[OSGeo-Edu] Getting Started on the Free GIS Book...

[Allan Doyle]

Please also remember to migrate any material from the "old" Free GIS  
Book as you go...
(http://www.eogeo.org/Projects/projects_wiki/FreeGISBook)

	Allan

On Dec 20, 2006, at 12:34, Arnulf Christl wrote:

>
> On Tue, December 19, 2006 22:35, Landon Blake wrote:
>> I didn't notice those other e-mails before I responded. Sorry about
>> that.
>>
>> It sounds like any restrictions on use, commercial or otherwise,  
>> may not
>> be a good idea. I don't have a problem with that, but I sure would  
>> like
>> to know with some clarity what license the material in the book  
>> will be
>> released under. I don't have any problem with the OSGeo holding the
>> copyright.
>
> Hi, welcome.
>
> If you start in the OSGeo Wiki the license of your document will be
> "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License" as specified in  
> the Wiki
> before you hit the Save button. I am not sure whether it would make  
> sense
> to add additional license texts on eacht page. Just start editing and
> everything will be fine. I am not fully sure on the copyright  
> ownership
> but guess that it will be OSGeo.
>
>> It also sounds like the "printable" version of the book might not  
>> be a
>> good idea right now, as the OSGeo may have some "style" and  
>> "branding"
>> issues to work out. Perhaps if I can get a chapter of the book  
>> completed
>> we can "nudge" these people to get the style issues worked out so  
>> that
>> we can publish a PDF or printable version of the chapter.
>
> Just go ahead, if you need something from VisCom just aks for it.  
> In the
> meantime VisCom will work this out so that in future a single link
> suffices (dream on).
>
>> It also sounds like my initial idea about the chapter on "math for  
>> maps"
>> might be a good idea after all. I will stick with this topic.
>
> Yes, good. It will be good to have some math in the Wiki, and the
> practical examples can link to the [[Axis Order Confusion]] page to
> confuse people after educating them. :-)
>
>> In the meantime, I think it would be great if this group could decide
>> on:
>>
>> [1] A target audience.
>
> Neogeographer about to start with web map hacking. This might be a  
> hard
> target for a surveyor. So again, do it as best you can and maybe add a
> section what you believe is a requirement. Those links will later  
> join the
> different chapters together to result in a comprehensive tutorial and
> technical reference (linking directly into code...).
>
>> [2] The purpose and goal for the book.
>
> Ahm ...a comprehensive tutorial and technical reference for FOSSGIS  
> software.
>
>> [3] A way to track who is writing what.
>
> The Wiki has full history and keeps track of all and every change.  
> There
> are a few people who check what is going on all the time so that a  
> certain
> quality can be maintained. For some reason this Wiki is very  
> friendly. As
> far as I know there has not been much highly controversial discussion.
> Yet. You never know when that starts but be assured that some  
> people will
> notice.
>
>> I think number 3 will be important so that readers of the book can
>> understand the possible bias in the written material. After all,  
>> I'm a
>> land surveyor by trade, not really a GIS professional, and much of my
>> written material will be shaded from the land surveying  
>> perspective. I
>> also work with GIS mostly from the programming end of things,  
>> which will
>> also influence my perspective. I think it would be good to have a  
>> short
>> bio explaining these things for each author, and indicating which
>> portions of the book the author contributed to. I can set this up  
>> on the
>> wiki if needed.
>
> You could simply use the built in user account system of the Wiki.
> Everybody needs an account to edit things and therefore everybody  
> who has
> an account has also a user page. This is the place to put some bio
> information, if you want. You do not have to, its all up to you.
>
>> I can come up with some suggestions and ideas for [1] and [2] if  
>> needed.
>>
>> Landon
>
> I will upload a very practical Tutorial (with screenshots of the  
> involved
> software dialogs) on how to install/build a SOA on a Windows(c)  
> (outch)
> system. It came into existance during a course which is documented  
> here:
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/ 
> Resultados_del_Tutorial_ISSTOCAM_WebGIS
>
> But it is in Spanish... :-)
>
> So there is lots to do and you should just do what you like most  
> because
> chances then are high that it will be good and it will get done.
>
> I also have a few questions. How do we organize the pages so that
> evenatually they will result in a "book". I have heard of an extension
