[Geo4All] UN SDG mapping book updates

[Suchith Anand]

Anthony,

Thank you for your email and I am happy we are having free and open discussions and this is exactly the openness spirit  that we need.  I welcome your ideas and inputs. I have made very clear I am fully supporting the need for both properitery and open solutions.  GeoForAll is fully open and all the major properitery GIS vendor staff are members of our mailing lists and we welcome everyone. 

I was specifically talking about this particular book on UN SDG goals which is the effort of many commissions  and colleagues, so it is important there is open discussions on where is it published and it should not be used indirectly to promote any vendors agenda . Many of our ICA colleagues at the ICA Commission on Open Source Geospatial Technologies have been working hard over the years for expanding geoeducation opportunities for all forever.  

I hope I also got a right to say my opinion. For decades  most of the developing world never got real opportunity to learn GIS and now only  we are getting that opportunity in true spirit and I am determined that poor peoples voice is heard (they do not have sponsorship power as vendors). 

The fact that we having this discussion in a free and  open environment and everyone is welcome to share their inputs and ideas is the strength of open communities and open principles. 

Best wishes,

Suchith

________________________________________
From: Anthony Robinson <acr181 at psu.edu>
Sent: 02 June 2017 9:53 AM
To: Anand Suchith; geoforall at lists.osgeo.org; Menno-Jan Kraak; sg at icaci.org
Subject: RE: [Geo4All] UN SDG mapping book updates

Suchith,

One way to approach this situation is to treat it as a conflict. Another way
to approach this situation is to treat it like an opportunity for mutually
beneficial collaboration.

Is it necessarily true that any book published by Esri Press must
necessarily be "against the spirit of openness in geo education"? I'm not
sure how you can make that judgment before anything's even been written, let
alone published. And how would it be "neutral" for the ICA to obey your
directive and not ever collaborate with proprietary vendors? Did you know
that Esri Press publishes the Semiology of Graphics, along with quite a few
other titles that don't even talk about software?

The ICA book effort will involve the collective work of dozens of ICA
commissions with the idea of showing how maps can truly matter for global
problems. I know you don't believe it's possible, but consider that Esri and
other companies may in fact actually care about global problems and be
working to solve them. It's possible to run a business that makes money and
also be a good citizen. Also consider that ICA represents cartographers
around the world. Most of those cartographers have jobs in a wide range of
settings, including in for-profit companies. A GeoForAll MOU doesn't prevent
ICA from doing things that GeoForAll doesn't love.

Once again I feel like the GeoForAll effort is hampered by a strict dogma
that tests every geospatial initiative with a purity evaluation that
virtually nothing will be able to meet. And once again it's an argument
against doing something with no proposed viable alternative.

Finally, I'll add that I think it is quite problematic that there appears to
be no collaborative decision making process by which GeoForAll speaks out on
issues like this one. If I'm wrong about that I'd be happy to be corrected.

Regards,

-Anthony

Anthony C. Robinson, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Geography
Director for Online Geospatial Education, John A. Dutton e-Education
Institute
Assistant Director, GeoVISTA Center
The Pennsylvania State University
sites.psu.edu/arobinson/



-----Original Message-----
From: GeoForAll [mailto:geoforall-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of
Suchith Anand
Sent: Friday, June 2, 2017 9:39 AM
To: geoforall at lists.osgeo.org; m.j.kraak at utwente.nl; sg at icaci.org
Subject: [Geo4All] UN SDG mapping book updates

Dear  colleagues,

As you are aware there is some excellent work done by our ICA colleagues by
highlighting the value of cartography by “mapping” the UN sustainable
development goals. Silvana and our colleagues have done excellent work
highlighting the importance of openness in reducing inequalities.

I believe this is a very important activity  but recently  I came to know
that the book  proposal that is planned  to be developed from this is being
planned to be published through a properitery GIS vendor ‘s publishing
house. Hence I have written to Menno-Jan requesting him to consider
publication on this important issue through  any neutral academic publishing
houses as publishing this through properitery GIS vendor ‘s publishing
company is against the spirit of openness in geo education and ICA-OSGeo MoU
.  I think it is important to have both properitery and open solutions but
ICA as an organisation should be neutral . Hence very important not to
promote Properitery vendor agenda esp in UN SDG work by having the
properitery GIS vendor publishing this. As an ordinary ICA volunteer  I am
disappointed to see this.  I am grateful that Menno-Jan has understood my
concern and I hope this will be rectified asap.

I will keep you updated on the developments.

Best wishes,

Suchith







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Please do not use, copy or disclose the information contained in this
message or in any attachment.  Any views or opinions expressed by the
author of this email do not necessarily reflect the views of the
University of Nottingham.

This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an
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