Hi Jeff,As president of OSGeo I've seen in you some admirable qualities. You regularly travel around the world, talking passionately and eloquently about OSGeo and Open Source. You monitor and contribute to many email lists. For people "in the back row of OSGeo" you do a great job of encouraging people to step forward and get involved.
But, in supporting other OSGeo leaders, who might have a vision that was not directly derived or aligned with your own, I've found your opinions to often be very obstructive, confrontational, and lacking of any innovative vision to resolve differences. This is inappropriate from a community leader. It is the sort of behaviour likely to turn people away from a community, and have them look for another community to work with.
With regards to the relationship between OSGeo and LocationTech:* Could you please acknowledge that Andrea is also working toward the best interests of the Open Source Geospatial community, even if she is using a different path and vehicle to achieve this.
* Could you please treat those who have a different opinion to you, Andrea in this case, with respect and dignity, even if in your eyes they are wronging you or what you believe in.
* Rather than just tell LocationTech what they shouldn't do, provide some vision and leadership and suggest what should be done instead. (This is much harder). You may note that Andrea has answered your questions as best she could in her FAQ.
---A bit of background and reality check: From memory, the FOSS4G 2009 PCO was paid ~ $70,000 for managing the FOSS4G conference, and OSGeo guaranteed the conference, not the PCO. OSGeo was lucky in 2012, when FOSS4G was cancelled [1] and OSGeo didn't have to pay cancellation expenses. Based on estimates of exposure for recent conferences, this would likely have been a lot over $100,000. So being paid $90,000 to run and guarantee a conference is in the right ball park.
Year after year, after FOSS4G, there is discussion about the loss of knowledge between conference organising teams. There is a clear opportunity to have a PCO, or person take on a perpetual role supporting FOSS4G events. For the first time, LocationTech has put a practical proposal forward to fill this role, and help make FOSS4G better. This is great, it would be solving a real problem. We might not accept the proposal, but we certainly should not accuse LocationTech of foul play.
Jeff, you've dismissed my request for a vision. (I acknowledge that compiling a vision is difficult, and typically involves a collation of lots of ideas from within the community). Here are some questions which might help:
* Should FOSS4G be run at minimum cost to delegates, or should it aim to make money to fund OSGeo?
* There are many valuable activities which OSGeo doesn't implement due to not having volunteers step up, or having people step for a limited period. Should OSGeo hire someone to implement such activities? Eg: Hire someone or some organisation to support knowledge sharing between foss4g conferences, have someone manage marketing, have someone chase sponsors, ... Ie. Should OSGeo act as a low capital or high capital organisation?
* Is there anything wrong with there being both low capital (OSGeo) and high capital (LocationTech) organisations, both of which address different users and capture difference communities? Both organisations are running effectively now. Should they be restructured? If so how?
* There has been mention of a MOU between LocationTech and OSGeo. Fine. But what next? A MOU is just a first step, a means to an end, and by itself is of little practical value.
* A lot of thought was put into these questions and captured into the OSGeo Board Priorities [2] a few years back. Do these priorities still capture OSGeo goals? Please don't say what you don't want without encouraging and ideally contributing to what you want instead.
* Note, if you don't articulate a practical vision to follow, it will by default be determined by someone else.
