Foundation Meeting in Phoenix

[Frank Warmerdam]

Folks,

Prior to Monday's announcements (about the MapServer Foundation) the need
for a face-to-face meeting to follow-up from the announcements was considered
a high priority by the group.  On Friday, December 9th, several of us have
planned to meet to discuss ideas about the foundation in Phoenix.

The goal is to do some brainstorming about foundation development and, as
suggested on the list, to develop proposals on how it could work (governance
concepts, membership ideas, sponsorship/funding, etc.).

I would add that foundation and MapServer Cheetah naming
can be discussed at the meeting, though I hope this will not
dominate the meeting.  Gary and Autodesk are reviewing the
naming for the MapServer Enterprise product, but we aren't
intending to dictate anything to them.  I hope folks will give them
some time to consider their options.  The community has spoken
more than clearly on this topic.

Autodesk is sponsoring the meeting facilities and is paying travel
costs for some of us.  They are also bringing in Brian Behlendorf,
a founder of the Apache Foundation and founder and CTO of
Collabnet (www.collabnet.net) which helps companies work in the
open source world.

The meeting is open though there may be limits on the meeting room
capacity.  Anyone interested in attending, and willing to pay their own
way should let us know (on the foundation discuss list would be fine)
so meeting facilities requirements can be accounted for.

Howard is planning to act as an interface between meeting activities
and IRC.  I'll leave it to Howard to talk about that a bit more himself.
We hope that can give those who can't attend a bit of a chance to
contribute, and add some transparency.

Let me add that we all feel bad that this meeting hasn't been
very openly mentioned till now.  I realize this leaves less than
one week for people to plan to attend, and is hardly fair in that
regard.

I also feel bad that my way is being paid while we can't reasonably
ask Autodesk to pay for an undetermined number of additional people
to attend.   To that end, I am prepared to pay up to about $400USD
towards someone elses flight to Phoenix.   Those interested can
email me directly.  I'll pick the person I feel would add the most
value to meeting.

I am cc:ing this to mapserver-users, but I would really like to see
discussion of the meeting and foundation ideas on the foundation
discuss list.   I have already distributed a strawman idea of how I
think the foundation board could be elected on the foundation discuss
list, and I hope interested mapserver folks will join and participate
in the foundation discuss list.

I would add that I am speaking only for myself here.

Best regards,
--
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent