Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGEO US National Chapter

[Rob Emanuele]

This is great! Looking forward to seeing this develop, and participating!

On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 4:58 PM, Suchith Anand <
suchith.an...@nottingham.ac.uk> wrote:

> Great to hear this . Thanks to all who are working for this.
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
> Suchith
>
>
> --
> *From:* Discuss  on behalf of Randal
> Hale 
> *Sent:* 15 March 2018 19:02
> *To:* OSGeo Discussions
> *Subject:* [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGEO US National Chapter
>
> Greetings,
>
> Thanks to a few successful events here in the US, (Especially Boston
> FOSS4G 2017) several of us have been working toward formation of a US
> OSGEO Chapter. We've talked to several people in and around the US and
> multiple people involved in local chapters. I guess consider this a first
> shout of "Hello OSGEO World".
>
> Following the Guidelines [1] for Chapter formation we have a good start:
>
> 1. Self Organizing: Based on informal discussions with OSGeo members
> online and at the FOSS4G conference there is a major interest in how to
> support and build community across the nation. Technocation [2] is a
> non-profit that can act as a formal home for the OSGeo.US chapter.
>
> 2. Mission Statement: OSGeo.US will cultivate and support local OSGeo
> chapters and projects in the United States. OSGeo.US will also support
> activities and events that build awareness of the OSGeo and create
> opportunities to grow the OSGeo community.
>
> I also realized in this email - we've yet to stick anything on the
> wiki.osgeo.org site - we'll get that done shortly.
>
> 3. As for an official rep for the chapter: I was nominated by the group
> to be the official Spokesperson for now. So I'll do what I can to answer
> emails or drag someone else into the mix to answer them if I can't.
>
> 4. I'll be sending more information to the OSGEO Board - I
> wanted to start a discussion now and see if there was any angst that I
> or anyone else could address and if anyone else was interested in
> helping push this along.
>
> 5. TBD Later
>
> Anyway - Since I've not quit done anything like this before - Excuse
> anything I've forgotten or not done properly in this first announcement.
>
> Randy
>
>
> [1] http://www2.osgeo.org/content/chapters/guidelines.html
>
> [2] https://technocation.github.io/
> Welcome 
> technocation.github.io
> A non-profit supporting education for IT professonals
>
>
>
> --
> Randal Hale
> rjh...@northrivergeographic.com
> https://www.northrivergeographic.com
> North River Geographic Systems, Inc
> 
> www.northrivergeographic.com
> NRGS is a GIS consulting company. We work with FOSS4G and ESRI tools. Our
> small size allows us to keep our solutions innovative and costs low.
>
>
> (423)653-3611 <(423)%20653-3611>
>
>
> --
> Randal Hale
> rjh...@northrivergeographic.com
> https://www.northrivergeographic.com
> North River Geographic Systems, Inc
> 
> www.northrivergeographic.com
> NRGS is a GIS consulting company. We work with FOSS4G and ESRI tools. Our
> small size allows us to keep our solutions innovative and costs low.
>
>
> (423)653-3611 <(423)%20653-3611>
>
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Board nomination: Jeff McKenna

[Rob Emanuele]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for your comments here and elsewhere. I appreciate that you are
taking ownership of actions that have caused conflicts in the past. My one
follow up comment is that you should, in my opinion, be careful about
pointing to the excuse of passion in situations where your words or actions
negatively effect others and the community. While your passion may be a
significant reason for you to act certain ways, blaming negative behavior
solely on such a positive attribute can potentially dismiss the negativity
and the harm that the behavior can bring, and can allow for similar things
to play out in the future.

I respect your apologies here and elsewhere, and again appreciate you
responding to the concerns presented. If you are elected, I look forward to
you bringing your passion in a positive way to the board. If there comes a
time where the referenced concerns come up again in the future, I hope you
will not mind if I call it out, and point back to this time and these
discussions. I will do so as a friend, who is working with you to help make
our community even more awesome.

Best,
Rob

On Fri, Oct 13, 2017 at 12:54 PM, Jeff McKenna <
jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com> wrote:

> Hi Rob,
>
> Thanks for voicing your concerns about me.  You are a leader and your
> words are very powerful, I have much respect for your efforts.
>
> I apologize if my passion sometimes causes conflict on mailing lists. When
> I represent the OSGeo community, I feel the need to always be open and
> relay concerns, as you have done here.  I need to be more caring and
> respectful to others in this community.
>
> I hope my open responses help answer a few questions, understand me a
> little more, or at least bring more questions and good discussions, so we
> can keep making OSGeo fun and always growing.
>
> -jeff
>
>
>
> On 2017-10-12 1:32 PM, Rob Emanuele wrote:
>
>> Hi Toshikazu, Nick,
>>
>> Despite the fact that I have not been around long enough or have not been
>> in the right places to see directly a lot of the impact that Jeff has had
>> on the community, it's very clear from many accounts that he has been an
>> amazing and important figure in OSGeo (a Sol Katz award speaks very clearly
>> to this!). However I feel remiss if I don't point out the following
>> observation: as a newer member to the OSGeo community in the past couple of
>> years, I've seen some intense and surprising conflict happen on the mailing
>> lists that were centered around or included Jeff, which played out in ways
>> that I believe were not good for community, and were also not healing in
>> their conclusions.
>>
>> If there is a custom of only speaking positively on someone's nomination
>> thread, then I apologize. I do not want to detract from praise that is well
>> deserved. Is there a more appropriate place talk through, address and
>> hopefully dismiss reservations about a nominee, and to also call for
>> answers to the questions Cameron has posted?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Rob
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 7:02 AM, Toshikazu SETO <toss...@gmail.com
>> <mailto:toss...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> I also support the second nomination of Jeff McKenna.
>>
>> He think important to friendship with all OSGeo communities, because
>> I am proud of his philosophy.
>>
>> I think, this thread will use comments on nominations and should not
>> deep discuss to previous FOSS4G
>> circumstanceand responsibility.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Toshikazu
>>
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Board nomination: Jeff McKenna

[Rob Emanuele]

Hi Toshikazu, Nick,

Despite the fact that I have not been around long enough or have not been
in the right places to see directly a lot of the impact that Jeff has had
on the community, it's very clear from many accounts that he has been an
amazing and important figure in OSGeo (a Sol Katz award speaks very clearly
to this!). However I feel remiss if I don't point out the following
observation: as a newer member to the OSGeo community in the past couple of
years, I've seen some intense and surprising conflict happen on the mailing
lists that were centered around or included Jeff, which played out in ways
that I believe were not good for community, and were also not healing in
their conclusions.

