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

[Jeff McKenna]

Hi Dimitris,

My message was referring to the FOSS4G-Bonn student awards, and as that 
annual event is the flagship OSGeo event, I believe that the students 
should be recommended to use one of the 30 or so projects under the 
OSGeo umbrella (which includes 10 projects in incubation, that are 
starving for community building).  Promoting this to the students would 
be wonderful, and yes of course some students will develop their own 
code, but they will have first reviewed the OSGeo stack, and they will 
learn what "OSGeo" is in fact, by doing that for this project/award.

But your points are good, in fact yes this is more an issue for the 
OSGeo Conference Committee; unfortunately this initial challenge idea 
was not brought to a public list at first, it was sent direct to me and 
others, and I of course responded :)

Sometimes the best thing that can happen is public discussions, instead 
of those private messages.

I am fine with whatever the GeoForAll community decides together.  I 
have made my recommendations, and ask that you keep them in mind.  I 
don't see me as having any power at all, just an experienced person, who 
was sent the idea initially and took the time to respond.

I hope that is fair :)

Night all.

-jeff







On 2015-09-30 8:34 PM, Dimitris Kotzinos wrote:
> 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
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-- 
Jeff McKenna
MapServer Consulting and Training Services
http://www.gatewaygeomatics.com/