[webmap-discuss] OGC Membership for Open Source developers

[Cameron Shorter]

Carl,
I'm CCing the OSGeo discussion list as there are a number of other open 
source GIS projects who are likely to have an interest.

Open Source developers often are self funded and are not prepared to pay 
for membership, however they do contribute significant amounts of code.

So the goal here is for the developers to get access to OGC documents 
(like draft specificatons) and in return they will provide code. 
Membership for an OS developer should be free.  An OS developer could be 
defined as a developer with write access to the repository of specified 
OS projects. We define our roles here: 
http://docs.codehaus.org/display/MAP/Contributers+Guide
You might also want to specify that the developer must be working on a 
OGC spec or similar.

 From an OGC point of view, what are you trying to protect?  IP?
Are you trying to prevent specifications being used before they are 
fully developed?


Carl Reed OGC Account wrote:
> Cameron -
> 
> Good question and suggestions.
> 
> Question back: How would such a membership be structured? For example, I 
> am currently working a MOU with the web/3D (X3D) consortium. Membership 
> is between the organizations. There will be a membership swap. The 
> agreement will allow key staff of W3D to access OGC member documents and 
> provide key OGC staff access to in progress X3D documents. Members of 
> the OGC will not have access to members only documents the W3C and 
> visa-versa.  There are reasons for this approach which have nothing to 
> do about exclusionary or discriminatory behavior.  The primary reasons 
> have to do with intellectual property, copyright, member benefits, and 
> potential membership erosion.
> 
> That said, the OGC is looking at providing an individual membership 
> level (like OASIS does) at a reasonable fee.
> 
> SO, we are not opposed to such a liaison relationship. Any thoughts 
> would be appreciated.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Carl
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cameron Shorter" 
> <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
> To: <webmap-discuss at mail.osgeo.org>
> Cc: <creed at opengeospatial.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 3:01 PM
> Subject: Re: [webmap-discuss] zoomlevels in OWSContext?
> 
> 
>> My employer, ADI Limited, is an OGC Member and there are some other 
>> developers on the list who are likewise OGC Members.
>>
>> It would be good if an Open Source project like Mapbuilder could be 
>> given an OGC member status, which would give developers on that 
>> project access to the OGC resources they need.


-- 
Cameron Shorter
http://cameron.shorter.net