If there is a custom of only speaking positively on someone's nomination
thread, then I apologize. I do not want to detract from praise that is well
deserved. Is there a more appropriate place talk through, address and
hopefully dismiss reservations about a nominee, and to also call for
answers to the questions Cameron has posted?

Thanks,
Rob



On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 7:02 AM, Toshikazu SETO  wrote:

> I also support the second nomination of Jeff McKenna.
>
> He think important to friendship with all OSGeo communities, because I am
> proud of his philosophy.
>
> I think, this thread will use comments on nominations and should not deep
> discuss to previous FOSS4G
> circumstance and responsibility.
>
> Best regards,
> Toshikazu
>
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>
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[OSGeo-Discuss] Request for Conference Committee Chairperson for FOSS4G NA 2018

[Rob Emanuele]

Dear FOSS4G Community,



We, the FOSS4G NA Core Committee, are looking for a volunteer to chair the
conference committee for the FOSS4G North America 2018 conference. The
Conference Committee Chair (CCC) will be responsible for working with the
Logistical Organizer (LO) to run a successful conference in 2018. The CCC
ultimately shapes the conference, and the success of the conference largely
relies on his or her passion and hard work. The North America geospatial
community needs someone who is willing to commit themselves to making this
FOSS4G NA the best ever, for the benefit of and with the gratitude of all
of us. If this sounds like you or someone you know, please get in touch!



Some details:



The CCC chooses, organizes and leads the conference committee. The
conference committee will work with the LO to run the conference. The
FOSS4G NA core committee, as part of our responsibilities, have chosen the
Eclipse Foundation/LocationTech as the Logistical Organizer. The Eclipse
Foundation was the LO for past two FOSS4G NA conferences, and has been
organizing conferences professionally for 14 years.



The responsibilities of the LO and CCC are described in the FOSS4G NA
governance document here: https://goo.gl/NJAHUj. In short, the CCC and the
conference committee are responsible for all conference content and any
activities that fall outside the scope of the Logistical Organizer.



The Eclipse Foundation will be on the forefront of selecting a city and
venue for the 2018 conference, based on a well trodden process that they as
conference organizers have been doing for many years with a lot of success.
This includes  FOSS4G NA 2015 (San Francisco) and FOSS4G NA 2016 (Raleigh),
which have seen the highest attendee numbers for FOSS4G NA conferences with
very positive attendee feedback. The CCC, core committee, and general
public are invited to participate in the city/venue/date selection process
by suggesting and making cases for cities and venues in open discussion.
The date of the conference and the venue will come down to where the LO can
support and a final decision by the core committee.



While the CCC should reside in North America, the CCC is not required to
live in the city which is chosen to host the event; in fact the city will
not be chosen until after a CCC has been selected. However, the CCC is
expected to work with local organizations and volunteers (such as OSGeo
local chapters, local geo meetup groups, etc) in order to ensure the
conference includes local participation. Participation by local volunteers
has been a key element in the success of past conferences. The core
committee, the LO, and the general community can and will help with this
task of recruiting local involvement, but the responsibility of organizing
local involvement lies with the CCC.



If you would like to volunteer for CCC, please make a post to the
foss4gna_selection
 google group
describing why you want to be involved. If you have any questions, please
feel free to post to the foss4gna_selection list or contact the core
committee at foss4gna.core.commit...@gmail.com.



Sincerely,

The FOSS4G NA Core Committee
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Campaign Statement for María Arias de Reyna

[Rob Emanuele]

Hi María,

I'm not a charter member, so don't get to vote; however I do participate in
the OSGeo and FOSS4G world, and I just want to publicly share that your
statement really resonates with me. Though we have never met, it seems
clear to me from your statement that you have vision, honesty, and are
considerate of what is truly important in our communities. I also agree
with all of the views you mention. If I were able to vote, you would have
mine :)

Cheers,
Rob

On Sat, Sep 24, 2016 at 2:23 PM, María Arias de Reyna <
delawen+os...@gmail.com> wrote:

