"Geospatial Foundation" Meeting

[Ari Jolma]

I second Gary. If I want to say something to the founding meeting it is
that please remember the education world. I believe how lecturers and
professors present software to students and what software is used has a
very important effect on how they view them in the future.

Also if research results are implemented as FOSS (e.g., add-ons to QGIS
for example), that is important from the point of view of advancing the
whole culture of FOSS.

Regards,

Ari Jolma


Gary Watry wrote:
> For what my opinion is worth
> 
> This is the way we should be headed.
> 
> I am glad to see people from the open source desktop community there as
> well.
> 
> We are starting to teach open source software as an viable option to
> commercial software. This semester as a no-cost, uncredited course but hope
> to eventually as a accredited course.  Right now we have it in a
> post-graduate course at FSU and will be used in an Undergraduate course at
> FAMU. Two of the softwares we are discussing are Quantum GIS and UDIG. 
> 
> So we have a vested interest in the success of the Open Source Foundation.
> 
> ______________________________________________________________
> Gary L. Watry
> 
> GIS Coordinator
> Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies
> FSU / COAPS
> Johnson Building, RM 215
> 2035 East Paul Dirac Drive
> Tallahassee, Florida 32306-2840
>  
> E-Mail: watry at coaps.fsu.edu
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On
> Behalf Of Paul Ramsey
> Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 12:32 PM
> To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
> Subject: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] "Geospatial Foundation" Meeting
> 
> Dear Community Members,
> 
> In order to help move along the process of starting an "open source  
> geospatial foundation" there will be a face-to-face meeting in  
> Chicago, Westin O'Hare, on February 4, 2006, hosted by Autodesk. In  
> conceiving of this meeting, we have tried (and will continue to try)  
> to follow these principles:
> 
> - Inclusion. Members from a number of different open source projects  
> have been invited (see the list so far below) and Autodesk has  
> offered to pay the travel costs of some of these invitees in order to  
> ensure they can attend if they cannot afford it otherwise. Anyone  
> else is also welcome to attend physically or virtually (see below).
> 
> - Transparency. The agenda for the meeting will be public, and will  
> be revised based on comments and input prior to the meeting. The  
> minutes of the meeting will also be public. Planning materials  
> (backgrounders, attendee lists, agenda) for the meeting on will be on  
> a public site. The whole meeting will be transcribed into IRC in real  
> time, and IRC users will be able to participate via an interlocutor  
> at the meeting.
> 
> The following are some general goals for the meeting (subject to  
> revision/addition/subtraction), which should provide enough certainty  
> that present investments into the starting of the foundation are not  
> wasted on concepts that people are not interested in for the long  
> term future.
> 
> - Agreement in principle on a mission statement or short charter.
> 
> - Agreement in principle on a governance model for the foundation.  
> Deciding whether the foundation should "look like" Eclipse, or  
> Apache, or The Open Group, or some other model entirely.
> 
> - Agreement in principle on a founding Board of Directors. A founding  
> BoD can start to make concrete decisions on things like a name, logo  
> and branding, domains, and so on.
> 
> - Agreement in principle on an acceptable short list of foundation  
> names, to be subjected to further legal research.
> 
> In general, the goal is to establish enough solid agreement on basic  
> issues that a founding BoD can proceed confidently in managing the  
> details in getting the foundation up and running.
> 
> The proposed agenda follows:
> 
> a.      Opening statements and introductions
> b.      Q/A - ~20 min - from IRC, email
> c.      Foundation Goals - what should they be? What should the name be?
> d.      Q/A - ~20 min - from IRC, email
> e.      Foundation Operations - the givens (governance, legal  
> protection, IPR, licenses, funding, community management)
> f.       Q/A - ~20 min - from IRC, email
> g.      Foundation charter, tentative board membership, and action  
> plan established
> h.      Q/A - 20 min - from IRC, email
> i.       Breakout groups: Governance, Legal Issues, Community  
> Management, Funding
> j.       Breakout groups regroup and present their findings
> k.      Results will be gathered and enumerated for the creation of a  
> draft document rolling up the decisions and next steps.
> 
> The minutes of this meeting will be published on the web site within  
> a few days after the meeting adjourns. We will then work hard to  
> publish the final results of the meeting within two weeks of the  
> meeting.
> 
> An attorney who has worked with the creators of Mozilla and other  
> foundations to establish non profits for housing an open source  
> foundation will be present. Establishing an open source foundation is  
> now almost formulaic in Silicon Valley, and we would like to take  
> advantage of those formulas.
> 
> The participants in the meeting thus far are:
> 
> Brian Behlendorf (O'Reilly & CollabNet)
> Chris Holmes (GeoServer/Open Planning Project)
> Claude Philipona (FOSS4GIS Conference/Camptocamp)
> Dave McIlhagga (Mapserver/DM)
> Frank Warmerdam (OGR/GDAL)
> Gary Lang (Tux/Autodesk)
> Gary Sherman (QGIS)
> Gordon Luckett (User/Autodesk)
> Howard Butler (MapServer/UIowa)
> Mark Lucas (OSSIM)
> Paul Ramsey (PostGIS/uDig/Refractions)
> Pericles Nacionales (Mapserver/UMN)
> Robert Bray (Tux/Autodesk)
> Rich Steele (Tux/Autodesk)
> Paul Spencer (Ka-Map/DM)
> Steve Lime (Mapserver)
> Tom Burk (Mapserver/UMN)
> Tyler Mitchell (O'Reilly Author, long-time MapServer Foundation  
> advocate)
> 
> We therefore have room for more on-site attendees. If you are  
> interested in attending to represent one of these communities as a  
> user or you want to propose adding a project to this list, please  
> send an email to:
> 
>    chicago <at> mapserverfoundation.org
> 
> When we reach 25 on-site attendees, we will be at our budget limit  
> for this meeting and have reached a size that we feel comfortable  
> managing. Everyone else can participate through the virtual  
> mechanisms described above.
> 
> Everyone wants to ensure the foundation has a long and successful  
> future, and we know that this requires getting lots of input up  
> front, so the organization starts out heading in the right direction.  
> We hope that many of you can join us in Chicago, and that the rest  
> will join us virtually as well to take part in this process.
> 
> We will soon start posting Chicago location information (a hotel near  
> the airport is the goal) and information for discussion publicly. We  
> will use www.mapserverfoundation.org as the hosting place for virtual  
> connection information, discussion documents, agenda modifications,  
> and other documents associated with the foundation until such time as  
> the name of the foundation is chosen and a site dedicated to it has  
> been established.
> 
> Paul Ramsey
> Gary Lang


-- 
Prof. Ari Jolma
Kartografia ja Geoinformatiikka / Cartography and Geoinformatics
Teknillinen Korkeakoulu / Helsinki University of Technology
tel: +358 9 451 3886 address: POBox 1200, 02015 TKK, Finland
Email: ari.jolma at tkk.fi URL: http://www.tkk.fi/~jolma