[GRASS-user] Re: [GRASS-dev] GRASS OSGEO Steering Committee

[Pericles S. Nacionales]

Amen to that, Markus!  I second/third/whatever Helena and Maciej's 
nominations and  I really hope that Glynn and Radim reconsider accepting 
their nominations.  The PSC may sound like bureaucracy but it is what 
you make of it.  Thus, the need for you to be a part of it.

-Perry

Markus Neteler wrote:
> Thanks, Dave, for putting energy into the GRASS PSC discussions.
> I accept the nomination for the PSC.
> 
> A few remarks:
> I think of OSGeo as an "umbrella" foundation [1]; it would be "funny"
> if GRASS didn't make part of it. What's such a foundation without
> a "pure" GIS project? And, since the GRASS project itself makes use
> of some proposed member projects, we can just gain from joined
> efforts.
> If you make part of something you can much easier control it.
> Staying outside will just keep us in the niche.
> 
> However, I strongly agree with Helena (earlier postings from her)
> to work against unnecessary bureaucracy. We should keep the our
> decision process as free as possible since this worked for us pretty
> well. The PSC should take care of formal things as much as needed
> but GRASS should certainly remain community driven.
> Helena has quite some experience due to her participation in
> the Open GRASS Foundation efforts in the early 90's (not sure if she
> was actually a member of it) which became pretty complicated in
> the end. We don't want to repeat that, I think. But OSGeo.org is
> much more community driven and I am sure that it will stay like
> that (just see who is active there!).
> 
> For the skeptical people: due to the GRASS discussions, OSGeo
> already changed the original proposal of a "contributor agreement".
> This indicates that things are not set in stone and that we - as
> GRASS people - do have influence, even on the procedures.
> 
> I would accept that GRASS contributors sign some document to ensure
> that they know what they do: contributing to a GPL'ed project and
> no knowingly having copyright infringments in their submissions.
> This (low) level of legal control we should follow. In fact, we would
> just continue to follow it because in 1999 we did a rigorous source
> code verification and removed quite a bit from the repository which
> wasn't GPL compliant. Since we already do so, we can also ask
> contributors to send a GPG signed message stating this (or Fax or
> whatever is appropriate).
> 
> Finally: I would appreciate if some people who already declined
> to make part of the proposed PSC would think again about it. We
> need accepted and well known people in the PSC to make it a reliable
> group which is well embedded in the GRASS community. Let's make the
> GRASS PSC special with the needed conformity for OSGeo.
> 
> cheers
> Markus
>  
> [1] http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/wiki/Potential_tasks_and_responsibilities
>