> So, let's try to answer the main question:
>
>  "What should the community expect from my board membership?"
>
> 
> I am a very active activist :) More known on the spanish speaking
> geo-world, I would say. I work with spatial metadata and GeoNetwork.
>
> I intend to make OSGeo as inclusive and free (as in free puppies) as
> possible. I want OSGeo to continue being transparent, comfortable and
> useful to promote FLOSS in the geo world. I would like to press on
> public administrations so they promote open data and software. I would
> like to increase diversity of OSGeo (because, you already notice, most
> of you are white men on developed countries with a similar vision, you
> know).
>
> Anyway, all the candidates proposed are really good. So, whoever you
> choose to vote, you will make a good choice. But vote, be involved,
> please :)
> 
>
> Many of you don't know me, I know. Maybe if I say "metadata" and
> "(meta)cat" some bell will ring. Maybe not. Let me talk you a bit
> about me, let's put humility aside for a moment.
>
> I work for GeoCat, which you *should* remember from sponsoring many
> geo-events. I work with metadata. Ever heard of GeoNetwork, the data
> catalog? Well, that's part of my work. I am also part of the
> geoinquietos group, which is one of the most active group in the
> spanish speaking geo-world. We are a very unorganized welcoming group
> that tries to make geothings fun. Unconferences, mapping parties,
> geobeers, workshops,... Anything we can enjoy while sharing our
> knowledge and help people around us.
>
> Some people say I'm very straight forward when talking. I can't help
> it. I don't like dancing around an idea losing time while the elephant
> sits on the center of the room eating all the peanuts. So this I can
> assure you: I will fight for what I think is better, even if it means
> making me look unpolite or the "bad cop". I'm used to get my hands
> dirty, I don't care. And if OSGeo decides to do something I don't
> agree with, I promise you I will fight the same (unless it makes me so
> uncomfortable I have to step down, but I don't think this can happen,
> we share the same goals). It will not be the first time I have to
> defend something I don't fully agree with. But, anyway, unless OSGeo
> changes a lot, this is not bothering me.
>
> To me, transparency is key. You will never hear me saying opposite
> things in private and in public. I will not say things in public I
> understand they shouldn't be made public. But you will never hear me
> defend something in private and another thing in public. I can change
> my mind, of course, and that happens more often than what I am willing
> to admit :) But I will not be a hypocrit and I usually have no problem
> in sharing my knowledge or perspective on something. I don't like
> being manipulative. I don't like lies. I don't think the end justifies
> the means.
>
> Let's focus on OSGeo and how I see it. As we heard on the FOSS4G: This
> is about people. And I couldn't agree more. I see OSGeo as an
> organization built on top of regional chapters which are built on top
> of local "chapters" which are built by people. So my idea of OSGeo is
> like a pyramid, where local "layers" work together to get the same
> goal at the top. "Think globally, act locally". And that's how I think
> it should work. Spread the work into very small pieces so we all can
> contribute to a greater good. I think this is how we should always
> work.
>
> So I think it is important to promote small events all around the
> world. Specially if they focus on target groups we are not very close
> to. I would like to see more diversity in the OSGeo membership, we are
> all very "standard". As we diversify our base, we will get better
> ideas and visions on the top. On my utopic OSGeo vision, there will be
> a group of local "geoinquietos" everywhere, all of them making the
> world better while having fun.
>
> Changing the subject to something more earthly: I see there is some
> buzzing around LocationTech. To me, they are important allies. They
> are more "open" and we are more "free", but as we agree on, let's say,
> 80% of the goals, why not work together on that 80%? Once we achieve
> those goals we can start an open war about that 20%. In the meantime,
> it would be stupid to fight.
>
> If you don't understand why I distinguish between open and free, here
> is the answer:
> 

Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Does rasdaman CE solve an open source geospatial problem?

[Rob Emanuele]

Peter,

It's impressive that 20 TB is being served out by the community edition.
However, the point that Edzer brings up (and that I was unaware of) causes
me even more concern regarding the language used in service of promoting
the potential OSGeo version of rasdaman around it's comparison to other
projects.

Are the performance benchmarks that you were siting as sources based on
queries that would benefit from distributed processing (which is a very
large class of queries)? Are the benchmarks using the open source rasdaman
or the proprietary version? If you are going to compare yourself to a
distributed processing engine such as Apache Spark, you should be comparing
it fairly - Apache Spark does not claim to be a fast solution in a single
machine case. If you are comparing it to the proprietary version of
rasdaman, then I'm wondering why you are referencing those numbers when
talking about the open source version, which has been the subject of these
threads of conversation. Google Earth Engine may beat us all out in
performance, but that doesn't directly contribute much to the open source
geospatial community because it lacks that key openness.

If rasdaman CE does not scale horizontally, there are use cases and example
queries with which I am very confident rasdaman would be outperformed by
systems constructed at their core with Apache Spark. If I've misunderstood
something, or if this is somehow not the case, please let me know.

Best,
Rob

On Sat, May 21, 2016 at 4:07 AM, Peter Baumann <
p.baum...@jacobs-university.de> wrote:

> oh, just looking at the subject again:
>
> several service providers believe indeed rasdaman community does offer a
> significant advantage:
> - see the download figures on www.rasdaman.org
> - concretely, see www.planetserver.eu which is running rasdaman community
> on - I believe - about 20 TB of Planetary Science data.
>
> -Peter
>
>
>
> On 05/21/2016 09:56 AM, Peter Baumann wrote:
>
> Hm, first of all: this is opening a different thread, talking about
> functionality of rasdaman community. Next, it is based on assumptions -
> without details (because off topic): conclusions are wrong.
>
> But to respond to the core message emphasized in the first paragraph: I
> respectfully disagree. In particular, such a position does not benefit the
> open source community very much as I am trying to explain below.
>
> TL;DR:
>
> You have a strong expertise in Geoinformatics, I know something about
> Computer Science. This is where we can talk as professors and scientists.
> Your statement is about economics, industry etc. Having an opinion there
> (and articulate it) is fair, but in these fields our opinion weighs not
> more than anyone else's in the street. We should not attempt to attain
> importance through inapplicable roles.
>
> Let us look at a professor. They have a conveniently high salary which is
> paid by society, that is: tax payers. Nobody can influence what a professor
> does and how much return s/he generates for society.
>
> A single open source developer (or a small group, whatever) do not
> experience this convenience. They have a dream where they invest, they try
> to not make money for getting richer than a professor ;-) but merely for
> their economic survival. Some (in particular scientists) enjoy the money
> rain coming from publicly funded projects (again: the tax payer
> subsidizes), but most in the community have to struggle hard. They face
> reluctant customers, competition by the giants in the market, and many more
> obstacles.
>
> From the cosy place of a lifelong position with a secured salary and
> decent retirement funds it is easy to say that all software should be free
> like free beer (quote from below: "can be reproduced by other scientists
> without prohibitive license costs").
>
> If the open source movement cannibalizes itself it will make it all so
> easy for the big players to maintain their dominance, they will silently
> applaud. Quoting Jeroen:
> > NEVER IGNORE COMPANIES AGAIN IN OSGEO OR FOSS4G! THEY ARE NOT A THREAT,
> THEY ARE A NECESSITY.
>
> That said: It is entirely ok to have the opinion you have. Others, though,
> may disagree. I am one of those.
>
> respectfully,
> Peter
>
>
>
> On 05/20/2016 09:30 AM, Edzer Pebesma wrote:
>
> As a scientist, I teach my students that for doing science it is a
> requirement to work with open source software, because only then
> workflows are fully transparent and can be reproduced by other
> scientists without prohibitive license costs. Currently, working
> with large amounts of earth observation (EO) or climate model data
> typically requires to download these data tile by tile, stitch them
> together, and go through all of them. Array databases may simplify
> this substantially: after ingesting the tiles, they can directly
> work on the whole data as a multi-dimensinal array ("data cube").
> Computations on these array are typically embarassingly parallel,
> and scale up with the number of cores in 

Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Tales from a Benevolent Dictator

[Rob Emanuele]

Hi Peter,

Thank you for the invitation. I have just registered, and am looking
forward to working with you.

