MS RFC 10: Joining the Open Source Geospatial Foundation

[Howard Butler]

All,

I would like to put forward RFC 10, which is a proposal for MapServer 
to decide to actively participate and join the Open Source Geospatial 
Foundation.  I expect that there will be more official information 
about the meeting and its outcome shortly, but there has been plenty 
of weblog activity about the meeting (plus hours worth of IRC logs 
that give even more detail) [1].

http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/development/rfc/ms-rfc-10/

Deciding whether or not to join and participate in OSGeo jumps beyond 
the mere technical (but it also has an impact on the technical side 
of the project), as is the purview of the MTSC.  It is, however, the 
only "official" decision-making body the MapServer project has.  The 
process I propose is as follows:

1.  The MTSC goes through its normal process, including amending the 
proposal as necessary and voting using its normal +1/-1 method. 
After MTSC approval, the proposal is to be put forward to the 
community.

2.  The community is given three days to provide input and vote via 
the website's non-anonymous polling system (the same thing that we 
used for polls over the last few months).  If a majority of the 
community is also in agreement, the proposal to join and participate 
in OSGeo will be considered passed.

OSGeo provides an organization that will be broad in scope and 
specific in purpose that will provide benefits to its member projects 
that they alone could not hope to accomplish.  One of the most 
important is that it will act as an umbrella to all of the projects, 
providing organization and support to the Open Source GIS community. 
This goes and grows way beyond the naming debates and somewhat 
limited foundation announcement that the open letter signatories 
proposed in late November of last year.  In my opinion, there was 
general consensus that a foundation-like entity was needed, but the 
specific implementation of what was proposed earlier was not 
desirable.

Howard


[1]
http://spatialgalaxy.net/?p=8
http://mappinghacks.com/index.cgi/2006/02/04#osgeo-foundation
http://hobu.biz/index_html/osgeo_exists
http://www.directionsmag.com/article.php?article_id=2092
http://zcologia.com/news/146