[GRASS-de] Idee einer Stiftung - Re: Talking about an umbrella GFOSS foundation

[Markus Neteler]

Hallo zusammen,

unten stehende Mail habe ich eben an die GRASS User und
Entwicklerliste geschickt. Aus Zeitmangel kann ich es
nicht auf Deutsch uebersetzen.

In Kuerze: Die im November gegruendete Mapserver Foundation
soll anscheinend neu aufgerollt werden. Sie soll
fuer weitere freie GIS Softwareprojekte geoeffnet werden,
da es so nicht funktioniert. Im Hintergrund steht
sicher die Art und Weise, sowie die Rolle von
Autodesk, die sich jetzt wesentlich mehr zurueckhalten
wollen.

Ich habe eine Einladung zu einem Treffen im Februar
erhalten, um diese Dinge zu diskutieren.

Aus meiner Sicht waere es gut, wenn sich das GRASS
Projekt aktiv an einer grossen Stiftung beteiligen
wuerde. Wenn es sie ohne GRASS gaebe, wuerde doch
ein wesentlicher Baustein fehlen.

Ich wuerde mich freuen, wenn die Idee einer grossen
"Stiftung Freie GIS Softwareprojekte" diskutiert
wuerde.

Bitte lest trotzdem meinen Text unten.

Schoene Gruesse

 Markus


On Fri, Jan 13, 2006 at 03:15:07PM +0100, 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)
>