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This is an unofficial recap of the OSGF meeting, based on my recollections having spent 10 hours on IRC and the phone. I’m sure the foundation will release an official version of the day’s events, so take my comments with a grain of salt.
As I stated in an earlier post, the name was chosen early on and without an excessive amount of debate. OSGF rolls off the tongue rather easily and has a nice ring to it.
The meeting provided an interesting insight into the (pardon me saying it) geek culture. It was like two meetings in one, and sometimes like five meetings at once when the break-out groups were active. Nearly every participant in the room also had a computer in front of them and many were logged into the IRC discussion channel. So there was the “official” discussion in the room, and the side converstations from IRC, often with two or three simultaneous threads. All in all it worked well and the meeting organizers are to be commended, as are those in Chicago that spent their time furiously transcribing the events for those of us on IRC.
Board Members
An initial board of five members was formed, with an additional four members to be added in the near future. The board members were selected by vote from a list of seven nominees. Eligibility for initial membership was limited to the 25 persons in attendance in Chicago. The initial members elected in no particular order are:
- Frank Warmerdam
- Arnulf Christl
- Gary Lang
- Chris Holmes
- Markus Neteler
See the List of Participants for information on affiliation/project.
Membership
Initial members of the foundation include the five board members and 16 others from the group in attendance at the meeting. Additional members will be added as the foundation gets down to business, bringing the ultimate total to 45.
Break-out Groups
Break-out groups discussed the following topics:
- Community
- Funding
- Governance
- Legal
Legal Issues
Legal issues discussed in a break-out group included copyright, assignment options, and licensing. I’ll let the foundation report the official outcome.
Initial Projects Joining the Foundation
Don’t quote me on this (wait for official word from the foundation) but it appears the list of projects joining the foundation is:
- MapGuide
- Mapbender
- GDAL/OGR
- GRASS
- OSSIM
- MapBuilder
Attendance
At its peak, I counted 58 people on irc, which included approximately 19 of the participants in Chicago. So there were 39 participants from IRC land and an unknown number of folks listening in on the toll-free line. All in all, good attendance.
Gary, would you comment a little what Matt wrote on his blog that:
“One of the ironies of the initial foundation’s project membership is that Mapserver (the project that was the center of the original Mapserver Foundation) is not yet a member! While this may seem strange at first, the reasoning is so that the Mapserver community can vote on the matter. Other community-based efforts such as QGIS are likely waiting to hear from their users as well.”
What is that voting for? Does it mean QGIS Community is going to decide to join or not to join OSGF through voting?
My perception is that MapServer has a process they will use to decide on joining OSGF. I don’t know what that process entails, nor do I know how a vote, if any will be conducted. This topic was not discussed during the meeting, at least not in the part I could hear.
I was asked if QGIS wanted to join the foundation and I said that “QGIS would wait and see”. At this point I’m personally waiting to see the formalized documents that describe the foundation’s roles, responsibilities, and relationship to member projects. Once that is available, we will solicit input from the QGIS community and determine how to move forward with regard to membership.
“QGIS would wait and see”
Good idea!
Personally, I’m very enthusiastic and I strongly believe OSGF will be a huge step forward for Open Source GIS Community. Althought, I also think it’s good idea to take this step slowly and deliberately.
Inspite of my break of QGIS I’m still tracking the project and looking forward what’s new about OSGF too.
Thanks!