Fwd: [GRASS5] Talking about an umbrella GFOSS foundation

[Helena Mitasova]

>
> I fully support the idea for creating an umbrella GIS FOSS foundation  
> with GRASS project being one of the core members.
> GIS is still a relatively specialized field so an umbrella foundation  
> is essential.
> The Lausanne meeting can give it a very strong start. Let me know if  
> anything would be needed from me,
>
> Helena
>
>
> On Jan 13, 2006, at 9:15 AM, Markus Neteler wrote:
>
>> Dear GRASS Community,
>>
>> some of you will have followed the discussions about the
>> "Open Letter to the MapServer community" and the announcement
>> of the creation of the MapServer Foundation (mapserverfoundation.org).
>> For details please refer to the mailing list archives [1] and [2].
>>
>> Apparently there has been a debate as well about the strategy
>> and future mission of this foundation. In particular, if other
>> GIS FOSS related projects should be involved or not.
>> In the GRASS mailing lists the idea of creating a sort of GRASS
>> foundation was as far as I know not discussed widely. However,
>> there have been discussions at various meetings (international
>> such as Trento 2002, Bangkok 2004 and also some national GRASS
>> conferences).
>>
>> Personally I see a need for a sort of institutionalization
>> of our project to become more independent from single persons
>> and institutions. I feel that establishing a corpus for fund
>> raising/re-investment and other good things a foundation could
>> do (see Mapserver related pages from Tyler Mitchell [3]), is needed
>> to move forward. As you all know, there are a couple of successful
>> FOSS foundations out there (Apache, PostgreSQL, R-stats, ...).
>>
>> The idea of a GRASS Foundation is not new [4] and it was
>> even in a sense successful as the OGF became the today's
>> OGC. However, it makes sense to talk about a wider *umbrella*
>> foundation to better serve the communities of the various
>> GIS related projects. A first attempt for "growing together"
>> was the decision in 2004 to merge the GRASS & Mapserver
>> conferences (FOSS4G 2006, Lausanne). Then, in November 2005,
>> the Mapserver Foundation was born - initially dedicated to
>> Mapserver only. Recently, the involved people decided to open
>> this foundation to other projects as well [5], and also to
>> rename it [6], [2].
>>
>> Like a few other core team members of GIS FOSS projects, I
>> was contacted two days ago to participate in an upcoming
>> meeting in the beginning February where this "opening up"
>> or "reconstructing" of such a foundation will be discussed.
>> As far as I understood (!), the current Mapserver Foundation
>> is not yet formally established.
>>
>> The basic question is now if the GRASS project wants to
>> make part of general purpose "GIS FOSS umbrella foundation"
>> (with whatever name then).
>>
>> I am interested to participate in the meeting and see
>> how things evolve and which role the GRASS project already
>> plays or may play. To me it looks like an important strategic
>> issue to be present there - a big "GIS FOSS umbrella foundation"
>> without GRASS would be somewhat strange.
>>
>> What do you think?
>>
>> Best regards
>>
>>  Markus
>>
>>
>> [1] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gis.mapserver.user/15262
>> [2] Mapserverfoundation.org:
>>      
>> http://lists.mapserverfoundation.org/pipermail/discuss/2006-January/ 
>> date.html
>> [3] http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/community/foundation/background
>> [4] Historically:
>>     * Open GRASS Foundation (OGF) related:
>>        http://grass.itc.it/pipermail/grass5/1993-March/000686.html
>>        http://grass.itc.it/pipermail/grass5/1995-January/001923.html
>>     * European GRASS Foundation (EGF) related:
>>        http://grass.itc.it/pipermail/grass5/1993-March/000718.html
>>        http://grass.itc.it/pipermail/grass5/1993-December/001278.html
>>
>> [5]  
>> http://lists.mapserverfoundation.org/pipermail/discuss/2005-December/ 
>> 000211.html
>>     (open up the planned meeting)
>> [6]  
>> http://lists.mapserverfoundation.org/pipermail/discuss/2005-December/ 
>> 000216.html
>>     (naming of foundation)
>>
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>>
> Helena Mitasova
> Dept. of Marine, Earth and Atm. Sciences
> 1125 Jordan Hall, NCSU Box 8208,
> Raleigh NC 27695
> http://skagit.meas.ncsu.edu/~helena/
>
>
Helena Mitasova
Dept. of Marine, Earth and Atm. Sciences
1125 Jordan Hall, NCSU Box 8208,
Raleigh NC 27695
http://skagit.meas.ncsu.edu/~helena/