Conference Committee

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The Conference Committee is the official committee of OSGeo responsible for operating the annual FOSS4G conferences.

Noteworthy Documents

Goals

The conference committee have the responsibility to:

  • Run the selection process and voting for the global FOSS4G
  • Vote on conference related proposals submitted to the committee
  • Retain the collected wisdom for FOSS4G and related events
  • Advise the board, Local Organising Committees (LOC), and related events organisors, ideally referencing the FOSS4G Handbook
  • Ensure OSGeo foundation principles are applied to global FOSS4G conferences
  • Manage the FOSS4G Travel Grant Programme for FOSS4G and regional events

See also: 2016 priorities are summarised in Conference Committee 2016 Priorities

Housekeeping Procedures

The Conference Committee uses the following procedures to make decisions.

Decisions

consideration for new selection methods

  1. Anyone may contribute to conference committee discussions. All votes will be noted, but only conference committee member votes count toward decisions.
  2. Voting will use convention of:
    • +1 : For
    • +0: Mildly for
    • 0: Indifferent
    • -0: Mildly against
    • -1 : Strongly against. This is expected to be accompanied by a reason and alternative proposal.
  3. Everyday topics will be decided by an open vote of all members in a clearly designated separate mail thread over a minimum of 2 business days with a minimum participation of 3 votes.
  4. For major decisions, such as conference venue selection, a minimum of one week shall be allocated to try and ensure at least 50% voter participation.
  5. The committee aims for consensus, and will specifically attempt to address all -1 votes, but will revert to a majority vote where necessary.
  6. The result will be clearly declared afterwards.
  7. Secret voting, when required, will use an online voting service or use an email to an independent teller appointed by CC Chair.

FOSS4G Selection

  1. All Letters of Intent and subsequent proposals will be posted to the list for open comment by all.
  2. The selection of the winning proposal is by secret vote of conference committee members.
  3. The OSGeo Board will be requested to ratify the conference committee’s recommendation.
  4. Any committee member who has a potential conflict of interest is expected to withdraw from voting. A member of the committee who is part of a bidding team, intends to become part of the LOC or is employed by a company playing an active part in a bid should exclude themselves from voting in the selection process. In the event of a disagreement regarding a potential conflict of interest the committee chair has the authority to make a decision.

Changes in RfP Document for 2021

  • At least at the letters-of-intent stage there should always be a voting option of "None of the above". Otherwise there's no point in having a vote if there's only one letter, also this allows for the (unlikely) event of all letters being rubbish.
  • Bids should be scored based on various pre-defined criterion. Current voting by the committee seems to include a "where I want to go on holiday" component which has no place in a process like this. This is in keeping with the "openness" goal of OSGeo as compared to the current Star Chamber-like voting.
  • Further to the above, a list of objective mandatory criterion can be specified as required. I.e. "Venue must be able to host X people", "must be at least Y tracks", "Must be accessible via both local and national public transport", etc.

FOSS4G Travel Grant Programme

The FOSS4G TGP was started in 2017 with funding from the OSGeo Board and a crowd funding initiative. The Conference Committee is tasked with managing this grant programme for the Global FOSS4G and for any Regional FOSS4G's that request assistance

Setting up a FOSS4G TGP

Some guidance notes are available in the FOSS4G Travel Grant Programme Cookbook

Membership

  1. To ensure voting control for key decisions remains with experienced people, the committee aims for more than 50% of members to be chairs (or vice chairs) of past FOSS4G global events. The chair of the most recent FOSS4G event will automatically be invited to become a member but still requires a motion and vote.
  2. The conference committee aims to retain a chair or vice-chair from the 5 most recent global FOSS4G conferences.
  3. The remaining membership, less than 50% of members, is open, ideally attracting chairs or LOC members from past Global or Regional FOSS4G or related conferences.
  4. Each year, prior to releasing the Global FOSS4G RfP, the membership list shall be re-visited.
    1. Existing members shall be asked whether they wish to continue on the committee. If a member doesn't respond, after a number of attempts to contact them, they shall be retired.
    2. Interested people may be suggested, or request to be voted onto the conference committee.
    3. If less than 50% of membership would be past global FOSS4G chair/vice chairs, then non global FOSS4G chair/vice chair positions shall be up for re-election.
    4. Election of conference committee members is by secret vote by the existing conference committee and board members who are not already members of the conference committee. Voters will vote Yes/No/Abstain for each candidate. Voters may select "Yes" for up to the number of positions available.
  5. Votes will be secret either using an online voting system or by email to a designated teller who is not a voter. The mechanism will be selected by the committee chair.

