[Ica-osgeo-labs] "Geo4All - MapStory Challenge" - FOSS4G 2016 Student Competitions

[Dimitris Kotzinos]

Hi Jeff, all

before taking a final position on your - admittedly - strong note on the
Geo4All awards, I would like to ask some clarifications and offer some
comments hoping that this will facilitate the discussion and avoid
making it a conflict. Let me say first that I understand the reasoning
saying that an award funded by OSGEO, in the main OSGEO event, should
focus on OSGEO software.
So some requests for clarifications first:
- how do you see the award selection working: students are allowed to
submit when they are using at a 100% OSGEO projects? What happens when
for a specific student task an OSGEO project is not available? What
happens when the student add his/hers own source code to do something
(which could be in the form of a tool or an external library)? Do we
talk about full projects or also about non-OSGEO libraries used in
student projects?
Personally I would understand more a position that says that the
projects should use substantially (by this I mean playing a crucial role
in the project) at least one OSGEO project.
- I was confused by your answer to Gert-Jan: if the LOC has full
authority, then the instructions apply only to the Geo4All community?
- do you see this as a decision to be made by the OSGEO President or the
Board or by the Geo4All community, which in principle includes also
people not related to OSGEO (since it is a joint OSGEO/ISPRS/ICA initiative?
- why do you differentiate between the global and the regional FOSS4G?
Since now at the European and the NA FOSS4G are becoming equally big
with the international one (with their own limitations of course) I
cannot understand why you differentiate. At least from a Geo4All
perspective (but also from my perspective for OSGEO's future) I cannot
see the difference.

Some comments, if anyone is interested: from my academic (and thus maybe
limited or biased) perspective this is not a good way to advance. I
always try to get students to use the best tool they have for the job,
with one of the most important factors of choosing the best to be its
openness both in terms of software license but also (if relevant) in
protocols/standards and data used. So for me it would be at least weird
to tell them (important to note that we are teaching these students)
that excellence and quality and openness come after the OSGEO brand.
Also I think that most (I would even go as far as to say that all) of
our projects are of top quality and if a student is looking for a tool
to implement a project idea then they will be his/hers first choice.
Imposing a purity restriction actually gives a message that we are not
so confident on that.

Please take this as an effort to discuss this, as I said I understand
also the reasoning behind Jeff's message. I am not yet convinced that
these reasons supersede other principles and also provide more benefits
than the issues they raise.
My 2c and thanks for listening,

Best regards,
Dimitris