[Ica-osgeo-labs] Website feedback

Mon Aug 31 02:33:54 PDT 2015

Dear all,

I found the discussion very estimulating and interesting. Nevertheless, and sorry for bringing some clouds to the discussion, I still see not clear how to explain the advantages of joining Geo4All. In the following weeks, I plan to explain the initiative to an important catalan institution and to a research group. I have read the wonderfull Charli's principles (thank you Charlie!) and I see them more as principle.

I am planing the meetings to encourage them to join Geo4All, and I stll have not answer to the question: "What can I get joining, that I cannot get if I do not join?" They use free software, they can contact to every lab directly, they can get free material from OSGEO, and contribute to OSGEO, etc. 

Probably I am beeing a little negative, or maybe is that I am asking to join to someone that is not "joinable", but I think that my fears could help to the discussion.

Thank you for your help!

Toni

Antoni Pérez Navarro 
 Estudis d'Informàtica, Multimèdia i Telecomunicació [Responsable de les assignatures de Física i Sistemes d'Informació Geogràfica] 
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya 

aperezn at uoc.edu 
Parc Mediterrani de la Tecnologia (edifici B3)
Av. Carl Friedrich Gauss, 5. 08860 Castelldefels
(Barcelona)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/antonipereznavarro
@tonipereznavarr

Aquest missatge s'adreça exclusivament a qui va destinat i pot contenir informació privilegiada o confidencial i dades de caràcter personal, la difusió de les quals és regulada per la Llei orgànica de protecció de dades i la Llei de serveis de la societat de la informació. Si no sou la persona destinatària indicada (o la responsable de lliurar-lo a qui va destinat), no heu de copiar aquest missatge ni lliurar-lo a tercers per cap concepte. Si heu rebut aquest missatge per error o l'heu aconseguit per altres mitjans, us demanem que ens ho comuniqueu immediatament per aquesta mateixa via i l'elimineu irreversiblement. 

Abans d'imprimir aquest missatge electrònic penseu en el medi ambient.

--- Missatge original de Suchith Anand  per a 'Andy Anderson' ,"Hogan, Patrick (ARC-PX)" ,"labrinos at eled.auth.gr" ,'Siki Zoltan'  amb còpia a "ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org"  enviat el 31.08.2015 10:27

Good to see these excellent open dialogue and discussions and thanks to everyone who have contributed. This "Openness" is key principle of G4A. We have to be open to all ideas/viewpoints to help find solutions to global societal challenges.

Patrick - thanks for the info. on Europa challenge ideas. This is a good example of smartly combining  technologies that best serves the current and future needs and Andy's comment summarizes this, so i suggest we add that as one of the reasons of "Why to join"

Reason #5: In scientific research the sharing and reproducibility of methods and results is essential. Open-source software and standard formats provide the broadest means for the distribution of analytical procedures and data, and therefore the greatest opportunity to ensure their accuracy through review by other scientists and to become the foundations of new and collaborative research. It can also provide a low-cost way to verify calculations made by proprietary applications.

Suchith

________________________________________
From: ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] on behalf of Hogan, Patrick (ARC-PX) [patrick.hogan at nasa.gov]
Sent: Sunday, August 30, 2015 9:23 PM
To: labrinos at eled.auth.gr; 'Siki Zoltan'; 'Andy Anderson'
Cc: ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] Website feedback

Nikos, good thoughts!

G4A is trying to establish fertile ground for solving big problems and therefore needs these big ideas aired in open dialogue. There may be no resolution other than these ideas are important to discuss and further our understanding of the issues.

We have a 'new' world we are trying to create, a sustainable one versus our current trajectory, which has us accelerating towards impact. We are living well beyond the Earth's regenerative means. Naturally we must use all the tools available to us as we move our world toward a more generous place, versus the pyramid scheme managing our resources today. Open and proprietary need to be ^mixed^ such that we accelerate solutions for, and understanding of, today's rather dire circumstance. And of course we benefit from an open dialogue of ideas for how we want to prioritize our efforts.

Example of the open and proprietary 'mix' ---
The Europa Challenge Alaska team built their own 'measuring' unit. This involved assembling and integrating the 'sensors' for GPS, compass, accelerometer, magnetometer, Wi-Fi, power and communication. These were high school kids ^mixing^ proprietary stuff together with open 'stuff.' The result is an open hardware 'mixed package' yet still managed by an open software system.

