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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Hi all,<br>
<br>
I am a fairly new charter member, so maybe the two following
comments here will be irrelevant.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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 ...<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
My 2 cents,<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
<br>
Julien<br>
<br>
Le 25/09/2015 21:57, Darrell Fuhriman a écrit :<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:38003603-D5D7-406B-8A38-08F302E4CA3D@garnix.org"
type="cite">
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-dd8ddf0e-0610-1316-b960-7384ba7cc92e"
class="">
<div class=""><span class="">The </span><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2015-September/013172.html"
class=""><span class="">recent discussion on the board list</span></a><span
class=""> 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.</span></div>
<div class=""><span class=""><br class="">
</span></div>
<span class="">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.</span></span>
<div class=""><span class=""><span class=""><br class="">
</span>
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">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.</span></p>
<div class=""><span class="">I will start with a provocative
thesis:</span></div>
<br class="">
<div class=""><span class="">OSGeo lacks visionary unified
leadership and without it will become irrelevant.</span></div>
<br class="">
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">Of course, making such a
claim requires support. So let me break down the
statement. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">“Visionary leadership” is
really two things, “vision” and “leadership.” I will
address each in turn.</span></p>
<h2 dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">OSGeo lacks vision</span></h2>
<div class=""><span class="">I looked at the list of </span><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/about.html"
class=""><span class="">“Goals” for OSGeo</span></a><span
class="">. I wonder: when was the last time these goals
were evaluated for both success and relevancy?</span></div>
<br class="">
<div class=""><span class="">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.)</span></div>
<br class="">
<h3 dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">Example 1</span></h3>
<div class=""><span class="">To provide resources for
foundation projects - eg. infrastructure, funding, legal.</span></div>
<br class="">
<div class=""><span class="">Allow me to break each of those
examples down.</span></div>
<h4 dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">Infrastructure</span></h4>
<div class=""><span class="">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.</span></div>
<div class=""><span class="">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).</span></div>
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">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.</span></p>
<h4 dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">Funding</span></h4>
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">OSGeo does not fund
projects. It has provided some funds to pay for Code
Sprints — $15k in 2014 according to </span><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Budget_2014"
class=""><span class="">the budget</span></a><span
class="">.</span></p>
<h4 dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">Legal</span></h4>
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">I see nothing that has
been done on this front recently. Please feel free to
correct me.</span></p>
<h4 dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">Conclusion</span></h4>
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">OSGeo, where it actually
does what it claims, has not adapted in ways that could
save money.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class=""> My grade: </span><span
class="">D</span></p>
<h2 dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">Example 2</span></h2>
<div class=""><span class="">To promote freely available
geodata - free software is useless without data.</span></div>
<br class="">
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">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).</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">My grade: </span><span
class="">F</span></p>
<h2 dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">Example 3</span></h2>
<div class=""><span class="">To promote the use of open source
software in the geospatial industry (not just foundation
software) - eg. PR, training, outreach.</span></div>
<br class="">
<div class=""><span class="">The </span><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_of_Directors#Packaging_and_Marketing"
class=""><span class="">Board of Directors</span></a><span
class=""> page says:</span></div>
<h4 dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">Packaging and Marketing</span></h4>
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">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.</span></p>
<h4 dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">Local Chapters</span></h4>
<div class=""><span class="">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.</span></div>
<br class="">
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">Exhibition starter packs
almost never happen; OSGeo-Live </span><span class="">explicitly</span><span
class=""> gets no support; and OSGeo struggles to staff a
booth </span><span class="">at its own conference</span><span
class=""> to say nothing of any other conferences.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">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. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">My grade: </span><span
class="">F</span><span class="">.</span></p>
<h3 dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">Commentary</span></h3>
<div class=""><span class="">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, “</span><span
class="">To award the Sol Katz award for service to the
OSGeo community</span><span class="">”.</span></div>
<br class="">