Best,
Rob

On Sun, May 15, 2016 at 12:20 PM, Peter Baumann <
p.baum...@jacobs-university.de> wrote:

> Hi Rob,
>
> excellent, now we are getting into technical discussion.
>
> I did not say that rasdaman is the best in the universe under all possible
> constellations, but we do have both theoretical considerations and
> practical results that suggest that rasdaman performs outstandingly well on
> n-D arrays.
>
> Your offer to participate is very welcome, and timely. We have established
> the RDA Array Database Assessment WG, and here we need as many volunteers
> as possible to undertake this huge endeavour of getting reproducible
> knowledge about the state of the art, best practices, etc. Here is the page:
> https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/array-database-working-group.html
>
> Participation is at no cost and open, same the results. Just register
> yourself with RDA and let me know so that we canplan contributions.
>
> Looking forward to welcoming you on board,
> Peter
>
>
>
>
> On 05/15/2016 06:10 PM, Rob Emanuele wrote:
>
> Apologies for veering off topic.
>
> Hi Peter,
>
> Thanks for citing your resources. Unfortunately I can't access the one
> paper, since the only version I could find is behind a paywall, and the bar
> chart you attached gives very little information; from these I cannot
> understand the methodology or results. If you have more details I would be
> happy to look further into this.
>
> My concern is with your wide sweeping statements, and the implication that
> rasdaman has been scientifically verified to be more performant than any
> other system in all cases. This to me feels hyperbolically similar to
> measuring that a bowling ball falls faster than a piece of paper when
> dropped from the roof of a building and concluding that trees are the
> objects which fall most slowly towards the earth.
>
> For instance, I have doubts that those who had conducted the quoted
> performance benchmarks set up the Apache Spark system in a way that
> represents all potential configurations. I work on the GeoTrellis project
> [1], which adds raster processing capabilities to Spark. I could for
> instance imagine a system where raster data was stored in Accumulo, indexed
> by GeoTrellis, and processed through Spark, which is very fast under many
> query types. I won't make any assumptions on how fast as compared to other
> systems, and it's very possible that rasdaman will beat out such a system
> in a set of query types, or perhaps all queries. However, it is my opinion
> that until the two systems were compared in such a way that everyone agreed
> on on the methodology and the results, casually using the "fact" that one
> system is "way faster" than the other system, and that one beats the other
> "in all benchmarks" as an argument for some treatment from OSGeo (or for
> any other purpose) deserves to be called into question, which I am doing
> here.
>
> I'd be happy to collaborate to develop, out in the open and in front of
> any paywalls, an objective system of measuring performance between systems.
> At which point in time we could make proclamations like, "[whichever
> framework], under [these specific query types], running on [however many
> nodes, whatever type of hardware], storing [this amount] of [this type of
> data], performs better than [some other framework] under the same
> conditions". Until then, I object to your very broad statements of
> superiority.
>
> Regards,
> Rob
>
> [1] https://github.com/geotrellis/geotrellis
>
> On Sun, May 15, 2016 at 9:30 AM, Moritz Lennert <
> mlenn...@club.worldonline.be> wrote:
>
>> On 15/05/16 14:40, Marco Afonso wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Anita,
>>>
>>> Aha! So there is a ponderation weight on software quality evaluation AND
>>> project organization evaluation.
>>>
>>> So you can exclude an open source software with high quality if their
>>> organization evaluation is low.
>>>
>>> For me that seems wrong. A software on a public repository is only
>>> limited by it's licence terms, or unlimited at all. :)
>>>
>>
>> But the discussion is not about whether the software should be in a
>> public repository or not, or what the licence term should be. The
>> discussion is about what the meaning of the "OSGeo project" label is.
>>
>> I don't think anyone has questioned the quality of the software, here.
>> However, one of the aims of labeling a project an OSGeo project is to give
>> a certain level of

Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Tales from a Benevolent Dictator

[Rob Emanuele]

Apologies for veering off topic.

Hi Peter,

Thanks for citing your resources. Unfortunately I can't access the one
paper, since the only version I could find is behind a paywall, and the bar
chart you attached gives very little information; from these I cannot
understand the methodology or results. If you have more details I would be
happy to look further into this.

My concern is with your wide sweeping statements, and the implication that
rasdaman has been scientifically verified to be more performant than any
other system in all cases. This to me feels hyperbolically similar to
measuring that a bowling ball falls faster than a piece of paper when
dropped from the roof of a building and concluding that trees are the
objects which fall most slowly towards the earth.

For instance, I have doubts that those who had conducted the quoted
performance benchmarks set up the Apache Spark system in a way that
represents all potential configurations. I work on the GeoTrellis project
[1], which adds raster processing capabilities to Spark. I could for
instance imagine a system where raster data was stored in Accumulo, indexed
by GeoTrellis, and processed through Spark, which is very fast under many
query types. I won't make any assumptions on how fast as compared to other
systems, and it's very possible that rasdaman will beat out such a system
in a set of query types, or perhaps all queries. However, it is my opinion
that until the two systems were compared in such a way that everyone agreed
on on the methodology and the results, casually using the "fact" that one
system is "way faster" than the other system, and that one beats the other
"in all benchmarks" as an argument for some treatment from OSGeo (or for
any other purpose) deserves to be called into question, which I am doing
here.