Ortho-mosaicking/geo-rectifying tools do not yet exist as open source, but we need to get that open UAS collected imagery and lidar data into an open source platform for analyses. And right now we must rely on proprietary tools for that middle step. So we've got to mix! Until we have open tools for the whole process.

In an ideal world, a real one, we need to smartly combine whatever technology best serves the future. We are going to need both open and proprietary technology to do that.
http://www.edlinesites.net/pages/America_Bridge_Project/Europa_Challenge

Not sure if this adds to or detracts from the dialogue. But like Nikos said, appreciate having it.

-Patrick
 Program Manager
 NASA World Wind

-----Original Message-----
From: ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of labrinos at eled.auth.gr
Sent: Sunday, August 30, 2015 12:15 PM
To: 'Siki Zoltan'; 'Andy Anderson'
Cc: ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] Website feedback

Hi all,

I am really excited about the discussion between Zoltan and Andy and many others. THIS IS ANOTHER REASON WHY SOMEONE SHOULD JOIN. You can never read all this arguments if you are not member of this network. I think we forgot this very simple reason. We can learn a lot from these discussions.

Best regards
Nikos

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Nikos Lambrinos
Associate Professor
Dept. of Primary Education
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki Greece, GR-54124 Tel. +30 2310 991201
Email: labrinos at eled.auth.gr
Web pages: http://labrinos.webpages.auth.gr/digital_geography/
                    http://www.digital-earth.edu.gr/
----------------------------------------------------------------------

-----Original Message-----
From: ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Siki Zoltan
Sent: Sunday, August 30, 2015 10:05 PM
To: Andy Anderson
Cc: ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] Website feedback

Dear Andy,

I think we will not agree. If nobody else is interested in this discussion, let's finish it.

My last comment:

The OSGeo/FOSS4G projects are always looking for contributors. By the help of Geo4All network OSGeo projects can get more contribution not only in the form of trainings, avocations but research from the universities.

If you use a ready and well tested function of an open source GIS (which function can be very important from your researcher point of view) it is not a research FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A FOSS4G PROJECT.

If you publish your research results and mention that OS GIS was used is an avocation FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A FOSS4G PROJECT.

That is my last 2 cents,

Zoltan

On Sun, 30 Aug 2015, Andy Anderson wrote:

But we're talking about reasons why any university should choose to establish such a lab, are we not? These can be very broad, to quote the GeoForAll page: "The goal of the initiative is to promote and enhance education, research and service activities carried out by these stakeholders in the area of Open Geospatial Science & Applications all over the world."

Such research is not specifically defined, and could include application as well as development. In my experience the former drives the latter.

In any case, I think my rewrite of Reason #5 does include the type of research you are describing.

Andy

On Aug 30, 2015, at 2:26 AM, Siki Zoltan  wrote:

Dear Andy,

I don't think so the it is a very specific line of research. We are not now speaking about the whole GIS community, we are speaking about universities where Geo4All labs may be established.

Probably more than 99 percent of the users of FOSS4G software won't look in the source code, but they have the chance.

I have learnt a lot from the source code of other programmers...

Regards,
Zoltan

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015, Andy Anderson wrote:

Hi, Zoltan,

I understand now, but you are referring to a very specific line of research. You wrote the reason #5 as if it referred to all scientific research. I do believe for this purpose it needs to be generally written. I thank you for the inspiration, though.

Andy

On Aug 29, 2015, at 3:34 PM, Siki Zoltan  wrote:

Dear Andy,

you misunderstand me, when your research aim is to improve an algorithm built in the software or you would like to develop a new algorithm you must know the details built in the software. I didn't say that the proprietary software are not useful. I say open source for the above purpose is more useful.

Zoltan

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015, Andy Anderson wrote:

Or, following other suggestions after I finished my tract,

Reason #5: In scientific research the sharing and reproducibility of methods and results is essential. Open-source software and standard formats provide the broadest means for the distribution of analytical procedures and data, and therefore the greatest opportunity to ensure their accuracy through review by other scientists and to become the foundations of new and collaborative research. It can also provide a low-cost way to verify calculations made by proprietary applications.

Andy

On Aug 29, 2015, at 2:41 PM, Andy Anderson
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/geoforall/attachments/20150831/fb7fca90/attachment.html>