<div class=""><span class="">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.</span></div>
<br class="">
<h2 dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">OSGeo lacks leadership</span></h2>
<div class=""><span class="">Again quoting the Board of
Directors’ page:</span></div>
<br class="">
<div class=""><span class="">The board’s primary
responsibility is to efficiently and effectively make
strategic decisions related to the running of OSGeo.</span></div>
<br class="">
<div class=""><span class="">I won’t bore you with the
details, but a perusal of the board meeting minutes would
indicate that </span><span class="">strategy</span><span
class=""> is rarely, if ever, a part of the meetings.</span></div>
<br class="">
<div class=""><span class="">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.</span></div>
<br class="">
<div class=""><span class="">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.</span></div>
<br class="">
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">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.)</span></p>
<h2 dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">On pending irrelevancy</span></h2>
<div class=""><span class="">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.</span></div>
<br class="">
<div class=""><span class="">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
</span><span class="">as a whole</span><span class=""> in
the last two years. Something where people say, “Did you
hear about</span><span class=""> [exciting thing]</span><span
class=""> OSGeo is doing on </span><span class="">X</span><span
class="">?” To be clear, I don’t mean just things that
OSGeo has a finger in, but things that </span><span
class="">need</span><span class=""> OSGeo. If OSGeo
disappeared tomorrow, would any of these projects be
significantly affected?</span></div>
<br class="">
<div class=""><span class="">I don’t think it can be done. The
OSGeo Foundation is sliding into irrelevancy — and it may
already be there.</span></div>
<br class="">
<div class=""><span class="">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 </span><span class="">should</span><span
class=""> 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.)</span></div>
<br class="">
<div class=""><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2015-July/014521.html"
class=""><span class="">Michael Gerlek brought this up</span></a><span
class=""> 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.</span></div>
<br class="">
<h2 dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">Fixing things</span></h2>
<div class=""><span class="">I hinted at this in my recent
questions to the board candidates, but I want to be
explicit here: </span><span class="">OSGeo needs to
evolve or die</span><span class="">.</span></div>
<br class="">
<div class=""><span class="">Here’s how I would do it:</span></div>
<br class="">
<ol class="">
<li dir="ltr" class="">
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">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.</span></p>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" class="">
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">Ask the question:
“What does it mean to succeed at this goal?” </span></p>
</li>
</ol>
</span>
<blockquote class=""><span class="">
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">If the goal is vague,
or ongoing, give a timeline: “What does success look
like for this goal one year from now?”</span></p>
</span></blockquote>
<span class="">
<ol start="3" class="">
<li dir="ltr" class="">
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">Create measureable
objectives for achieving those goals. Ask the
question, “How will we know if we’ve succeeded?”</span></p>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" class="">
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">Prioritize the goals.</span></p>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" class="">
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">Allocate resources to
the goals. </span></p>
</li>
</ol>
</span>
<blockquote class=""><span class="">
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">Obviously this is a
tricky one, but I think we can look at this a balance
between Importance and Effort.</span></p>
</span><span class="">
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class=""><br
class="kix-line-break">
</span></p>
</span><span class="">
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">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.</span></p>
</span><span class="">
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class=""><br
class="kix-line-break">
</span></p>
</span><span class="">
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">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.</span></p>
</span></blockquote>
<span class="">
<ol start="6" class="">
<li dir="ltr" class="">
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">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.</span></p>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" class="">
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">Evaluate success and
failure. GOTO 1.</span></p>
</li>
</ol>
<div class=""><span class="">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. </span></div>
<br class="">
<div class=""><span class="">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.</span></div>
<br class="">
<p dir="ltr" class=""><span class="">If you ask me,
irrelevancy is a fate worse than death. </span><span
class="">Be bold!</span><span class=""> It’s better to try
to do something big and new then fail than to simply fade
away and be forgotten.</span></p>
<div class=""><span class="">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 </span><span class="">at</span><span class="">.</span><span
class=""> </span><span class="">Without real reform, I
don’t see success happening, just irrelevance. Here’s
hoping this gets the ball rolling.</span></div>
<br class="">
<div class=""><span class="">Darrell</span></div>
<br class="">
</span></div>
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
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 </pre>
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