Current Members

  1. Peter Batty - member since 2011 (chair of Global FOSS4G 2011)
  2. David Bitner (chair of the 2013 FOSS4GNA)
  3. Maria Brovelli - member since March 2016 (Chair FOSS4G Europe 2015)
  4. Vasile Craciunescu - Co-Chair - member since July 2013 (chair of FOSS4G Central and Eastern Europe 2013)
  5. David Fawcett (Programme Team FOSS4GNA 2013)
  6. Gavin Fleming - (chair of Global FOSS4G 2008)
  7. Darrell Fuhriman (chair of Global FOSS4G 2014)
  8. Claude Philipona - (chair of Global FOSS4G 2006)
  9. Venkatesh Raghavan - member since Oct. 2006 (Chair FOSS4G-2004, FOSS4G-Asia 2014)
  10. Paul Ramsey - Chair of global FOSS4G 2007
  11. Sanghee Shin - member since 2015 (chair of Global FOSS4G 2015)
  12. Guido Stein - member since February 2018 (chair of Global FOSS4G 2017)
  13. Michael Terner - member since February 2018 (chair of Global FOSS4G 2017)
  14. Msilikale Msilanga - Co-Chair - member since September 2018 (co-chair of Global FOSS4G 2018)
  15. Mark Iliffe - member since September 2018 (co-chair of Global FOSS4G 2018)
  16. María Arias de Reyna Domínguez - member since November 2021 (chair of Global FOSS4G 2021)
  17. Luca Delucchi - member since October 2022 (chair of Global FOSS4G 2022)

Past Members

  1. Lorenzo Becchi
  2. Allan Doyle
  3. Olivier Ertz
  4. Alain Grignon
  5. Luc Maurer
  6. Daniel Rappo
  7. Dave Patton
  8. Rafael Medeiros Sperb
  9. Arnulf Christl
  10. Markus Neteler
  11. Steve Lime
  12. Frank Warmerdam
  13. Dave McIlhagga (resigned August 2016)
  14. Jeroen Ticheler (resigned September 2016)
  15. Thierry Badard (resigned September 2016)
  16. Helena Mitasova (resigned September 2016)
  17. Cameron Shorter - member from 2009 to Oct 2017 (chair of Global FOSS4G 2009)
  18. Jachym Cepicky - (resigned August 2019)
  19. Till Adams - resigned October 2022 / member since September 2016 (chair of Global FOSS4G 2016)
  20. Steven Feldman - resigned October 2022 / member since October 2013 (chair of Global FOSS4G 2013)
  21. Eli Adam - resigned October 2022 / member since January 2015 (1 of 4 co-chairs of Global FOSS4G 2014)

Meetings

  • Meetings occur in IRC in the #foss4g channel (on irc.freenode.net) or by other means organized on the email list. Meetings are infrequent.
  • As of 2016 the Conference Committee Meetings page was not being maintained any more.

2025 Pages

2024 Pages

2023 Pages

2022 Pages

2021 Pages

2020 Pages

2019 Pages

2018 Pages

2017 Pages

2016 Pages

2015 Pages

2014 Pages

2013 Pages

2012 Pages

Main page: FOSS4G 2012

  • RFP (OpenOffice, pdf)
  • budget template (OpenOffice)
  • Important dates:
    • Letters of Intent (Stage 1) due: 2011-06-30 (23:00 UTC)
    • Stage 1 question period: 2011-06-30 to 2011-07-07
    • Stage 1 decision: 2011-07-07
    • Proposals (Stage 2) due: 2011-08-01 (23:00 UTC)
    • Stage 2 question period: 2011-08-01 to 2011-08-05
    • Final decision: 2011-08-05

2011 Pages

2010 Pages

2009 Pages

2008 Pages

2007 Pages

2006 Pages

Event Policy Pages

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