[1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2012_Lessons_Learned [2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_of_Directors#Board_Priorities On 14/11/2015 12:24 am, Jeff McKenna wrote:
Hi Andrea,You seem to value the OSGeo community so much, so much in fact that you would smoothly court all 3 of our bidders for OSGeo's only source of revenue and publicity all year, our beloved global FOSS4G event. It is true that it is "ridiculous", from an organization that (apparently formerly) focused on commerce, to ask OSGeo to pay you (90,000 USD), to take control of OSGeo's only event (worth 1,000,000 USD), and then think that this is a fine since you offer (my answer: a polite no thank you) of handling losses for OSGeo's FOSS4G event, in maybe one of the strongest regions for attendees in the world? If we are speaking of commerce, this doesn't make sense.I think Maxi said it well, that we all are trying to understand your motives here. How about an MoU together, exchange of official letters, big press release, creating a working group of half LocationTech and half OSGeo board members, an exchange of talks at each others events, become the sustaining sponsor of OSGeo; instead, here we are.If you value the OSGeo community so much, why would you create a separate foundation with the exact same goals, and then later come back to the other foundation saying "no, we love you. Give us the right to run your event". Ha, pardon?-jeff On 2015-11-12 7:35 PM, Andrea Ross wrote:Jeff, It is really hard to discuss this topic because you make stuff up. The concerns stem from the fantasy rather than reality. The FAQ produced recently<https://docs.google.com/document/d/15x1Q3J9OPM95jEkeZhYlU0xB5uO9V9NCOI28g5B_Yqc/edit?usp=drive_web>does a pretty good job covering the situation. In 3 years, so far as I know, absolutely no harm has come to OSGeo as a result of LocationTech, and certainly not from any official/intentional actions. On the contrary, there's a nice body of ever growing benefits. Regarding your new claims: * The press releases & charter for LocationTech have not changed. They're all still up where they always were and haven't been modified. (seriously?!) * LocationTech & OSGeo have had formal relations for some time as Jody notes. There is all kinds of collaboration happening frequently and people are fine with it. * We gave many examples in the FAQ about LocationTech helping OSGeo. I'm not even sure that (positive list) was calculated necessarily as much as things that arise matter of course from the things the group does. * The evidence is for all to see in the bid proposals, LocationTech has offered to cover losses and promising payments on par with the best payments from past FOSS4G's. The numbers are based on a conservative budget. When you also factor that LocationTech has sponsored in which money has flowed to OSGeo, your claimsLocationTech is setting sights on OSGeo income are even more ridiculous.* As Jody & others have noted, the Tour is something that was born out of LocationTech. It is inclusive to any who want to participate. The FAQ covers why LocationTech members & projects care about FOSS4G, and it's very reasonable. It's worth saying that people involved with LocationTech have also been involved with OSGeo for some time. Your efforts to portray them as outsiders is bogus. They are as welcome as anyone else to participate. I'm not sure what else to say. It's such shame to have this be needlessly misrepresented. Andrea On 12/11/15 21:58, Jeff McKenna wrote:Hi Cameron,I am also glad to speak of this publicly, this is a very important topic.I have been thinking more and more about Rob's response (thank you so much Rob for taking the time to speak with me on that). I will speak honestly here again, and I don't mean to offend: I am now left with a realization that, what I always thought of LocationTech as created to help commercially-friendly geospatial software, is wrong. I always just assumed that they filled a nice hole in the equation, by focusing on business needs. As was pointed out to me today, their goals now are in fact the exact same as OSGeo's. In fact, I have to really dig now for the LocationTech's former tagline of "commercially-friendly.." on their website, but I found the initial press releases for LocationTech and there it is in the second sentence, and then entire paragraphs on that goal. Did something change there that I missed? So now, yes, I am confused. And no wonder that, from those initial 2012/2013 press releases from LocationTech, fast forward to 2015 and they are contacting each of our 3 bidding teams for FOSS4G 2017, I'm left with a sense of surprise and shock. The overlap exists, we are the same foundation, and, to make matters more pressing, LocationTech has politely declined any interest in creating their own global event for their community, and set their sights on OSGeo's only real source of revenue and global publicity, our yearly FOSS4G event. Now the pressure is on, as this 2017 discussion involves huge money, finances, brands, people's jobs, two communities, and our beloved FOSS4G event that we have painfully built to be a global brand. And yes passions are flowing, strong words of "fear", "bullying", "muck" are being dropped, and I have no doubt someone soon will say "inclusive" or "exclusive", and then "code of conduct", oh let's not forget "trademark" and even "lawyer" (to be honest, in the past week I've heard each of these words about this topic). It's all an absolute mess, if you ask my opinion. My vision is to work with foundations and organizations all around the world, locally or globally. OSGeo has done a great job on this, through