I fully support the idea for creating an umbrella GIS FOSS foundation with GRASS project being one of the core members.
GIS is still a relatively specialized field so an umbrella foundation is essential.
The Lausanne meeting can give it a very strong start. Let me know if anything would be needed from me,
Helena
On Jan 13, 2006, at 9:15 AM, Markus Neteler wrote:
Dear GRASS Community,
some of you will have followed the discussions about the
"Open Letter to the MapServer community" and the announcement
of the creation of the MapServer Foundation (mapserverfoundation.org).
For details please refer to the mailing list archives [1] and [2].
Apparently there has been a debate as well about the strategy
and future mission of this foundation. In particular, if other
GIS FOSS related projects should be involved or not.
In the GRASS mailing lists the idea of creating a sort of GRASS
foundation was as far as I know not discussed widely. However,
there have been discussions at various meetings (international
such as Trento 2002, Bangkok 2004 and also some national GRASS
conferences).
Personally I see a need for a sort of institutionalization
of our project to become more independent from single persons
and institutions. I feel that establishing a corpus for fund
raising/re-investment and other good things a foundation could
do (see Mapserver related pages from Tyler Mitchell [3]), is needed
to move forward. As you all know, there are a couple of successful
FOSS foundations out there (Apache, PostgreSQL, R-stats, ...).
The idea of a GRASS Foundation is not new [4] and it was
even in a sense successful as the OGF became the today's
OGC. However, it makes sense to talk about a wider *umbrella*
foundation to better serve the communities of the various
GIS related projects. A first attempt for "growing together"
was the decision in 2004 to merge the GRASS & Mapserver
conferences (FOSS4G 2006, Lausanne). Then, in November 2005,
the Mapserver Foundation was born - initially dedicated to
Mapserver only. Recently, the involved people decided to open
this foundation to other projects as well [5], and also to
rename it [6], [2].
Like a few other core team members of GIS FOSS projects, I
was contacted two days ago to participate in an upcoming
meeting in the beginning February where this "opening up"
or "reconstructing" of such a foundation will be discussed.
As far as I understood (!), the current Mapserver Foundation
is not yet formally established.
The basic question is now if the GRASS project wants to
make part of general purpose "GIS FOSS umbrella foundation"
(with whatever name then).
I am interested to participate in the meeting and see
how things evolve and which role the GRASS project already
plays or may play. To me it looks like an important strategic
issue to be present there - a big "GIS FOSS umbrella foundation"
without GRASS would be somewhat strange.
What do you think?
Best regards
Markus
[1] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gis.mapserver.user/15262
[2] Mapserverfoundation.org:
http://lists.mapserverfoundation.org/pipermail/discuss/2006-January/date.html
[3] http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/community/foundation/background
[4] Historically:
* Open GRASS Foundation (OGF) related:
http://grass.itc.it/pipermail/grass5/1993-March/000686.html
http://grass.itc.it/pipermail/grass5/1995-January/001923.html
* European GRASS Foundation (EGF) related:
http://grass.itc.it/pipermail/grass5/1993-March/000718.html
http://grass.itc.it/pipermail/grass5/1993-December/001278.html
[5] http://lists.mapserverfoundation.org/pipermail/discuss/2005-December/000211.html
(open up the planned meeting)
[6] http://lists.mapserverfoundation.org/pipermail/discuss/2005-December/000216.html
(naming of foundation)
_______________________________________________
grass5 mailing list
grass5@grass.itc.it
http://grass.itc.it/mailman/listinfo/grass5
Helena Mitasova
Dept. of Marine, Earth and Atm. Sciences
1125 Jordan Hall, NCSU Box 8208,
Raleigh NC 27695
http://skagit.meas.ncsu.edu/~helena/
Helena Mitasova
Dept. of Marine, Earth and Atm. Sciences
1125 Jordan Hall, NCSU Box 8208,
Raleigh NC 27695
http://skagit.meas.ncsu.edu/~helena/
Hi,
I also think it would be important to have a GFOSS "umbrella" Foundation for many reasons and GRASS should definitely be a part of it!
