[Foss4g2008loc] Feedback from GISSA National Council meeting on 4Oct

[Gavin Fleming]

You're right, but it is incorporating GISSA 2008 so there will be some
content that is 'proprietary'. Our challenge is to work the two together
in a sensible and non-threatening way. We want to communicate to the
'proprietary' world what FOSS can do so want to attract as wide an
audience as possible, while keeping it attractive to the FOSS GIS core. 

 

ESRI, Leica, Autodesk, Google and others were major sponsors of
FOSS4G2007, exhibited and presented at the conference and indeed use and
support FOSS projects in a big way and we will be approaching them for
next year too. E.g. GDAL is core to Google Earth and ArcGIS. 

 

Gavin

 

________________________________

From: Dewald Troskie [mailto:nucleotic at gmail.com] 
Sent: 10 October 2007 10:30 AM
To: Gavin Fleming; foss4g2008loc at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: RE: [Foss4g2008loc] Feedback from GISSA National Council
meeting on 4Oct

 

Hi All,

 

Just a point - FOSS4G is about Free and Open Source GIS, not proprietry
talks. That is against the spirit of the conference in my opinion - just
as the name states. Otherwise we might as well invite the "Microsoft" of
GIS (we all know whom I'm talking about) to jump onboard. If users are
interested in that, then they should attend one of the ESRI User
conferences.

 

The debate may be a good idea, but it should be properly mediated to
prevent scope creep and have proper direction without getting ugly (I
have seen it happen before between professionals).

 

Just a note. My Zim $5 worth.

 

Dewald.

 

________________________________

From: foss4g2008loc-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:foss4g2008loc-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Gavin
Fleming
Sent: 10 October 2007 09:01 AM
To: foss4g2008loc at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: [Foss4g2008loc] Feedback from GISSA National Council meeting on
4Oct

I gave brief feedback from FOSS4G2007 to the GISSA National Council and
asked for their comments on FOSS4G2008 organisation:

*	An idea was proposed for blending proprietary and FOSS talks:
have themed rooms where delegates know certain streams or cross-cutting
content like FOSS will be presented. Previous suggestions include having
streams containing FOSS, though not necessarily keeping them in the same
room, or randomly interspersing talks with FOSS content throughout a
topic stream and just identifying them with some flag. The point was
also made that many delegates will see a talk for the application, not
for the tools used, i.e. to them it's not important whether FOSS or
proprietary GIS was used. 
*	The marketing message must be open and inclusive. While we may
run a formal FOSS vs proprietary debate, confrontation is not the
message. Most debate will occur in the presentations and corridors
anyway. 
*	Re topics, it was suggested that we add topics for business and
government delegates (pretty much what is being discussed on
OSGeo-Discuss at the moment) such as 

	*	FOSS GIS migration strategies 
	*	FOSS GIS business case, FOSS vs proprietary TCO, etc. 

*	It was advised that we aim to break even with 600 delegates but
plan space for 1000 delegates. 
*	Carrin would send a letter to GISSA members and vendors advising
them of the conference and asking them to plan for the time and budget
to attend. 
*	A request was made to boost the academic component of the
conference. i.e. improve the options available to those who want peer
review and publication of their papers. Antony Cooper will participate
in this. 
*	Local Cape participation in the LOC should be boosted. So far
Inge is the main person on the ground there. Russell Hope might want to
get more involved and Derek Clarke will be approached (Gavin will
approach Derek) 
*	The whole Council asked to be placed on the LOC mailing list. 
*	In the development of an agreement between GISSA and OSGeo we
need to clarify respective risks, contributions and benefits and draft
the agreement accordingly. 

Gavin

 

 

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