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

[Martin Wegmann]

hello,

On Monday, 16. April 2007 21:56, Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) wrote:
> > 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.

fully agreee

but we need to be aware of angry developers/users if their alternative is not 
mentioned in e.g. Case Studies. 
I think this discussion it very good to be initated before the first volume 
appears - from the GRASS-News experience I know that there are many 
responses, positive one and of course negative ones - some are quite 
ridiculous but others have the power to trigger long discussions (and this 
100%FOSS idea is the latter one) - it would be a pity if this journal splits 
the community into pro-/contra OSGeo articles. 

>
> 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.

agreed

> 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.

yes, that would be good

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

regards, Martin

> Tyler