On 15/11/15 23:20, Daniel Kastl wrote:
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People can and do participate in both OSGeo & LocationTech all the
time. This is a good thing. It absolutely isn't a zero sum
scenario. The mutually reinforce each other rather than detract
from one another.
I think there is a big difference in how the participation is organized:
With OSGeo you become a member like this: http://www.osgeo.org/Membershi
p
And with LT it works like this:
https://www.locationtech.org/content/become-member and details in
here: https://www.locationtech.org/charter
You could now argue, that participation is not membership. That's right.
But then look at who you participate for in case of LT :
https://www.locationtech.org/members
There is a big "Strategic" at the topic, so to me this means, that
they have a lot to say. And there is a guest sections, which it likely
the opposite.
I don't need to explain, who paid their dollars to become a strategic
member. For them the annual fee is nothing in their overall budget.
The funny thing is, that both (OSGeo and LT) have a "Nondiscrimination
Statement" on their website:
OSGeo: "The Foundation is open to all members of the geospatial
community. We do not discriminate based on age, gender, race,
nationality, religion, sexual orientation, or disability."
LT: "We are committed to making participation in the LocationTech
community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of
level of experience, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual
orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race,
ethnicity, age, religion or analogous grounds."
I think you forgot "economic discrimination"!
For me, whether I would be able to pay for a membership or not, it
makes it a very easy decision, where I want to contribute my volunteer
time for.
Sorry, if this slightly moved the thread into a different direction. I
just wanted to agree with Andrea, that LT doesn't have the same goals
in some way: it clearly focuses on the economic strong members of the
organization.
Best regards,
Daniel
PS: you will also recognize from the members, that LT is not a diverse
organization in terms nationalities. Well, you could argue, that IBM,
Oracle and Google are operating globally ;-)
Daniel,
Your email is incorrect and very misleading unfortunately. If you don't
mind some important clarifications below, I hope they'll help.
You compared organizational membership at LocationTech with individual
participation at OSGeo. A much better comparison would be to compare
OSGeo sponsors with LocationTech membership. You'll see they are
similar. LocationTech members receive formal representation on the board
which I think is a significant difference worth noting.
For completeness, it's worth mentioning that LocationTech's membership
model is based on a sliding scale of revenue & employee count. A vote is
a vote whether it comes from a huge member or tiny one, or a committer.
I believe this largely covers your concern of economic discrimination.
Jody mentioned that OSGeo is considering a similar model, which I think
is a great idea.
You are correct that guest members are observers. They participate, but
have no formal voting rights. They can upgrade their membership at any
time should they wish to.
From an individual participation perspective, be it as users,
contributors, or committers they are quite similar. One significant
difference is that project committers have dedicated formal
representation on the LocationTech board.
It's also worth mentioning that as Strategic membership grows, so does
committer representation to counter-balance. The whole point of the
Foundation is to provide a structured governance model so that votes
count equally and keep various influences in balance for the betterment
of the ecosystem.
You likely also notice that it uses the funding provided by
organizational members to support the projects, but in a way that does
not interfere with their independence and self governance. I believe
that to be quite desirable from a project's perspective. Rob has shared
his feelings on the matter as well.
I hope this helps,
Andrea
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