I'd be happy to collaborate to develop, out in the open and in front of any
paywalls, an objective system of measuring performance between systems. At
which point in time we could make proclamations like, "[whichever
framework], under [these specific query types], running on [however many
nodes, whatever type of hardware], storing [this amount] of [this type of
data], performs better than [some other framework] under the same
conditions". Until then, I object to your very broad statements of
superiority.

Regards,
Rob

[1] https://github.com/geotrellis/geotrellis

On Sun, May 15, 2016 at 9:30 AM, Moritz Lennert <
mlenn...@club.worldonline.be> wrote:

> On 15/05/16 14:40, Marco Afonso wrote:
>
>> Hi Anita,
>>
>> Aha! So there is a ponderation weight on software quality evaluation AND
>> project organization evaluation.
>>
>> So you can exclude an open source software with high quality if their
>> organization evaluation is low.
>>
>> For me that seems wrong. A software on a public repository is only
>> limited by it's licence terms, or unlimited at all. :)
>>
>
> But the discussion is not about whether the software should be in a public
> repository or not, or what the licence term should be. The discussion is
> about what the meaning of the "OSGeo project" label is.
>
> I don't think anyone has questioned the quality of the software, here.
> However, one of the aims of labeling a project an OSGeo project is to give
> a certain level of guarantee to potential users that this software
> _project_ respects a series of criteria that are considered important to
> ensure a long-term sustainability of that project. Putting one person's
> name in the statutes of a project and designating that person as the one
> who has ultimate decision rights (even if these decisions are always based
> on quality criteria), leaves the question of what would happen if that
> person lands under the proverbial bus.
>
> A more collective governance structure is seen by many as more sustainable
> in the long run. Similar debates have gone on for ages in Debian, for
> example, about team-based maintaining of packages vs individual maintainers.
>
> What I personally haven't really understood, yet, is what the rasdaman
> community is really afraid of. If the community works as well as described,
> why would the creation of a PSC-like structure create such problems ?
>
> Moritz
>
> ___
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>
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Tales from a Benevolent Dictator

[Rob Emanuele]

Hi Peter,

This is the second time I've heard you defend your position by simply
saying the greatness of the project justifies whatever model you'd like for
project governance, and mention some independent study that claims your
software is "way faster" and "wins all benchmarks". These are bold, general
and unqualified claims that I would greatly like to understand in a more
detailed way. Please site your sources.

Best,
Rob
On May 14, 2016 5:43 AM, "Peter Baumann" 
wrote:

> OpenHub knows 66 code contributors, and they do not even know (and list)
> all over time. Hence, cannot see anyone felt discouraged. Typical rasdaman
> contributors are interested in design by innovation and not design by
> committee, and that community spirit has made rasdaman a leading tool that
> wins all benchmarks over GeoServer, SPARK, etc.
> -Peter
>
> PS: suggesting a fork just because OSGeo follows a narrow principle that
> does not accommodate rasdaman makes me frown about the ideals behind :)
>
>
> On 05/12/2016 02:57 PM, Ian Turton wrote:
>
> I've been trying to stay out of the arguments about governance models
> because I prefer to write code than worry about licences or governance. But
> it may help if I share a some anecdotes (which is almost data) about a
> couple of FOSS projects that came out of academia when I was in charge. One
> of these you may well have heard of GeoTools, which forms the base library
> of GeoServer, UDig, GeoMesa and others, the other you may not know GeoVista
> Studio.
>
> Both these libraries started out as academic projects that solved a
> research problem, both were open sourced as a result of the university
> claiming all the intellectual property of it's staff for ever (so why not
> give it away?) in both cases I (and James Macgil) were benevolent dictators
> when the projects launched, it was a simple governance model that left us
> able to get on with coding and researching and meant that things went the
> way we wanted. GeoTools started to get some users and people started asking
> for bug fixes and new features etc while James & I had actual jobs to do
> and wanted to spend time with our families and go on holiday etc. So we got
> some more people involved such as TOPP and Refractions and we sort of
> lucked into a PSC and GeoTools went from strength to strength and now has a
> PSC that spans the globe (which makes meeting times hard to find but is
> otherwise awesome). In fact for a while GeoTools and GeoServer managed (or
> thrived) with no input from me or James at all. However GeoVISTA studio,
> only went open source grudgingly (the PI's didn't want to give up control
> really) and never really gained more than a few users because we didn't
> allow other people to influence the direction of development (after all the
> university/PI was paying for the development) and thus there were only ever
> two or three developers. As BD I had no real interest in attracting new
> users (previous experience had taught me that's hard work). Once James and
> then I moved on to other jobs development stopped (though apparently
> someone downloaded a copy last week)
> .
>
> I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions but my feeling is that to make
> the move from an academic to successful FOSS project you need to move from
> dictatorship to committee run projects. If nothing else it allows you some
> down time from running the project while never needing to give up having a
> say in the running.
>
> Ian
>
>
> PS Some recent emails have tried to suggest that governance doesn't matter
> if you have forkability but I think that is a flawed view - but if it is
> true maybe we could just fork RASDAMAN and be done with the discussion? :-)
> --
> Ian Turton
>
>
> ___
> Discuss mailing 
> listDiscuss@lists.osgeo.orghttp://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
>
> --
> Dr. Peter Baumann
>  - Professor of Computer Science, Jacobs University Bremen
>www.faculty.jacobs-university.de/pbaumann
>mail: p.baum...@jacobs-university.de
>tel: +49-421-200-3178, fax: +49-421-200-493178
>  - Executive Director, rasdaman GmbH Bremen (HRB 26793)
>www.rasdaman.com, mail: baum...@rasdaman.com
>tel: 0800-rasdaman, fax: 0800-rasdafax, mobile: +49-173-5837882
> "Si forte in alienas manus oberraverit hec peregrina epistola incertis ventis 
> dimissa, sed Deo commendata, precamur ut ei reddatur cui soli destinata, nec 
> preripiat quisquam non sibi parata." (mail disclaimer, AD 1083)
>
>
>
>
> ___
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>
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Digital Image Processing - Libraries and Programs

[Rob Emanuele]

Hi Eduardo,

Have you taken a look at GeoTrellis [1]? It's a Scala based library for
doing many things geospatial, but with a focus on raster processing. It
handles raster data generally, but is being used for projects to manipulate
imagery, mainly by stitching together web map tiles out of large image
sets. It enables Apache Spark to work with raster data, so if you would
write your algorithms against the distributed collection (RDD's) of images,
you'd be able to scale your processes horizontally while running the same
code as you would against smaller jobs.