For this reason I agree, that Markus should participate in the meeting.
I am curious about their intentions and what potential role the GRASS project should/can play within this foundation.
BTW: I am happy that we discuss this topic before the meeting takes place on the various mailing lists!
thanks
Otto
On Fri, 13 Jan 2006, Helena Mitasova wrote:
I fully support the idea for creating an umbrella GIS FOSS foundation with GRASS project being one of the core members.
GIS is still a relatively specialized field so an umbrella foundation is essential.
The Lausanne meeting can give it a very strong start. Let me know if anything would be needed from me,
Helena
On Jan 13, 2006, at 9:15 AM, Markus Neteler wrote:
Dear GRASS Community,
some of you will have followed the discussions about the
"Open Letter to the MapServer community" and the announcement
of the creation of the MapServer Foundation (mapserverfoundation.org).
For details please refer to the mailing list archives [1] and [2].
Apparently there has been a debate as well about the strategy
and future mission of this foundation. In particular, if other
GIS FOSS related projects should be involved or not.
In the GRASS mailing lists the idea of creating a sort of GRASS
foundation was as far as I know not discussed widely. However,
there have been discussions at various meetings (international
such as Trento 2002, Bangkok 2004 and also some national GRASS
conferences).
Personally I see a need for a sort of institutionalization
of our project to become more independent from single persons
and institutions. I feel that establishing a corpus for fund
raising/re-investment and other good things a foundation could
do (see Mapserver related pages from Tyler Mitchell [3]), is needed
to move forward. As you all know, there are a couple of successful
FOSS foundations out there (Apache, PostgreSQL, R-stats, ...).
The idea of a GRASS Foundation is not new [4] and it was
even in a sense successful as the OGF became the today's
OGC. However, it makes sense to talk about a wider *umbrella*
foundation to better serve the communities of the various
GIS related projects. A first attempt for "growing together"
was the decision in 2004 to merge the GRASS & Mapserver
conferences (FOSS4G 2006, Lausanne). Then, in November 2005,
the Mapserver Foundation was born - initially dedicated to
Mapserver only. Recently, the involved people decided to open
this foundation to other projects as well [5], and also to
rename it [6], [2].
Like a few other core team members of GIS FOSS projects, I
was contacted two days ago to participate in an upcoming
meeting in the beginning February where this "opening up"
or "reconstructing" of such a foundation will be discussed.
As far as I understood (!), the current Mapserver Foundation
is not yet formally established.
The basic question is now if the GRASS project wants to
make part of general purpose "GIS FOSS umbrella foundation"
(with whatever name then).
I am interested to participate in the meeting and see
how things evolve and which role the GRASS project already
plays or may play. To me it looks like an important strategic
issue to be present there - a big "GIS FOSS umbrella foundation"
without GRASS would be somewhat strange.
What do you think?
Best regards
Markus
[1] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gis.mapserver.user/15262
[2] Mapserverfoundation.org:
http://lists.mapserverfoundation.org/pipermail/discuss/2006-January/ date.html
[3] http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/community/foundation/background
[4] Historically:
* Open GRASS Foundation (OGF) related:
http://grass.itc.it/pipermail/grass5/1993-March/000686.html
http://grass.itc.it/pipermail/grass5/1995-January/001923.html
* European GRASS Foundation (EGF) related:
http://grass.itc.it/pipermail/grass5/1993-March/000718.html
http://grass.itc.it/pipermail/grass5/1993-December/001278.html
[5] http://lists.mapserverfoundation.org/pipermail/discuss/2005-December/ 000211.html
(open up the planned meeting)
[6] http://lists.mapserverfoundation.org/pipermail/discuss/2005-December/ 000216.html
(naming of foundation)
_______________________________________________
grass5 mailing list
grass5@grass.itc.it
http://grass.itc.it/mailman/listinfo/grass5
Helena Mitasova
Dept. of Marine, Earth and Atm. Sciences
1125 Jordan Hall, NCSU Box 8208,
Raleigh NC 27695
http://skagit.meas.ncsu.edu/~helena/
Helena Mitasova
Dept. of Marine, Earth and Atm. Sciences
1125 Jordan Hall, NCSU Box 8208,
Raleigh NC 27695
http://skagit.meas.ncsu.edu/~helena/
_______________________________________________
grass5 mailing list
grass5@grass.itc.it
http://grass.itc.it/mailman/listinfo/grass5
Hi,
to better represent the GRASS community, I would like to
encourage people to participate in the ongoing discussions:
subscription:
http://lists.mapserverfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
archives:
http://lists.mapserverfoundation.org/pipermail/discuss/
IRC (#geofoundation):
irc://freenode/geofoundation
Logs of discussions: http://logs.qgis.org/geofoundation/
Thanks
Markus
PS: Document updated at
http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/twiki/bin/view/GRASS/GeospatialUmbrellaFoundation
I joined the list to follow what is going on. Unfortunately, it has quite a
bit of normal MapServer development/use issues interspersed with GFOSS
foundation discussions.
