Board Update

[Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)]

Hi all,
Here are a few main points going through my head and items I'm dealing
with.  I'm sure a couple of them will get you thinking and raise more
questions...fire away!

I presented at and am following up from the http://mil-oss.org event.
It was a good group of folks to talk to and lots of geospatial interest.
Distribute a fair bit of OSGeo marketing material and had several 1-on-1
talks afterwards.  Two specific example points I've been following up
on:
--- Discussing the open source Opticks project and how/where to work
closer with those at Ball Aerospace working on this open source package.
Had good reciprocal discussions with their lead.
--- Met with founders of http://opensourceforamerica.org and Mark Lucas
- and discussed how OSGeo can be involved.  It's a volunteer group,
aiming to develop whitepapers, etc. to help educate government and
others about open source.  Geospatial aspect is of broad interest, they
invited OSGeo to help by leading the working group on this.  It's part
of our mandate already so I tentatively said OSGeo could help insomuch
as we are able.

I also presented at and am following up with attendees at
http://wherecamp5280.org (on my return trip from mil-oss).  Another good
meeting with like-minded folks like Peter Batty, Brian Timoney, Steve
Coast and many more...
--- Several breakout discussions on education/academia, involving those
from Denver University, pointed to the use of an existing "GIS Core
Curriculum" document that could be used as an outline for building
training material that profs could use.
--- We also discussed a few other ideas for education/training, as well
as general talk about OSGeo and its direction.  
--- One question that I was asked, and would like to put to the board as
well, was "Where do you see OSGeo in 5 years?"  It caught me slightly
unawares and I was called away before I could really talk through it.
How about you?

I've been preparing for FOSS4G
-- Finalising travel plans, starting to coordinate the annual general
meeting and our booth at the event.  Helping outline needs for BoF
meetups and ready to help with Code Sprint planning as well.

Following from our last board meeting, there has been some recurring
discussion and drafting of an OSGeo position paper on the USA ARRA
Broadband Mapping issues brought forth by Brian Hamlin.  Brian's done a
lot of background info. collection and laid out his thoughts.  We didn't
meet some of his timing expectations, but do have a small group
interested in pursuing other venues for discussion.  Brian, David
Bitner, Andrew Turner and myself continue to discuss and tweak a letter
laying out some ideas.  Andrew has a contact at the White House that is
interested in our thoughts, so we're working on a letter to that effect.
Rough rough rough draft here:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/ARRA_Broadband_Mapping - though we are still
kicking around many thoughts.

2008 Annual Report - I'm in the process of getting some printed locally.
If you'd like me to mail you one or more, let me know.  They are great
for helping show value and activity to potential sponsors and to give a
lazy day reading about what's going on around the globe.  After a few
more tweaks, it will also be available on lulu.com for others to
purchase and print.

Marketing material is pretty much wrapped up.  I've been back and forth
a bit more with designers to finish up our table skirt and some sticker
ideas, but nothing too serious.  A couple more weeks and that phase of
marketing development should be complete!

Systems admin discussions have been brief, but there is some general
agreement to look at hosting with http://osuosl.org.  The only hitch is
we need to buy some hardware for them since they are currently maxed out
on servers.  I'm hoping we can get something spec'd out and lined up
over the next couple months.  Will discuss further with SAC and Finance
committee, but just wanted it on your radar.  Our current hosting is not
the best due to restrictive hardware upgrade options.

Board election is coming up.  I'm pursuing those new nominees that I
believe will help fill the shoes of those who are leaving as well as
spur us to new heights.  I encourage you to think about the specific
needs of the board of directors and OSGeo's long-term health - and start
hunting down potential nominees.

I won't be able to make any meeting this Thursday or Friday as I have
another medical travel trip then.  After that I am taking a couple days
off - actually away from Internet this time ;-)

Hope you are all well,
Tyler

p.s. a recent hard drive crash set me back a bit and likely took some
email with it.  If there are any old emails you are waiting for me to
respond to, don't hesitate to resend them.  