I don't know if you're already settled on a language or have language
requirements, but GeoTrellis is written and used in Scala. Scala is a JVM
based modern language that lets you write functional style code while still
taking advantage of object oriented concepts.

If Scala isn't the right fit for you or your team, and you want to write
python or native code wrapped in python, you could still take advantage of
Apache Spark for distributed processing by using PySpark. I've had some
success using rasterio with PySpark, although there are a lot less solved
challenges going that route than in using a GeoTrellis/Scala/Spark stack
IMO (as the maintainer of GeoTrellis). Good luck!

Cheers,
Rob

[1] http://geotrellis.io, https://github.com/geotrellis/geotrellis

On Sun, May 1, 2016 at 11:16 AM, Eduardo Pereira 
wrote:

>
> Hello OSGeo community,
>
>
> I'm currently part of team that is developing a free and open
> source program with focus on fast classification of drones images. To
> achieve this we are going to use the objects and attributes from OBIA
> approach, Machine Learning and algorithms to auto tune the segmentation
> parameters. And also a batch mode for replicate the results for others
> images. If someone know a project like that, please message me, we would
> love to check it.
>
>
> We already have the metodology working, but before starting code it we
> want to search all the open source libraries and program that works with
> Digital Image Processing. Doing so we hope  the program be up to date with
> all the capabilities that the open source have and get better results too.
>
>
> We are trying to list all the libraries and programs that work with image
> processing, even if the program is been developing or not have the
> capabilities that our project need.  This is the currently list we have:
>
>
> - GDAL/OGR
>
> - Optiks
>
> - Terralib
>
> - Orfeo Toolbox
>
> - OpenCV
>
> - OSSIM
>
> - InterIMAGE
>
> - Grass
>
> - OSSIM
>
> - GeoDMA
>
> - TuiView
>
> - RSGISLib
>
>
> I'm sending this e-mail to check if someone know other program/library
> that isn't on the list, we would love to know and certainly gonna check
> with care the suggestion.
>
>
> Thanks for the help!
>
> - - - - - - - - - -
>
> Best regards,
>
> Eduardo G. S. Pereira
>
>
> ___
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> Discuss@lists.osgeo.org
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>
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] geospatial @ apache foundation

[Rob Emanuele]

Thanks everyone for bringing this to the list, and Jody for the nudge. I
submitted my talk, and it's my hope that I'll get the chance to speak with
others from OSGeo and the geospatial FOSS community in general at
ApacheCon. Good luck to the other submitters!

Best,
Rob

On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 8:50 AM, Jody Garnett  wrote:

> On 1 February 2016 at 14:40, George Percivall <
> gperciv...@opengeospatial.org> wrote:
>
>> Andrea,
>>
>> Its good to hear of our common interests for geospatial implementations
>> in multiple communities.
>>
>> It is particularly relevant for LocationTech's vibrant geoprocessing
>> projects (GeoMesa, GeoWave, GeoJinni, GeoTreillis, etc.) are based on top
>> of & implement spatial features for Spark, Hadoop, Accumulo, HBase, etc.
>>
>>
>> It would be good to get abstract(s) about theses projects in the
>> ApacheCon geospatial track:
>> This CFP closes February 12, 2016:
>> http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/apachecon-north-america/program/cfp
>>
>
> It really is a busy time for conferences.
>
> At the LocationTech summit Rob Emmanuel had a wonderful introduction
> covering all three of these projects in the context of cloud processing
> technologies. Here is the abstract
> 
> , slides
> 
>  and video . Now we just
> need to ask him to submit :)
>
> Jody
>
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[OSGeo-Discuss] Announcing FOSS4G North America 2016

[Rob Emanuele]

Dear Everyone,

On behalf of the *Organizing Team*
,
we would like to invite you to submit talk & workshop proposals for *FOSS4G
North America 2016*
.
The conference will run *May 2-5, 2016* at the *Raleigh Convention Center*
in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S.A..

Like last year, we will be offering a *free full access pass to speakers*
who have their talk or workshop accepted. The 2016 conference will be
noticeably bigger than 2015. The list of topics include a number of mature
areas as well as emerging ones. *Please see the **call for proposals
*
for details and to submit a proposal.

Also, *public community voting*

on submissions has been enabled. Cast your vote for the presentations and
workshops you would like to see!

We wish you a safe and happy holiday season!

The FOSS4G NA 2016 Team
p.s. Please see the sponsor prospectus

should
you be interested in sponsoring.
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4GNA - SOMEONE IS WATCHING YOU :-o

[Rob Emanuele]

Thanks for pointing out that it wasn't yet posted to OSGeo-Discuss, I just
posted it.
There's a one-click unsubscribe button from that mailing list, sorry for
the spam!

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 12:31 PM, Massimiliano Cannata <
massimiliano.cann...@supsi.ch> wrote:

> Just a funny note...
>
> Nice to see that LocationTech has a FOSS4G email ( WOW!)
>
> and.
> that all the link on the received e-mail are connected with my user_id (I
> have one? Yes)
>
> and
> that they are tracked (!!! without inform me !!!)
>
> and...
> that I have been added to a list that i'm not subscribed (
> http://mailchimp.com/about/mcsv/)
>
>
> But...
> Where did they get my e-mail from?
> why thy didn't simply post the news to the discussion-osgeo list?
> what do they want to track?
>
>
>
> *If you want to see the FOSS4G-NA without been traced here is the
> link https://2016.foss4g-na.org/ *
>
>
> #SPAM #NOT-SO-FAIR #LIKE-MICROSOFT-THAT-SPY-ME #SCARY
>
> Best,
> Maxi
>
> --
> *Massimiliano Cannata*
>
> Professore SUPSI in ingegneria Geomatica
>
> Responsabile settore Geomatica
>
>
> Istituto scienze della Terra
>
> Dipartimento ambiente costruzione e design
>
> Scuola universitaria professionale della Svizzera italiana
>
> Campus Trevano, CH - 6952 Canobbio
>
> Tel. +41 (0)58 666 62 14
>
> Fax +41 (0)58 666 62 09
>
> massimiliano.cann...@supsi.ch
>
> *www.supsi.ch/ist *
>
> ___
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss@lists.osgeo.org
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>
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4GNA - SOMEONE IS WATCHING YOU :-o

