[Web Comm] RE: [OSGeo-Board] Service Provider Directory

[Frank Warmerdam]

Tyler Mitchell wrote:
> I saw this idea as being a simple opt-in list of businesses that provide 
> support/development services for OSGeo projects.  Nothing more or less.  
> People want to know that there are consultants that can, for example, 
> help them implement mapbuilder.  To get on the list, the company must 
> check off boxes to identify which osgeo projects they provide support 
> for.  We'll leave it to them to know enough about whether they really 
> support them or not.  I would avoid having any free-form text entry at 
> all, so that there is no way to 'compete' between entries.
> 
> The complexities of this idea are all related to making judgement calls 
> about businesses who sign up.  Let's avoid that altogether by being 
> totally open.  We could annually review the list, with the option to 
> follow-up directly with each business if there were 
> questions/confusion.  We can react to complaints, of course, but I see 
> it as a very hands-off public services directory.

Folks,

Whew, I see I opened a can of worms!

In my not-so-humble opinion, we should not be applying a "open source enough"
test to entries.  We will presumably only list technologies for them to
select from that have at least some tangential applicability to our space.
If any organizations wants to identify as having expertise then they can be
listed.  This is why I'm not keen on a "supports osgeo's mission and goals"
proviso.

For some specific cases raised, I think one of the technologies listed would
be "MapGuide" and Autodesk or MGE solution providers could list themselves.
The skill set is transferrable between the open source and enterprise
versions.

For that matter, folks want to know which service providers have Oracle
and ArcGIS/SDE integration experience, so I would expect to list those as
technologies even though they are clearly not open source.

On the whole diluting sponsorship issue, I see the point.  In previous
discussions there has been a great concern about unfairness if we treat
sponsors differently than other providers.  Clearly there will be other
things we do on the web site to highlight sponsors.

I personally wouldn't mind doing some things for sponsors on the service
provider page as long as it is really really clear that it relates to
their sponsorship  and it doesn't exclude others.  This might include
listing them always at the top of the list (with special sponsor
level headings) and possibly allowing them a logo and a bit of
textual description.

But unless it is felt to be really important to the sponsorship program,
I'd rather just keep it simple, and avoid this additional complexity with
it's attendant risk of backlash.

In short, I agree with Tyler!

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org