OSGeo and GRASS Newsletter

[Arnulf Christl]

Venkatesh Raghavan wrote:
> Hi Arnulf (OSGEO VisCom Chair),
> 
> There was discussion about the OSGEO Newletter before.
> Could we discuss this in the OSGEO "Promotion and
> Visibility Committee" (VisCom)

Hi Venka,
yes, we followed it. This is a good idea and we want to support it. It 
will take some time to integrate all the different topics and 
technologies that are currently used to disseminate information. A 
newsletter is a good thing for several reasons, one of them is (you wont 
believe) that I know of many people in the German public administration 
who cannot access the internet but only receive email. So this 
newsletter should also come in an offline format (prob. PDF) so that 
people can get them by email.

> Does VisCom allow self registration of new "Potential Members".
> If that is OK, maybe Martin, Andrew and myself can sign up and
> pursue the OSGEO Newsletter further.

Yes, you should be able to request for a role which one of the 
Project-Owners (currently Michal Gerlek and me) can confirm.

There has been some discussion (with no formal outcome as far as I can 
see) whether new members need to be formally intrduced/voted into the 
committee by the existing members or whether they can just join. Either 
way we are glad to have active volunteers and will see to your requested 
group to be able to join asap.

Please also subscribe to the dev Mailing List and post your request 
there again - just to be formally right (I do not care too much for this 
detail but as we are a corporation now we have to stick to procedures).

I would suggest that the newsletter is a good reason to start using the 
announce mailing list on a regular basis. We would then invite the press 
to subscribe to the announce list if they wish to be informed.

Best regards,
Arnulf.

> Kind regards
> 
> Venka
> 
> Martin Wegmann wrote:
>> Dear all,
>> yes, indeed it is a good idea, a few questions/ideas below
>>
>> On Thursday 23 March 2006 09:42, Markus Neteler wrote:
>> [...]
>>>> About outreach activities, probably one of the activities that could be
>>>> considered is an online journal or magazine that could be made 
>>>> available
>>>> under Free document or similar licence. Maybe a popular magazine format
>>>> would be better.
>>
>> what  is a popular magazine format? Do you talk about the license, the 
>> design or the kind of software used (tex vs. ?)
>>
>>>> Presently, the GRASS community is publishing a newsletter and maybe 
>>>> some
>>>> others in the OSGEO community are also publishing their own newsletter.
>>>> If such efforts could be combined, it maybe possible to start a OSGEO
>>>> magazine without much effort and money. Maybe Markus can discuss with
>>>> the people who are bringing out the GRASS news letter if they are
>>>> interested in combining efforts with others to bring out an expanded
>>>> OSGEO magazine. OSGEO magazine can server as a forum for reporting 
>>>> recent
>>>> developments and research, country reports, etc. OSGEO magazine could
>>>> also server as a advertising media for OSGEO related companies. Maybe
>>>> company sponsors can be given free advertising space in the magazine.
>>
>> It sounds good but then we need several more positions (advertising 
>> coordinator, final editor (design and topics) and possibly one editor 
>> for each software package/topic). I think it would be great and a 
>> strong competitor for ESRIs etc. magazines but more informative  ,-)
>>
>> I would add kind of tutorial-research article, where the user can redo 
>> some scientific analysis while reading the article, this way users can 
>> more easily get in touch with the software.
>>
>> Perhaps  we should discuss it on the OSGeo list and have a look if 
>> other Newsletter exist and if they are interested as well. Personally 
>> I totally agree to move GRASS-News to an OSGeo-Magazine.
>>
>> regards, Martin
>>
>>
>>
> 
>