Hi all,
I have recently seen several discussions where the geographical
representation sentiment, perceptions toward OSGeo being US or North
America centric and so on and so forth get in (the way). So I could
pick one randomly to react on. I'll pick this because of its title :-)
We should not be blind for perspectives and try to deal with them with
care. However, there is _no one_ I know that is trying to purposely
make the foundation centric to any specific country. As Cameron
rightly mentioned in a previous email, there are countries that are
native English speaking and that makes communication easy at the
global community level for them. This same issue can be a problem for
others though and can help the bias towards the largest English
speaking communities on this planet even if it should not. I know that
our members from North America actually do care a lot about what's
going on across their borders. It is frustrating to see they are put
into a defensive position too many times. They should not be and we,
as a community have to avoid that from happening.
Again referring to Cameron's excellent email, we are a Meritocracy and
not a political body that has to deal with country politics, disputed
areas and global trade. This is actually the point that is most
important to me when it comes to representation. I don't want to see
geographical representation come into the discussion at all! :-) Every
charter member of the community can make his/her choice based on
personal considerations. I do consider that myself when voting, and I
do consider giving a (higher) vote when it comes to balanced
representation, be it geographical, gender or other factors. But in
the end what counts for me is how much merit that person has and what
we see that person brings to the community.
So my call upon the community: forget about geographical
representation as a driving factor or political means in discussions
or voting! My email gets to you if I would send it from Khartoum in
the same way it does now that I'm sending it from Rome. Do you care?
Or instead do you care about the content? Focus on the last when
voting; what is the added value of that person as a board member to you.
Ciao,
Jeroen
On Jun 13, 2008, at 8:21 AM, RAVI KUMAR wrote:
Hi All,
some new blood is added to the OSGeo charter members, and now we are
poised to get new board members too. If one can remember, there was
a discussion on the geographical representation of the board members
after the last election.
It is pertinent to have a global representation of OSGeo board
members.
I hope the election to Board members will yield results that will
represent a global interest of OSGeo.
In spite of the fact that internet is nearly erasing the political
boundaries, still in countries like India, Geospatial technologies
are yet to make a mark in semi-urban and rural societies.
OSGeo Coding verses OSGeo software usage(ratio):
Unlike the developed world where the ratio is evenly matched or
slightly tilted towards users, in India it is very highly tilted
towards OSGeo software usage.
So the priorities are different in promoting OSGeo.
Cheers
Ravi Kumar
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