"Geospatial Foundation" Meeting

[Arnulf Christl]

Ari Jolma wrote:
> 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

Thank you Ari and Gary. This should be something that the foundation can 
help foster. In return a group of universities could provide for a 
distributed network of geospatial services and give the developers 
access to maintain the code.
Basically this is already happening a grassroots processes all over the 
place and a foundation would only help to make it a lot more efficient.

Please consider of subscribing to this list and further discussion there.
http://lists.mapserverfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

Best regards,
Arnulf Christl.

> 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
> 
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