our (admittedly slow process for some people) of MoUs, and building those relationships through designated committees or special sessions at FOSS4G events. This sudden thrust of LocationTech, by contacting each of our 3 bidders for 2017, is very calculated on their side, but on OSGeo's side, this is a hard pill to swallow so fast. I actually don't think it is OSGeo that should be the ones talking now. We haven't changed, we have always put on FOSS4G each year, moving around the globe. We put community first and foremost, our community is very strong. I think our community is what attracts LocationTech to OSGeo, why they strategically contacted each 2017 bidders, but I'd love to hear it from their mouths. So I don't believe it is OSGeo that should be the ones explaining ourselves now. I think this is the time for LocationTech to explain their vision, how it has changed over the years, and how it sees itself in the ecosystem, because OSGeo has been around now a long time and their is no confusion about OSGeo. In regards to the current situation, I wish we could start with an MoU, work slowly on building a relationship, do not strategically contact bidders or groups on either side, but work together on building this ecosystem - maybe offering each other a "topic talk" extended session at each of our events, maybe discussing becoming a sustaining sponsor of each other's foundation, maybe having a shared "working group" on this involving both LocationTech and OSGeo board members. I've done a lot of writing the last couple of days. I hope this at least helps explain what is on my mind. Oh, as some privately enjoy writing to me and saying I am wrong, well yes, I am often wrong, but at least I am speaking publicly, and trying so hard always to make sure that OSGeo and FOSS4G are properly represented. -jeff On 2015-11-12 4:04 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote:Hi Jeff, Venka, Jody, Rob,Thanks for initiating this discussion and starting to put ideas out forpublic discussion. Jeff, Venka, I get the impression from your emails that you are concerned that LocationTech might "steal" community mind-share, and in particular take control of key OSGeo tasks such as FOSS4G and in the process change focus of FOSS4G into a more commercial event, whichincreases prices, and looses core community driven focus. Am I right? Orcould you please clarify.For the record, at the time I was disappointed at the time that LocationTech was created, and the functionality of Location Tech didn't get created under the umbrella of OSGeo. However both organisations exist now, and I can see that in moving forward that both organisations can exist successfully together and complement each other. (+1 to Rob's comments).A few years back, when both Jeff and I were on the board, we co-authored"Board Priorities" [1]. (Ok, I did a lot of writing, but the board did contribute and sign off on it). Prior boards have similarly outlined OSGeo's priorities which have been embedded in our official documents.The "Board Priorities" include focus on OSGeo acting as a "low capital, volunteer focused organisation", and acknowledge that a the role of the"high capital" business model is better accomplished by LocationTech. Jeff, Venka, Jody and others on the board, what is your vision for OSGeo's future direction, and in particular, what is your vision for a future relationship with Location Tech? Should OSGeo revise our focus and goals? It might help to start by being specific. What should OSGeo take responsibility for? What should Location Tech take responsibility for? Are the organisations appropriately structured and resourced to take on that responsibility? If not, what should change to make that happen? With regards to private (and threatening emails), I suggest replying with something like: "Thanks for your comments, you have some valid concerns. I'd like to respond to your suggestions publicly so others can join in and we can deal with your suggestions appropriately. Is it ok if I do so?" If you don't get the ok, don't deal with the suggestion. But I suggestrefrain from implication of bullying as it implies that LocationTech is playing dirty tactics, which reflects badly on LocationTech and OSGeo asit suggests that the two organisations are unable to resolve issuesprofessionally. (I'm hoping that mentioned "bullying" is just a case ofsome people getting a bit more passionate that maybe they should). Warm regards, Cameron [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_of_Directors#Board_Priorities On 13/11/2015 3:53 am, Rob Emanuele wrote:Hi Jeff, You are right, commercial-friendliness certainly does play a part in LocationTech. The way I've seen that enacted is by the use of the Eclipse Foundation's legal department to ensure that the projectswhich are supported by LocationTech are declared by a legal team to befree of proprietary or wrongly-licensed code. In this way, commercial entities can use the projects with some assurance that they will not be sued down the line for code that was not actually open in the way they thought it was.Also, there is a steering committee that makes decisions about how thebudget will be used. The budget mainly consists of member company's dues. The members of the steering committee are decided by membershiplevel (large membership gets representation on the steering committee)as well as a lower-membership level elected committee. There is also representation by the developers, who vote independently of any company and are there to represent the committers on the project. For more information, you can read through some links here: https://www.locationtech.org/charter