> "wikibooks" which sounds like what we need. Until we have found out  
> how to
> use that we might just add a [[Category:Free GIS Book]] to each page
> giving us an index:
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Category:Free_GIS_Book
>
> Best regards,
> Arnulf.
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Landon Blake [mailto:lblake at ksninc.com]
>> Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2006 1:25 PM
>> To: discuss at edu.osgeo.org
>> Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Edu] Getting Started on the Free GIS Book...
>>
>> Jo and Tyler,
>>
>> Thank you both for your responses.
>>
>> I don't really have a problem using a creative commons license that
>> allows commercial use. I just thought some authors might have a  
>> problem
>> if others printed material they worked on a made a profit. But this
>> isn't a sticking point for me, and other valid commercial uses were
>> mentioned.
>>
>> Before I can proceed I'd really need to know the following:
>>
>> [1] What license my work will be made available under.
>> [2] What commercial uses will and won't be allowed. (Will we allow  
>> all
>> commercial uses?)
>>
>> Who can I "nudge" to get a decision on this? Am I talking to the  
>> right
>> people? :]
>>
>> I don't mind taking charge of the ball on this initially, as long  
>> as I'm
>> not peeing in someone else's bowl of cheerios. :] If someone else  
>> is in
>> charge, I just need some direction so I can get started.
>>
>> I suppose I could get started on one of my own wiki's, but I'd rather
>> not do that if I can get these other things squared away so I can  
>> start
>> my work through the OSGeo.
>>
>> I was also thinking about maintaining a PDF version of my chapters  
>> using
>> Scribus and OpenOffice. Are there any thoughts on that? I think a
>> version of the book suitable for printing would be a good thing.
>>
>> It's good to "hear" some voices on this mailing list.
>>
>> Landon
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Jo Walsh [mailto:jo at frot.org]
>> Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2006 10:02 AM
>> To: discuss at edu.osgeo.org
>> Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Edu] Getting Started on the Free GIS Book...
>>
>> dear Tyler, Landon, all
>> On Tue, Dec 19, 2006 at 09:46:07AM -0800, Tyler Mitchell wrote:
>>>> [3] What license will we use to release the material of book? I was
>>>> thinking about the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share
>>>> Alike 2.5 License. You can find details about the license here:
>>>> http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/25/
>>> I'd have to dig up the archives to see if we agreed on something
>>> around this.  We talked a fair bit about Charlie's own curriculum  
>>> and
>>
>>> how/why it could be licensed certain ways.  From my angle, one thing
>>> to keep in mind is that any 'non-commercial' clause can actually  
>>> kill
>>
>>> some good use of the material.
>>
>> NC doesn't rule out commercial use of the material though, just  
>> *under
>> the terms of this license*. You could still have a "dual licensing"
>> type model like MySQL's:
>> http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/licensing/faq.html
>>
>> Having said this, if this were a democracy I would be in favour of
>> removing a commercial reuse restriction. If a publishing company  
>> wants
>> to print a tree edition of this text - isn't that a success? Would a
>> print-on-demand edition through an outfit like lulu.com be an option
>> for OSGeo to print this and make a small profit for the Foundation?
>>
>> http://blog.okfn.org/2006/04/24/removing-the-nc/ is a writeup by  
>> Rufus
>> Pollock of the Open Knowledge Foundation about the problems NC  
>> clauses
>> can cause. FWIW OpenStreetmap has no NC clause for its data. It *is*
>> ShareAlike though and that can be a good option - if commercial
>> publishers make improvements they have to be released under the same
>> license terms...
>>
>>> For example, I worked with one or two
>>> others a couple years ago to produce a data access manual for
>>> MapServer, for a workshop we were running.  I included this as an
>>> appendix in my Web Mapping Illustrated book, because it was a very
>>> good reference for the audience in the book.  Re-writing material
>>> that I'd already contributed to didn't make sense and the other
>>> authors had no problems with it.  Was that commercial use?
>>
>> Yes, "it's commercial when money changes hands".
>>
>> cheers,
>>
>>
>> jo
>>
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>
>
> -- 
> Arnulf Christl
> http://www.ccgis.de
>
>
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-- 
Allan Doyle
+1.781.433.2695
adoyle at eogeo.org