop, and in any case I spent three full years in the communications/marketing think-tank of GFOSS.it, including liaison to various OSGeo threads.<br><br></div><div>Last but not least, we have the legal status of an NGO in Italy, but we operate in fact on a European scale (and for some projects we network in other continents)<br><br></div><div>We are planning for November our final event in Italy, after a very lively year...you may have seen some of my announcements related to m(')appare .<br><br>....if any of you likes the idea of having Attivarti.org in the picture, let me know....please visit the <a href="http://www.attivarti.org">www.attivarti.org</a> and check the "ENGLISH" section of the site or the English-language entries in the blog to understand more of what we do and if this may related to whatever you are doing within OSGeo.<br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Best regards from Southern Tuscany!<br><br></div><div>Andrea aka pibinko<br></div><div><a href="http://www.pibinko.org">http://www.pibinko.org</a><br></div><div><a href="http://www.attivarti.org">http://www.attivarti.org</a><br></div><div><br></div></div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">2015-08-01 18:03 GMT+02:00 Michael Gerlek <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mpg@flaxen.com" target="_blank">mpg@flaxen.com</a>></span>:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word">Mostly positive -- maybe a little wistful, but not intended to be negative.<div><br></div><div>I still see areas where OSGeo does (or could) add value, but I think the ideas of becoming a professional society or requiring people to pay dues are premature at best, until we can define what OSGeo’s charter and activities will be for the coming couple years.</div><div><br></div><div>If nothing else, Vasile’s survey is prompting people to think about this issues, and that’s what’s most important.</div><div><br><div>
-mpg<br><br><br>
</div>
<br><div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div class="h5"><div>On Aug 1, 2015, at 2:44 AM, Andrea Giacomelli <<a href="mailto:pibinko@gmail.com" target="_blank">pibinko@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br></div></div><div><div><div class="h5"><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div><div>Hi Michael - <br><br></div>1) Without knowing you in person, I can't say if your message is to be intended as with a "positive" tone, or with a bitter-sweet and slightly ironic tone ;)<br><br></div>Whichever way, I agree that any organization (starting even from small groups) periodically needs to stop and consider if its current state is in line with the external and internal conditions and -if not- try and understand if some form of change should be applied.<br></div></div></div><div><div><div><div><br></div><div>2) the other consideration I appreciated is the one from Even Rouault: it is true that, as Joni Mitchell used to sing<br><br>"Don't it always seem to go / That you don't know what you've got / ‘Til it's gone" (Big Yellow Taxi)<br><br></div><div>...a simple test would be for OSGEO activists (I mean guys who donate at least half a day per week of personal time -not paid time- to this) go on a "sabbatical leave" for, say, six months.<br><br></div><div>then we see what happens ;)<br><br></div><div>best regards from Italy.<br><br></div><div>Andrea Giacomelli<br></div><div><a href="http://www.pibinko.org/" target="_blank">http://www.pibinko.org</a><br></div><div><br><div><div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">2015-07-31 19:49 GMT+02:00 Michael Gerlek <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mpg@flaxen.com" target="_blank">mpg@flaxen.com</a>></span>:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">I've stayed out of the pre-survey discussions on charter membership and whatnot, but after taking the survey yesterday, I’m starting to think that<br>
<br>
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OSGeo has accomplished what it set out to do some years ago, and as currently construed OSGeo will no longer serve a useful purpose.<br>
<br>
...<br></blockquote></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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