[UN] Budget proposal 2019

Tue Jan 15 16:16:17 PST 2019

Hello Maria,

I do appreciate your passion towards this initiative and the outreach work that you do. 

However, I am very uncomfortable with the approach outlined in the proposal below.

The UN should appreciate the value of open source spatial software by now and be willing to contribute back to the open source community.

Therefore, I believe that the activities suggested below should be funded by the UN and not OSGeo.

Regarding the items in the proposal below:

Item 1)   If this is for a UN Project and they value OSGeo representation, then that should be a UN Project cost and not an OSGeo cost.

Item 2)   I’m not sure what this is, but I interpret it to be for the preparation of QGIS training material specific for UN staff. If so, then again this should be a UN funded activity. The UN may wish to view this as a voluntary contribution that they make to the QGIS Community in part recognition of the benefit that they are receiving from the use of the QGIS Open Source software. This is also an activity that could be undertaken by an commercial organisation that specialises in working with this type of open source software.

Item 3)  I’m not sure what this is, but it also sounds like an activity that would be for UN benefit. If so, then again, they should be paying.

IMO, we need to push back against the expectation that open source is free (as in free beer). There is always a cost to produce and maintain open source and I would like to see those who benefit from using the software to be encouraged to contribute back to the open source communities.

I have been working actively for many years within one of the UN Agencies and am making some real headway towards this agency accepting the value of an open source approach to a specific problem that they have.  I can’t discuss this publicly yet. I’m sure that you’ll appreciate that the wheels can move quite slowly at times as people become comfortable with what is in reality a new approach for them and they have internal processes that need to be followed.

If I have misunderstood the intent of the proposed items in your email, then I apologise in advance.

Kind regards,

Bruce

> On 16 Jan 2019, at 06:03, Maria Antonia Brovelli <maria.brovelli at polimi.it> wrote:
> 
> Dear All
> it is time to make the proposal to OSGeo Board for the activities of the UN Committee in 2019.
> We have the UN Open GIS Initiative entering in its third year of activities; many people of the UN staff have been trained in QGIS and PostGIS (more than 100) thanks to volunteers of GeoForAll. 
> Currently, there is the third edition of QGIS (Victoria Rautenbach chairing the initiative; Thomas Mueller and Cameron Green mentoring)and the second one of PostGIS (Ivana Ivanova chairing, Paolo Corti, Oliva Martin Sanchez, and Gregory Giuliani mentoring). 
> 
> About UN Open GIS Initiative the request will be:
> 1) support for attending a couple of project meeting and training - (one will be probably in South Sudan) 5000$
> 2) one UN OSGeo Challenge (similar to what we organized last year) to prepare a new training material course on PostGIS (the one we are using, which is a Boundless one, has to be updated and re-built considering the experience of the trainees and trainers). The budget for this initiative will be 3000 $, the same as the initiatives of last year. In case we got financed, Ivana Ivanova and I can be the mentor of the winner of the Challenge.
> 3) Moreover, we can ask some budget for another training course about SDGs and open data/open software. Last year Codrina Maria Ilie was the winner and the training material is almost ready and will be released soon (it is about the computation of SDG indicator 9.1.1 using QGIS). The budget can be 3000 $, the same as last year and Serena Coetzee and I can be the mentor.
> Obviously if you there is somebody who wants to offer her/himself as a mentor, they are more than welcome!
> Please let me know if you have comments. If none, I will proceed with the proposal.
> Bets regards,
> Maria
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Please pay attention to these two opportunities:
> 
> A new IJGI Special Issue
> "State-of-the-Art in Spatial Information Science"
> (deadline for submissions: 1 may 2019)
> 
> http://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijgi/special_issues/ISPRS_2020_Nice <http://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijgi/special_issues/ISPRS_2020_Nice>
> 
> A new Transaction in GIS  Special Issue
> "Open Source Geospatial Science, Software and Education"
> (deadline for abstract submissions: 15 february 2019)
> https://wol-prod-cdn.literatumonline.com/pb-assets/assets/14679671/Open%20Geospatial%20Science%20Software%20and%20Education.pdf <https://wol-prod-cdn.literatumonline.com/pb-assets/assets/14679671/Open%20Geospatial%20Science%20Software%20and%20Education.pdf>
> 
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------
> Prof. Maria Antonia Brovelli
> Professor of GIS and Digital Mapping
> Politecnico di Milano
> 
> P.zza Leonardo da Vinci, 32 - Building 3 - 20133 Milano (Italy)
> Tel. +39-02-23996242 - Mob. +39-328-0023867,   <mailto:maria.brovelli at polimi.it>maria.brovelli at polimi.it <mailto:maria.brovelli at polimi.it>
> https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3161-556 <https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3161-556>
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
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