I'm waiting to see how GRASS fits in. One relevant item that came up is that
of licensing standards within the proposed foundation. The short comment
suggested that GRASS's GPL license may be a limiting factor, but that it
would probably be nigh on impossible to change.
Something I haven't seen come up yet, but what is probably the most
important set of issues at the meeting next week is the governance structure
and how support would be allocated.
You're probably already planning on this, Markus, but I want to note that
the user base and code base figures that Martin and Hamish talked about last
year will probably be useful stats to have handy.
Michael
______________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-2402
USA
voice: 480-965-6262; fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton
From: Markus Neteler <neteler@itc.it>
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 11:58:53 +0100
To: grass developers list <grass5@grass.itc.it>
Cc: GRASS user list <grasslist@baylor.edu>
Subject: [GRASS5] Re: Talking about an umbrella GFOSS foundation
Hi,
to better represent the GRASS community, I would like to
encourage people to participate in the ongoing discussions:
subscription:
http://lists.mapserverfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
archives:
http://lists.mapserverfoundation.org/pipermail/discuss/
IRC (#geofoundation):
irc://freenode/geofoundation
Logs of discussions: http://logs.qgis.org/geofoundation/
Thanks
Markus
PS: Document updated at
http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/twiki/bin/view/GRASS/GeospatialUmbrellaFoundation
Michael,
Michael Barton wrote:
I joined the list to follow what is going on. Unfortunately, it has quite a
bit of normal MapServer development/use issues interspersed with GFOSS
foundation discussions.
Yes, I agree. I just feel that we have to speak up there, otherwise they
will just ignore "our" issues.
I'm waiting to see how GRASS fits in. One relevant item that came up is that
of licensing standards within the proposed foundation. The short comment
suggested that GRASS's GPL license may be a limiting factor, but that it
would probably be nigh on impossible to change.
Well, AFAIK also Frank Warmerdam dislikes the idea of transfering
copyrights to a foundation.
For him an OSI compliant license it sufficient (and I think that his
opinion will have some impact there).
Something I haven't seen come up yet, but what is probably the most
important set of issues at the meeting next week is the governance structure
and how support would be allocated.
You're probably already planning on this, Markus, but I want to note that
the user base and code base figures that Martin and Hamish talked about last
year will probably be useful stats to have handy.
You mean in the newletter?
Markus
Michael Barton wrote:
I joined the list to follow what is going on. Unfortunately, it has quite a
bit of normal MapServer development/use issues interspersed with GFOSS
foundation discussions.
Hi Michael,
Please keep in mind that while the first incarnation of the foundation
was more focused on MapServer, that is not the case any longer. The
"msf-discuss" list is intended specifically for foundation-related
dialogue and debate - please use it! Some people accidentally wander
into it and ask off-topic questions, but I usually point them back to
the right list 
I understand that for some people being on a list
that is run off "mapserverfoundation.org" seems a bit weird, but until
we rename the foundation there is no way of readily changing the name to
something more representative of the broader scope.