[Rob Emanuele]

Hey David,

The emails on the mailing list were cultivated by past FOSS4G NA attendees,
people opting in in other ways, and from lists that were given by members
of this and last year's committee. If we're spamming people who didn't opt
in, it is not intentional and apologies for the spam (the world certainly
doesn't need more spam). We'll take a look at the list moving forward to
try to prevent from sending emails to anyone who didn't opt in.

Thanks,
Rob

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 2:48 PM, David Bianco <m...@davidbianco.net> wrote:

> I believe MailChimp has policies against adding emails to your list
> without a user's authorization.
>
> http://mailchimp.com/legal/acceptable_use/
>
> On Tue, Dec 15, 2015, at 10:16, Rob Emanuele wrote:
>
> Thanks for pointing out that it wasn't yet posted to OSGeo-Discuss, I just
> posted it.
> There's a one-click unsubscribe button from that mailing list, sorry for
> the spam!
>
> On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 12:31 PM, Massimiliano Cannata <
> massimiliano.cann...@supsi.ch> wrote:
>
> Just a funny note...
>
> Nice to see that LocationTech has a FOSS4G email ( WOW!)
>
> and.
> that all the link on the received e-mail are connected with my user_id (I
> have one? Yes)
>
> and
> that they are tracked (!!! without inform me !!!)
>
> and...
> that I have been added to a list that i'm not subscribed (
> http://mailchimp.com/about/mcsv/)
>
>
> But...
> Where did they get my e-mail from?
> why thy didn't simply post the news to the discussion-osgeo list?
> what do they want to track?
>
>
>
> *If you want to see the FOSS4G-NA without been traced here is the
> link https://2016.foss4g-na.org/ <https://2016.foss4g-na.org/>*
>
>
> #SPAM #NOT-SO-FAIR #LIKE-MICROSOFT-THAT-SPY-ME #SCARY
>
> Best,
> Maxi
>
> --
> *Massimiliano Cannata*
>
> Professore SUPSI in ingegneria Geomatica
>
> Responsabile settore Geomatica
>
>
> Istituto scienze della Terra
>
>
> Dipartimento ambiente costruzione e design
>
> Scuola universitaria professionale della Svizzera italiana
>
> Campus Trevano, CH - 6952 Canobbio
>
>
> Tel. +41 (0)58 666 62 14
>
> Fax +41 (0)58 666 62 09
>
> massimiliano.cann...@supsi.ch
>
> *www.supsi.ch/ist <http://www.supsi.ch/ist>*
>
> ___
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss@lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
> *___*
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss@lists.osgeo.org
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>
>
>
> ___
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>
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo/LocationTech relationship

[Rob Emanuele]

I think there's two narratives that are at conflict in this entire thread.
I'm going to try to try to spell them out as I see them:

A. LocationTech is a newer-than-OSGeo organization that is trying to make a
name for itself, capture market share, promote it's brand, in general act
in a way that makes itself grow. The intention behind LocationTech's
actions in offering services as a professional conference organizer is
mostly for it's own gain; LocationTech wants to smoothly slide into
becoming a part of OSGeo's annual conference for the profit and promotion
of itself, to the potential loss of OSGeo. For that reason, it is best for
the OSGeo community to protect itself from LocationTech, keep measured
distance between the organizations, not allow it to become part of the
FOSS4G international event, or at least to be suspicious of it's stated
good intentions in offering itself to be PCO. The real story is that
LocationTech's intentions are primarily about the profits and higher
visibility it will gain from being part of FOSS4G, and the help it is
offering plays a secondary role.

B. LocationTech is an organization that was created out of intentions to
help parts of the community that were perhaps not best served by OSGeo at
the time. It has it's own governance and ways of doing things, which
include being backed by small and large companies looking to contribute
financial support to the open source community, which allows for things
like paid staff. The model is different than OSGeo, the structure is
different than OSGeo, and the aims are similar but have differences. One
differences is that it's parent organization is the Eclipse Foundation, who
have professional conference organizers on staff and a lot of experience
running successful conferences. Seeing this is a valuable thing that the
open source geospatial community can take advantage of, LocationTech offers
it's services as a professional conference organizer to the FOSS4G NA
regional conferences, and now has offered it's services to the
international conference in 2017. While certainly not eschewing the
increase in visibility in the community that being part of the conferences
would afford LocationTech, that plays a secondary role to the earnest
desire to help the open source geospatial community.

Have I captured these narratives correctly or incorrectly? They are based
on impressions and implicit opinions that I've tried to understand from
these conversations. I think perhaps explicitly stating them would be
useful, so if I have failed to do so correctly please correct me.

I obviously have a preference for believing that narrative B best fits the
reality of the situation. Self promotion surely must play some role in
LocationTech's actions, but is it naive to think that the intentions of
LocationTech are for the community first and itself second? Perhaps. I
don't think so though. The alternative is certainly not how I operate when
I participate in LocationTech.

I prefer the narrative of openness and trust vs the narrative of mistrust
and suspicion that sounds like bad politics. I hope that this community
that I choose to participate in is not such a political mess that breeds
that sort of selfish market share power plays, and instead it is a
community of people and organizations that take actions based on how they
can contribute to an overall good.