https://www.locationtech.org/election2015 In practice, as a maintainer of an open source project and developer, what LocationTech has meant to me is support for my project in ways that are not centered around business. To me it's been a place where I've gotten to collaborate with similar open source projects and havemy project be promoted through events and other channels; for instanceI participate in Google Summer of Code and Facebook Open Academy as a mentor through the Eclipse Foundation. Perhaps these are needs that can also be served by OSGeo, but they have in practice been met by LocationTech. From my perspective as a project lead and open source developer, that there are multiple channels that can potentially support me and my project is a great thing and signs of a healthy domain. I did not start LocationTech. So for me it's not a question of, why should LocationTech be created when there is already OSGeo; LocationTech already exists, and I don't think it's up to me to question it's existence. Nor do I think it's a useful exercise to question the existence of something that clearly has support and is supporting others. I can only decide which organizations I believe in and support, and what I can get out of those organizations as far as them supporting me. So on a personal level, my thoughts are that both OSGeo and LocationTech are good organizations. I'd like to find ways to support both organizations, and find ways both organizations can support me and my project. On a more general level, I'm against centralization. Having diversity in governance structures, funding models and support channels is a good thing, and I don't want there to be only one "true" organization that I can look to for support. However, like I mentioned, the ideal would be that those organizations could figure out how to use their difference skill sets to work together on making the community as a whole move forward. And that is what I am hoping OSGeo and LocationTech can do (as well as any other related organizations). Jody did a talk at FOSS4G NA 2015 on some of the differences between LocationTech and OSGeo, I recommend it: https://youtu.be/sdpEa6XdQEo Best, Rob On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 10:54 AM, Jeff McKenna<jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com <mailto:jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com>>wrote: Hi Rob, Thank you for your very thoughtful response. You summarize the situation very well. I think talking openly like this on this topic, is the only way to make this all work. It sounds like I am wrong about LocationTech's goals; at the same time then, if that is the case, that LocationTech is not about commerce (doesn't "commercially friendly" encourage business interest?), then what was the need to create a separate new foundation, also focused on growing Open Source geospatial software? I hope we can speak openly here Rob, I do not mean any disrespect to you personally or to LocationTech (some take it personal). Please share here the reasons you see to have 2 foundations focused on the same goal. Thanks, -jeff On 2015-11-12 11:37 AM, Rob Emanuele wrote: Hi Jeff, I'm sorry to hear you are being bullied in private messages. It isperhaps best to bring in the Code of Conduct committee to helphandle this; direct threats and private bulling tactics seem in violation with the CoC, and there should be steps taken to ensure that our community doesn't have bulling in our midst that goes unaddressed.I'm disappointed that you take LocationTech's core goal as "topromote business and give those businesses a stage". Your point of view and behavior on the lists makes more sense knowing that, though; if you believe that LocationTech is really about promoting the businesses, and not the greater community, then having LocationTech involved in the FOSS4G conferences would diminish the non-business community members' role in the conference, which would be a Bad thing. However, as a memberof the LocationTech PMC and someone who was/is involved in theFOSS4G NA 2015 and FOSS4G NA 2016 process, as well as someone involved in theFOSS4G 2017 Philadelphia bid, I want to assure you that is notthe case. There is real focus and real work being done at LocationTech to help the community of developers and users of FOSS4G. In this instance I'm using FOSS4G for what the acronym actually means, Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial, not referring to the conference that has captured that name. Both LocationTech and OSGeo exist to support FOSS4G, and the greater community (greater then both of those organizations) that use and develop FOSS4G. There are differences in the organizationsfor sure, and I think highlighting those differences and really understanding how they serve the community in different ways isimportant. The ideal scenario that I see is that both organizations would use those differences to collaborate and have asum-greater-than-it's-parts type of support system for FOSS4G.Instead, we have a situation where there's distrust, finger pointing, and political "power plays" against each other. We have the president of oneof the organizations characterizing the core goal of the other organization in a dangerously wrong way. We have decisions anddiscussions about a million dollar revenue generating conference focused on that million dollars, rather then how to ensure that conference does the best job possible at supporting and pushing forward the community.We have the precious resource that is the energy of volunteersbeing spent on political infighting rather than on collaboration towards serving the community. I'm not sure the best path forward for this, butI want to