I just want to encourage (and welcome!) all users/developers of open
source geospatial projects to join the debates as much as possible, so
that when the foundation does get started, it will be as useful for your
community as possible (regardless of whether your project joins it or not).
I'm waiting to see how GRASS fits in. One relevant item that came up is that
of licensing standards within the proposed foundation. The short comment
suggested that GRASS's GPL license may be a limiting factor, but that it
would probably be nigh on impossible to change.
I don't expect anyone to advocate setting a license standard/requirement
for foundation projects - at the most we may desire to have one that is
at least OSI recognised.
Something I haven't seen come up yet, but what is probably the most
important set of issues at the meeting next week is the governance structure
and how support would be allocated.
What do you mean by 'support'? The governance structure must be set up
in a way that makes it desireable for projects to join. That is the
common goal that I hear from everyone who is attending. I'm really glad
to know Markus is coming.
Tyler
Tyler,
Thanks for the response. As I said previously, I'm in favor of GRASS
participating in this effort. Discussions showed up today about licensing
and support (i.e., what kinds of benefits do projects receive from joining
the foundation). The mission and rationale for the foundation, and for
projects joining the foundation will be important to articulate at the
outset.
Michael
______________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-2402
USA
voice: 480-965-6262; fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton
From: Tyler Mitchell <tjm@timberline.ca>
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 10:45:38 -0800
To: Michael Barton <michael.barton@asu.edu>
Cc: grass developers list <grass5@grass.itc.it>, Multiple recipients of list
<grasslist@baylor.edu>
Subject: Re: [GRASS5] Re: Talking about an umbrella GFOSS foundation
Michael Barton wrote:
I joined the list to follow what is going on. Unfortunately, it has quite a
bit of normal MapServer development/use issues interspersed with GFOSS
foundation discussions.
Hi Michael,
Please keep in mind that while the first incarnation of the foundation
was more focused on MapServer, that is not the case any longer. The
"msf-discuss" list is intended specifically for foundation-related
dialogue and debate - please use it! Some people accidentally wander
into it and ask off-topic questions, but I usually point them back to
the right list 
I understand that for some people being on a list
that is run off "mapserverfoundation.org" seems a bit weird, but until
we rename the foundation there is no way of readily changing the name to
something more representative of the broader scope.
I just want to encourage (and welcome!) all users/developers of open
source geospatial projects to join the debates as much as possible, so
that when the foundation does get started, it will be as useful for your
community as possible (regardless of whether your project joins it or not).
I'm waiting to see how GRASS fits in. One relevant item that came up is that
of licensing standards within the proposed foundation. The short comment
suggested that GRASS's GPL license may be a limiting factor, but that it
would probably be nigh on impossible to change.
I don't expect anyone to advocate setting a license standard/requirement
for foundation projects - at the most we may desire to have one that is
at least OSI recognised.
Something I haven't seen come up yet, but what is probably the most
important set of issues at the meeting next week is the governance structure
and how support would be allocated.
What do you mean by 'support'? The governance structure must be set up
in a way that makes it desireable for projects to join. That is the
common goal that I hear from everyone who is attending. I'm really glad
to know Markus is coming.
Tyler
Dear all,
I am sitting in the Chicago meeting right now.
The name is settled now as:
"Open Source Geospatial Foundation"
You can follow the discussions in IRC:
irc://freenode/geofoundation
Markus
PS: background here:
http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/twiki/bin/view/GRASS/GeospatialUmbrellaFoundation
I forgot to mention that IRC is logged in real time
here:
http://logs.qgis.org/geofoundation/
Markus
On Sat, Feb 04, 2006 at 04:19:18PM +0100, Markus Neteler wrote:
Dear all,
I am sitting in the Chicago meeting right now.
The name is settled now as:
"Open Source Geospatial Foundation"
You can follow the discussions in IRC:
irc://freenode/geofoundation
Markus
PS: background here:
http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/twiki/bin/view/GRASS/GeospatialUmbrellaFoundation
_______________________________________________
grass5 mailing list
grass5@grass.itc.it
http://grass.itc.it/mailman/listinfo/grass5