On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 6:23 PM, Mateusz Loskot  wrote:

> On 16 November 2015 at 23:11, Jody Garnett  wrote:
> > If I was to sum up the difference in outlook between the two
> organizations
> > today it would more be along the lines of LocationTech being "developer
> > focused" and OSGeo being "user focused'. I think that is more a
> reflection
> > of where the projects involved are in their incubation process that any
> > strategic difference.
>
> Jody,
>
> I have to admit, to me as OSGeo member as developer (+SAC supporter),
> this whole thread has not clarified almost nothing.
>
> As much as I appreciate (and carefully read through) all your inputs,
> that summary leaves me with even more questions.
>
> And, BTW, I agree with you about the FAQ, it also reads naive and silly
> (e.g. comparing Apache vs Mozilla, two different scopes, to
> LocationTech vs OSGeo,
> two with clear overlap).
>
> Putting all the emotional cream whipped so far aside and objectively,
> clearly, that it is all about potential, capacity and market share.
>
> OSGeo has proved its potential, it is capable to paddle its own canoe
> for a decade or more,
> via large self-organized community and successful projects.
>
> LocationTech is a fairly new player with huge & rich organization behind,
> that has to prove it's capable to secure market share, and its position.
> Otherwise, the parent organization will simply shut it down as any
> failed project.
>
> Best regards,
> --
> Mateusz  Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net
>
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo/LocationTech relationship

[Rob Emanuele]

ressing, 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
>>>>>> for
>>>>>> public 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, which
>>>>>> increases prices, and looses core community driven focus. Am I
>>>>>> right? Or
>>>>>> 

Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Fun Event in Victoria with mix of OSGeo/LocationTech projects

[Rob Emanuele]

Hi Jeff,

I'm sorry to hear you are being bullied in private messages. It is perhaps
best to bring in the Code of Conduct committee to help handle 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 "to promote
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 member of the
LocationTech PMC and someone who was/is involved in the FOSS4G NA 2015 and
FOSS4G NA 2016 process, as well as someone involved in the FOSS4G 2017
Philadelphia bid, I want to assure you that is not the 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 organizations for sure, and I think
highlighting those differences and really understanding how they serve the
community in different ways is important. The ideal scenario that I see is
that both organizations would use those differences to collaborate and have
a sum-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 one of the
organizations characterizing the core goal of the other organization in a
dangerously wrong way. We have decisions and discussions 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 volunteers being spent on political infighting rather
than on collaboration towards serving the community. I'm not sure the best
path forward for this, but I want to declare that the situation as I see it
is bad for the community, 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). 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  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 I too have
> received very disturbing direct emails, containing threats of "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 will tell them here publicly, bullying me will not stop me
> from speaking 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 up
> http://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 

Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Fun Event in Victoria with mix of OSGeo/LocationTech projects

[Rob Emanuele]

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 projects which are
supported by LocationTech are declared by a legal team to be free 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 the
budget will be used. The budget mainly consists of member company's dues.
The members of the steering committee are decided by membership level
(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 have my project be
promoted through events and other channels; for instance I 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> 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 is
>> perhaps best to bring in the Code of Conduct committee to help handle
>> 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 "to promote
>> 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 re

Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Funded projects using FOSS4G tools with respect to water management

[Rob Emanuele]

Hi Mauri,

GeoTrellis (http://geotrellis.io), GeoServer, and PostGIS were used for
this watershed modelling application by Azavea:
http://app.wikiwatershed.org/stroudfx/bin-debug/Main.swf

Cheers,
Rob


On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 12:36 PM, Chaitanya kumar CH chaitanya...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 Hi Mauri,

 This is not exactly water  management, but I want to mention a new project
 Catchment Area Treatment Plan. The GIS cell at OFSDP project  management
 unit will be handling the data. We, at the GIS cell, are doing most of the
 work using FOSS4G. The primary goal of OFSDP is improvement of degraded
 forest, which obviously includes water management too. There was minimal
 usage of available data for analysis and assessment until the FOSS4G tools
 were introduced.

 I'll provide more details if you are interested.

 --
 Best regards,
 Chaitanya Kumar CH
 On 23-Jul-2014 6:55 pm, Mauricio Miranda mmira...@osgeo.org wrote:

 Hi everyone,

 I've been invited to the 15th Water Web Summit [1] as an OSGeo
 representative to talk about FOSS4G projects related to water management.

 I'll talk about OSGeo and local communities, and I would like to show
 some successful use cases.

 I have been googling a lot and also asked help to Jeff and Jorge.
 However, I want to be sure I won't miss any important project.

 So... my question is: Do you know about a water project using FOSS4G I
 shouldn't miss in my presentation?

 Thanks,

 Mauri

 [1] http://waterwebconsortium.com/wis15/

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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [location-iwg] Announcing the program chair for FOSS4G NA 2015

[Rob Emanuele]

Thanks Andrew.

I'm very happy to be selected to serve as program chair (my announcement is
here
http://www.azavea.com/blogs/atlas/2014/07/foss4g-north-america-2015-program-committee-chairman-announcement/).
If anyone has any input on what they'd like to see in FOSS4G NA 2015's
program or how you think it should be structured, please don't hesitate to
contact me; the more opinions I hear from the community, the better I can
guide the program committee towards creating the best possible program.

Cheers,
Rob


On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 1:47 PM, Andrew Ross andrew.r...@eclipse.org
wrote:

  Hi Everyone,

 (x-posted to OSGeo  LocationTech discussion lists, please forward as
 appropriate)

 Just a quick announcement related to FOSS4G North America 2015 for those
 that may have missed the announcement elsewhere.

 The event takes place in San Francisco from *March 9th to 12th*.

 I am pleased to announce that Rob Emanuele has joined the team to serve
 as program chair
 http://42aross.wordpress.com/2014/07/17/announcing-foss4g-north-america-2015-program-chair/
 for FOSS4G North America 2015. Rob  I will be working to build the program
 committee and we'll have some further announcements soon.

 Kind regards,

 Andrew

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-- 
Rob Emanuele, Tech Lead, GeoTrellis

Azavea |  340 N 12th St, Ste 402, Philadelphia, PA
remanu...@azavea.com  | T 215.701.7692  | F 215.925.2663
Web azavea.com http://www.azavea.com/  |  Blog azavea.com/blogs
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