Fwd: [GRASS5] Talking about an umbrella GFOSS foundation

[Otto Dassau]

Hi,

I also think it would be important to have a GFOSS "umbrella" Foundation 
for many reasons and GRASS should definitely be a part of it!

For this reason I agree, that Markus should participate in the meeting.
I am curious about their intentions and what potential role the GRASS 
project should/can play within this foundation.

BTW: I am happy that we discuss this topic before the meeting takes place 
on the various mailing lists!

  thanks
    Otto

On Fri, 13 Jan 2006, Helena Mitasova wrote:

>> 
>> 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)
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> grass5 mailing list
>>> grass5 at grass.itc.it
>>> http://grass.itc.it/mailman/listinfo/grass5
>>> 
>> 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/
>
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>