declare that the situation as I see it is bad for thecommunity, collaboration between OSGeo and LocationTech would be good for the community, and I hope as a whole we can move towards that better future. I hear your concerns for the price of the FOSS4G NA tickets, though I'll point out to people who are following along that it's not as simple as a flat $1000 dollar rate. I encourage you to look at the registration pricing breakdown when it's published for FOSS4G NA 2016, be sure to apply for a non-corporate pass if you will not be reimbursed by a company, and to apply for a scholarship if the cost is still too high. Also, if you are giving a talk, registration is free, so please submit! The Call For Proposals is now open (<https://2016.foss4g-na.org/cfp>https://2016.foss4g-na.org/cfp). Jeff, your presence was missed at FOSS4G NA 2015 and I hope that you can come to Raleigh for FOSS4G NA 2016. Best, Rob On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 8:40 AM, Jeff McKenna <jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com <mailto:jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com> <mailto:jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com <mailto:jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com>>> wrote: On 2015-11-12 7:01 AM, Jody Garnett wrote: I have gotten a number of private emails expressing concerns about LocationTech being involved in several of the foss4g bids. I guess I had the opposite concern last year when there was the joint OSGeo / LocationTech foss4gna conference. I was kind of embarrassed our behavior as a community - would prefer to see us as welcoming and supportive (especially as we had a first time organizer that could use our support). Hi Jody,I am very glad that you brought this up publicly. Lately Itoo havereceived very disturbing direct emails, containing threatsof "if this happens you watch" "karma you watch yourself" "if we lose you watch out" and direct bullying tactics, for speaking my mind on this issue. The same people sending these threats will not speak publicly on this, so I have asked them to stop sending me these messages, but the messages continue, so I have stopped answering them. These are "power-play" emails sent directly to me, but I willtell them here publicly, bullying me will not stop me fromspeaking openly about OSGeo's one event all year, the global FOSS4G. (for those not following the 2017 conference discussions, you would have to read a long thread to get caught uphttp://osgeo-org.1560.x6.nabble.com/Call-to-discuss-FOSS4G-2017-proposals-prior-to-voting-td5234235.html).As someone just wrote last night on another list, likely there would be no one else that has attended more FOSS4G events, regional, global, anything, than myself. I make a point of going to a FOSS4G event, to help grow the local community, no matter what size of the event or where it is. Lately in my FOSS4G travels I have noticed a return to our FOSS4G roots, where the popular events are very low cost, aimed at developers, users, students, researchers, and the smaller companies trying to make a living (a great recent example is the FOSS4G-Como event this past July). Getting back to the topic of your message: I too have been embarrassed by recent FOSS4G-NorthAmerica events; I was shocked to see the 1,000 USD registration fee there. But I was not too upset, because no one is traveling the small FOSS4Gs like me to see the difference, and I didn't see complaintsvoiced from the local NorthAmerican community. LocationTech involved in FOSS4G-NA is a good thing, to promote businessand give those businesses a stage; the core goal of LocationTech. However now we are in the process for deciding the global FOSS4G event for 2017, OSGeo's flagship event, attended by the international community, and we must be very careful. Working withfoundations is good (hence all of OSGeo's great MoUs), andI'll use the upcoming example that the 2016 team is considering, giving LocationTech a 90 minute slot in the program for their projects (and the same for OSGeo, UN, likely OGC, and other organizations). This is a wonderful way for OSGeo's FOSS4G event to involve other organizations. I hope that LocationTech will also give OSGeo a 90 minute slot in their big conference someday as well; this would be exactly what I see as best-case scenario. On the other hand, not signing an MoU, and then just contacting all of our 2017 bidders, is quite a different method to get to thetable. Instead of a long-standing MoU agreement that wouldfoster the relationship throughout the years, as we have with so many organizations, we are faced with a decision now that involves both foundations and 1,000,000 USD (the annual FOSS4G event generates alot of revenue, making this very attractive to professionalconference companies all over the world, I was phoned yesterday by one from Europe, for example). The money is there, huge money, and huge exposure for these companies. And their jobs are on the line, in their minds. Hence this situation we are forced to deal with now, and these nasty private messages being sent to me. Let's try to remain positive though, as we have 3 great bids forFOSS4G 2017, and a solid team working hard already to makeFOSS4G-2016 in Bonn another amazing event. OSGeo has never been so active and vibrant as so many initiatives and location chapters grow all around the world.Thanks for listening, and thank you Jody for bringing thistopic to the public lists. -jeff -- Jeff McKenna President, OSGeo http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Jeff_McKenna_______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
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