[Journal] Fwd: Re: OSGeo-Journal: proof reading

[Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)]

> I'd like to point out a similar problem with a different article:  
> Landon Blake did a write up on spatial relations. No where in his  
> article is FOSS (or any softwre for that matter) mentioned. It's a  
> theoretical presentation, and the FOSS aspect is totally ignored. I  
> have more misgivings about that article than the Mapguide one.
Hi everyone, I appreciate the open honesty about your concerns Micha,  
but the last thing I want to do now is start dropping content.  I  
would really like to keep this article in because I believe it is  
applicable and interesting to our communities/readers.  Hopefully I  
can convince you of this too.

Please consider the Journal as an extension of the other parts of our  
communities - mailing lists, web sites, conferences, articles, etc.   
These contain a mixture of ideas, theory, discussions, debates, case  
studies and show that we are part of a larger community of interest -  
and a healthy community that has many diverse viewpoints.  How can we  
help capture some of this energy, mind-share and direction?  By  
writing articles and wrapping them up neatly for others to use, re- 
use and share with friends and colleagues.  No one goes to print off  
a lengthy email discussing to share it with their friends - so we  
help do this for them by finding topics of interest to ourselves and  
our communities.

For example, I particularly requested the article from Landon and was  
glad he offered to do it.  I think you would be surprised how  
interesting is will be to many readers.  I thought it was a good  
approach to helping educate readers to some fundamental geospatial  
basics that Landon could then apply in a future article.

I also believe these are important topics that help make the Journal  
more applicable to a much larger audience than only FOSS-related  
readers.  Please remember it is not "The GFOSS Journal" but  
represents a much larger community of interest.  I don't want to run  
the risk of being so tightly focused that we exclude valuable content  
because it doesn't meet precise criteria.  100% pure FOSS-focused  
publications can easily slip into a category that makes them only  
useful to those who already recognise that FOSS has value.

My hope for the Journal is to have it reflect the interests,  
expertise and software tools of those who work in our OSGeo-related  
project communities (and beyond).  I want this to be a publication  
that not only talks about FOSS, but about real people, projects and  
solutions.  In the mean time I appreciate the theoretical articles  
because it helps build knowledge and awareness.  Landon and I spoke  
about this when I twisted his arm to write it - so that it set the  
stage for a FOSS topology implementation example later.   Likewise  
with the WPS topical article, a follow up article will show how  
Mapwindow is used to implement the spec.

In the end, if there are people interested in writing about useful  
and applicable technology, concepts, software, examples, then I want  
to harness their energy and put it into our journal.  First of all it  
engages our communities to learn more about each other in a fuller  
capacity (not just the FOS Software portion of our lives and work),  
but it also encourages people to write more articles that could then  
be re-used in the compilation of a book or for presentations, etc.   
Consider also the alternatives: our community members may go and  
write articles for magazines that usually *only* promote proprietary  
solutions.  I'm not against those publications and think we *should*  
be writing for them too, but I also think that our community is  
advanced enough to be able to help itself grow and teach each other  
in our ways.

In a nutshell, consider the journal as a way of building our image as  
geospatial professionals, not only GFOSS advocates, while also  
promoting open source projects to others who may not know about  
them.  I think we've got a pretty good mix in this volume, though I'd  
like to have more case studies and a few less project introductions  
in the next volume.

I hope that makes some sense and that the authors of SFUF case study  
and Landon don't run away screaming ;-)

Tyler