[OpenLayers-Dev] Sponsorship Credits

[Amos Hayes]

Hello. I'm quite new to the list and OpenLayers use. I'm sorry to jump  
into the middle of this conversation from pretty much out of the blue,  
but I was happy to see a recognition of the need to recognize  
contributions other than cash.

I have been managing a collection of research projects over the last 5  
years or so and one of the things we managed to develop to support  
them all was a framework for user-built interactive cartography (or  
Cybercartography, as it is referred to in our academic circles). We  
called the framework Nunaliit ( http://nunaliit.org ) and in many ways  
over the last few years, the map widget available in our framework has  
been impressively outpaced by OpenLayers development. And this is great.

We simply can't compete (not want to) on this and I feel our time,  
energy, and money would be better spent trying to take what is  
innovative and unique about Nunaliit and working to contribute it to  
OpenLayers (if there is interest) or at least build a complimentary  
javascript library rather than our current stand alone system.

So far, from what I have been able to follow, the discussion seems to  
have taken into account the needs of corporations and individuals. I'd  
like to propose a third collection of folks with different goals to  
keep in mind: academic research organizations. As a research centre in  
a university, our priority as it relates to this thread is recognition  
for our work, the work of our researchers, and the support of *our*  
funders. We are entirely grant funded and restricted from making cash  
donations, however we can pay for software development and other  
services.

We have been able to point funders to our framework web site and there  
is a tangible output of their funding there, along with recognition of  
their contribution. As we look to shift a decent chunk of development  
money to a group effort, we still need a place to point people that  
has our name, logo, contributions, and our funders listed. Perhaps a  
page you host with names and small logos (even for non-cash  
contributions) could simply include a 'More...' link to page on the  
contributor's site? Then we can maintain the additional information on  
what we're doing and who's funding it.

Thanks for your time. I realize this might seem a bit pre-mature in  
our case, but as an academic organization thinking about making an  
investment of significant research funds in OpenLayers over the coming  
years, we're just trying to avoid regrets. Recognition is really  
important in academic work and in securing future research funding. I  
welcome your feedback.

--
Amos Hayes
Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre
Carleton University
ahayes at gcrc.carleton.ca
+1.613.520.2600x8179

On 19-Oct-08, at 1:55 PM, Erik Uzureau wrote:

> One issue that Chris and I talked about in person on friday was how  
> to deal with the sponsorship credits page.
>
> In an earlier mail, chris sent this link to the GDAL project's  
> sponsorship page:
>
>
>  http://gdal.org/credits.html
>
>
> ..which we both thought was a pretty reasonable, simple model we  
> could follow. This sort of thing has helped us to bootstrap things  
> in the past.
>
>
> In live discussion, chris and I managed to chisel it down to the  
> following breakdown:
>
>  * Paying Sponsors: Top of page, in order of sponsorship, $500 and  
> up get logo and text. $500 and down get just text
>
>  * Contributors: Individual/Company Name and link and brief  
> description of contributions to project. NO LOGO
>    * Individual Contributors: Any individual contributor who has  
> produced a  significant feature in trunk.
>    * Corporate Contributor: Any corporate contributor who has  
> produced a significant feature in trunk.
>
>
> ----
>
>  * we distinguish between individual and corporate based on ICLA vs.  
> CCLA
>
>  * PSC votes on inclusion/removal/edit of all sponsor/contributor  
> information
>
>
>
>
> Based on the above information, we are probably at the point where  
> we could start our own openlayers.org/credits.html page. Although we  
> have no sponsors currently, I believe we can get things going by  
> filling out the contributors section. I can get started on that when  
> I'm back to mexico next week if no one else is interested.
>
> At any rate, please reply with thoughts/comments on this.
>
> Erik
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