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[Markus Neteler]

Hi Tyler, board,

thanks for your "state of the art" email. A few comments inline:

On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 11:52 PM, Tyler Mitchell
(OSGeo)<[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hi all,
> Here are a few main points going through my head and items I'm dealing
> with.  I'm sure a couple of them will get you thinking and raise more
> questions...fire away!
>
> I presented at and am following up from the http://mil-oss.org event.
> It was a good group of folks to talk to and lots of geospatial interest.
> Distribute a fair bit of OSGeo marketing material and had several 1-on-1
> talks afterwards.  Two specific example points I've been following up
> on:
> --- Discussing the open source Opticks project and how/where to work
> closer with those at Ball Aerospace working on this open source package.
> Had good reciprocal discussions with their lead.

Interesting! Would be curious how it compares to Orfeo toolbox.
http://smsc.cnes.fr/PLEIADES/lien3_vm.htm
...
> --- Several breakout discussions on education/academia, involving those
> from Denver University, pointed to the use of an existing "GIS Core
> Curriculum" document that could be used as an outline for building
> training material that profs could use.
> --- We also discussed a few other ideas for education/training, as well
> as general talk about OSGeo and its direction.

I would suggest to bring this up on OSGeo-Edu. Quite a bit of material
is being created, for example the material by Helena Mitasova and
others. Perhaps also Marketing needs to be somehow involved for
Edu-branding (if it exists) and better knowledge dissemination.


> --- One question that I was asked, and would like to put to the board as
> well, was "Where do you see OSGeo in 5 years?"  It caught me slightly
> unawares and I was called away before I could really talk through it.
> How about you?

The recent mail from Brian goes into the same direction. But worth to be
brought up on the discuss list as well.


[ good stuff dropped ]

> Systems admin discussions have been brief, but there is some general
> agreement to look at hosting with http://osuosl.org.  The only hitch is
> we need to buy some hardware for them since they are currently maxed out
> on servers.  I'm hoping we can get something spec'd out and lined up
> over the next couple months.  Will discuss further with SAC and Finance
> committee, but just wanted it on your radar.  Our current hosting is not
> the best due to restrictive hardware upgrade options.

... I would appreciate to overcome current bottlenecks, I hope we can
come to some agreement with osuosl.org.

[...]

Best
Markus
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[Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)]

Thanks for the follow up questions Markus, more below..

On Mon, 2009-09-14 at 00:41 +0200, Markus Neteler wrote:
> > --- Discussing the open source Opticks project and how/where to work
> > closer with those at Ball Aerospace working on this open source package.
> > Had good reciprocal discussions with their lead.
>
> Interesting! Would be curious how it compares to Orfeo toolbox.
> http://smsc.cnes.fr/PLEIADES/lien3_vm.htm

Hmm, I'll have to check Orfeo out as well - not sure at all about the
difference.

> ...
> > --- Several breakout discussions on education/academia, involving those
> > from Denver University, pointed to the use of an existing "GIS Core
> > Curriculum" document that could be used as an outline for building
> > training material that profs could use.

> I would suggest to bring this up on OSGeo-Edu. Quite a bit of material
> is being created, for example the material by Helena Mitasova and
> others. Perhaps also Marketing needs to be somehow involved for
> Edu-branding (if it exists) and better knowledge dissemination.

Good idea, thanks.  Done.  I've also sent a note to discuss list re: the
outlook/vision discussion.

> > Systems admin discussions have been brief, but there is some general
> > agreement to look at hosting with http://osuosl.org.  The only hitch is
> > we need to buy some hardware for them since they are currently maxed out
> > on servers.  I'm hoping we can get something spec'd out and lined up
> > over the next couple months.  Will discuss further with SAC and Finance
> > committee, but just wanted it on your radar.  Our current hosting is not
> > the best due to restrictive hardware upgrade options.
>
> ... I would appreciate to overcome current bottlenecks, I hope we can
> come to some agreement with osuosl.org.

The OSL has offered to spec out a machine for us, and to help administer
some core services for us.  So I gave them a general idea of the kind of
costs we might be able to handle and we'll see what they come up with.
Then a proposal might come back to the board from SAC.

Thanks again for the thoughtful feedback and followup.

Tyler

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