Hi Jody,
For the MapServer project Service Providers page[1] that was created
recently, we do not alienate or 'filter' out companies by size (of any
number); instead we use the following options:
1. Core Contributors
Core Contributor organizations have project Committers and/or PSC
members as part of their team and as such they are the closest to the
core development of the software and are usually the best to go to for
support.
2. Contributors
The Contributors listed here usually have power users and
experienced integrators as part of their team who are recognized in the
project community for their contributions to various aspects of the
software over the years and are very well positioned to assist you with
the project.
3. Other Service Providers
The service providers in this category offer services around the
project and related Open Source technologies.
So maybe this is a better way to 'filter' by organization type. This
would be my second proposal (actually this one makes better sense for
the new OSGeo site, than my original 4 proposed options).
[1] http://mapserver.org/community/service_providers.html
-jeff
On 2017-08-21 8:09 PM, Jeffrey Johnson wrote:
Hi All,
I think we are talking about several different issues here. Let me try
to summarize.
1) JeffM is suggesting that we should *not* ask Service Providers what
size they are in terms of number of employees to avoid 'alienating'
them. I'm not sure I see how any would be alienated, but I dont think
this piece of data is all that important anyway. I think we originally
conceived of it to be able to separate out individual consultants and
small companies from larger ones. I know in my experience when looking
for a service provider, often I am specifically looking for small ones
or individual consultants because Im not interested in dealing with
big organizations. In any case, this service provider section should
be open to any and all organizations (from one person consultancies to
large organizations) that want to provide services for hire on OSGeo
or other open source geospatial projects. Its not that important to
*me* that we collect what size they are, but it may be useful to
others to know what size they are when looking for help.
2) JeffM is proposing we ask for the organization *type* here instead
of size and be inclusive of other types of organizations than just
companies. Im all for being as inclusive as we can, but this section
of the site was specifically intended as a place where one could find
organizations or individual consultants *for hire* to work on/with the
projects. As Jody mentions, there are lots of NGOs and government orgs
who would like to be listed somewhere on our site, but are NOT looking
for work. The converse is also true, there are lots of NGOs and and
perhaps even government agencies who are willing to do work for hire
and would like to be listed here as a service provider.
3) as mentioned in 2) it would be nice to have a place on our site to
list organizations that are NOT looking for work, nor are a GeoForAll
Lab, nor (yet) a sponsor or a partner (with a formal MOU). Perhaps
they are important contributors to a project and would like to be
listed somewhere. CSIRO comes to mind as an example. I think we DO
need to think of perhaps a new content type to capture these and
classify them appropriately and let them link to the projects they
contribute to, resources they may have created etc. Perhaps just an
'Organizations' section that is much like the 'Service Providers' and
GeoForAll labs, but is listed separately under Community, I can think
of a lot of organizations who would be interested to be listed here.
Hoping we can all agree on what we are talking about here and find a
solution. I really want to find a place for *every* member of our
community big or small to show off their work and make sure its linked
to other content types (projects, resources, news etc) appropriately.
This is of course a bit hard because we have such a diverse group of
stakeholders, but Im confident we can work through it.
Jachym, just making sure you are happy with how OpenGeoLabs is currently listed?
Kurt Menke if you are on this list, I intended to move Birds Eye GIS
from being listed as a GeoForAll Lab to being a Service Provider and
realize I got interrupted in the middle of doing it on Saturday and
now its simply deleted. Ill reach out to you personally to make sure
you get re-added in the right place.
Also, I realize
http://osgeo.getinteractive.nl/geo-for-all-labs/attivarti-org/ is
another example of an organization that probably belongs in a new
section as described in 3)
Jeff
On Mon, Aug 21, 2017 at 4:23 PM, Jody Garnett <jody.garn...@gmail.com> wrote:
Jeff have you heard from any small companies that feel alienated? For many
being a small company gives them a chance to offer personal service. I do
not want to make assumptions if we can help it.
My feedback was actually focused on the site design, partnership & friend
relationships are appropriate for government and NGOs, geoforall labs are
the appropriate relationship for education and science etc. If that is clear
we can return to the earlier discussion - specifically about service
provider size. (we should also be sure to capture this discussion on the
issue tracker so it can actually inform the review of the website).
Many of these decisions already took place during the earlier wireframe
stage of the project (by contributors who stepped up to the marketing
committee). We already went back to the drawing table on some of the key
decisions during wire framing and initial website design.
To clearly set expectations - we will not have a chance to revisit each and
every decision due to limitations on time/budget. It is hard though, because
it is much easier to care about a website when it is pretty and we can all
see it :)
My initial message to Jachym was trying to confirm that the organization
size worked for opengeolabs (simply because this was already a decision that
had been revisited once).
On Mon, Aug 21, 2017 at 4:09 PM Jeff McKenna <jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com>
wrote:
Hi Jody,
By alienating the smaller OSGeo companies in our new website, I don't
see a benefit to OSGeo at all. Let us please all sizes of OSGeo
companies, small and big.
Yes this is tricky, for sure, even your initial message to Jachym shows
a lot of what it could be like, if OSGeo suddenly distinguishes size.
Let's avoid this totally, I believe.
I am open to other suggestions to the wording as well.
Tricky! :)
-jeff
On 2017-08-21 6:53 PM, Jody Garnett wrote:
I already changed it from number to the size thing.
This list was for support providers (since the website is about outreach
looks at projects, local chapters and service providers).
GeoForAll labs and academic / research outreach are in slightly
different spot (we could cross link). See
http://osgeo.getinteractive.nl/geo-for-all-labs/
I do not think public:government, NGO/non-profit would like to be
contacted for commercial support :) That said they can be listed in our
site as partners and friends. Sort order is given to groups with a
defined relationship with OSGeo (such as ISPRS, LocationTech,...). See
http://osgeo.getinteractive.nl/partners/
Recognizing service providers on our website in this way is a new thing
- I hope it works out :)
This design is full of difficult decisions thanks for contributing to
the discussion (and content).
On Mon, Aug 21, 2017 at 3:30 PM Jeff McKenna
<jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com <mailto:jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com>>
wrote:
Hi Jachym,
Yes I agree, it is a slippery slope that once we/OSGeo decide that
size
is an important part of our organization (as you know, many other
organizations separate their membership by size), it opens up so
many
other challenges. For that reason, I spoke up here to suggest that
we
avoid all that, by suggesting 4 options to cover that.
Indeed my proposal does include all organizations, purposely. OSGeo
is
built on that, and has done an amazing job in creating a thriving
community.
Thanks for listening Jachym,
-jeff
On 2017-08-21 6:17 PM, Jachym Cepicky wrote:
> Hi Jeff (all)
>
> currently, the page is listing "service providers" - it's
project
> oriented (as providing services to projects)
>
> your proposal is shifting it little bit to "all organisations",
not even
> service providing - but what is their releationship to the
(osgeo)
> projects? - still, it would be fine to me
>
> I would be +1 for it, if it's does not hit to some other
principle,
> already hardcoded in the page (e.g.
> http://osgeo.getinteractive.nl/initiatives/geo-for-all/ is partly
> coreving the Academic/Research topic - just an example of
potencial
> conflict, which we could oversee)
>
> I do not know, just noting, I have no strong opinion - I want to
be
> inclusive, all for adding another categories, but the rules and
> principals should be clear. Currently, how I understand it "you
can be
> listed as long as you are providing services to projects"
>
> J
>
> út 22. 8. 2017 v 0:11 odesílatel Jeff McKenna
> <jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com
<mailto:jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com>
<mailto:jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com
<mailto:jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com>>>
> napsal:
>
> On 2017-08-21 5:11 PM, Jody Garnett wrote:
> > For your page
> >
http://osgeo.getinteractive.nl/service-providers/opengeolabs/ Is
> that a
> > single consultant (you!) or a company?
> > (or perhaps it is just a company with one person in it)
> >
>
> Hi Jody,
>
> Regarding separating the OSGeo community by size, I suggest
that we
> avoid offending our community members, so let's stay positive
and make
> the following change:
>
> I recommend that we/OSGeo change the "Organization Type"
section to
> contain the following 4 options:
>
> 1. Private
> 2. Academic/Research
> 3. Public/Government
> 4. Non-profit
>
> The same 4 options should be applied to the options in the
"Filter"
> search on the site for "Service Provider Type".
>
> Thanks.
>
> Jachym: you did a great job on the OpenGeoLabs page, and
thanks for
> supporting OSGeo all of these years :)
>
>
> -jeff
>
>
>
> --
> Jeff McKenna
> President Emeritus, OSGeo Foundation
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Jeff_McKenna
>
>
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