OSGeo proposal for Francophone Local Chapter

OSGeo-fr | Section Organisation libre = Proposal for the creation of the Francophone Local Chapter (OSGeo-fr)= Reference links:
 * Local Chapter Guidelines
 * OSGeo Memberships
 * India Local Chapter

Introduction
The first role of the Francophone Local Chapter (hereafter named OSGeo-fr) will be to federate French speaking GFOSS users into a Francophone geospatial community. This community will aim at promoting geospatial software, open geodata and of course OSGeo's missions at a local level. These missions, which will be detailled hereinafter, have to be close enough to local user's needs : language barrier and francophone specificity, such as character encoding, local coordinate systems, etc.

Language barrier
English language is widely used in software development projects, but it is not always well understood locally. That's why it is so important to offer translations, so as to enable non native English-speaking people to use and contribute to free and open source geospatial software. Sharing informations and documentations in French is one of the main purposes for a Francophone Local Chapter. As we will see later, it won't be the only one.

Francophone specificity
Character encoding and local coordinate systems are the best examples to demonstrate local specificity. The local chapter will link local users to international developers in order to improve technical implementations of local specificities and issues.

Promoting OS software at local level
GFOSS are getting increasingly popular in professional environments, but their technologies are not always well-known, so that demonstrations, documentation or software comparisons will always be welcomed. Proprietary softwares benefit from a better marketing. Moreover, they are often taught in University.

A local presence could change this situation, and we have plans for that :
 * 1) first by organizing lectures and workshops around GFOSS. One of our missions will be to create educational material in local language, with the help of OSGeo's Educational Committee.
 * 2) secondly by demoing GFOSS in trade shows.

Structure and Legal status
OSGeo Francophone Chapter is, presently, like OSGeo India Chapter, a voluntary organization, and has not been registered as a legal body. This could be changed if needed, as it would help to manage funds and financial supports from companies.

The Local Chapter welcomes all french-speaking people willing to share information about GFOSS. The Francophone Local Chapter is open to all french-speaking geospatial community members. We do not discriminate based on age, gender, race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, or disability.

Organization
The president's role is to link the Local Community to OSGeo, and has to report annually about the Local Chapter's projects and missions.

This Local Chapter's organization follows its three main missions. Other missions could be added later if we feel the need. For each mission, there is a Committee and a "Committee Leader" who has been elected. Each Committee manages several projects, which are clearly identified by a goal and a person in charge.

Here are the three Committees we wish to create:
 * 1) Organization Committee
 * 2) Free Data Committee
 * 3) Free & OS Software Committee

Every member will be offered the possibility to contribute to one or more project, but one person will not be authorized to manage more than one committee (except if there is a lack of candidates for the elections).

In the near future, we plan to write RFCs in order to determine more precisely how OSGeo-fr will organize itself. For example, a RFC should describe how elections will be managed.

To keep contact and to share ideas and information, the Local Chapter is using the [Francophone] mailing list. The wiki will archive all information and should be the formal and official reference for any question.

The Local Chapter members will be organized based on OSGeo's model, with Participants, Members, Board. [FIXME: pas clair] Companies have a special role. They will be allowed to financially support the Local Chapter, or to use the OSGeo Sponsorship System.

Missions
Missions are listed below. For each of them, a few projects are defined. This list is not exhaustive and can be modified, especially to add projects if enough people are interesting in participating.


 * 1) Organization Committee
 * 2) * project 1: manage portals and wiki.
 * 3) * project 2: manage meetings and trade shows.
 * 4) * project 3: promote OSGeo's missions.
 * 5) Free Data Committee
 * 6) * project 1: promote free data licenses.
 * 7) * project 2: host, share and publish free data.
 * 8) * project 3: help liberating data.
 * 9) Free & OS Software committee
 * 10) * project 1: promote and demonstrate GFOSS software.
 * 11) * project 2: localize, translate and customize GFOSS software.
 * 12) * project 3: promote writing and translating documentation
 * 13) * project 4: support in French on mailing lists and forums.

Francophone OSGeo Chapter Officers
Here are the persons who were elected. More information about them can be found in the personal wiki pages (following the link) :
 * President : Yves Jacolin
 * Organization Committee leader: Gwenael Bachelot
 * Data Committee leader: François Van Der Biest
 * Software Committee leader: Vincent Picavet

You can contact each of us by sending a mail to the francophone mailing list.

Initial Membership

 * 1) Gérald Fenoy (Balaruc les Bains, France)
 * 2) François Van Der Biest - (Paris-Chambéry, France)
 * 3) Yves Jacolin (Suresnes, France)
 * 4) Frédéric Pouget
 * 5) Daniel Morissette - (Chicoutimi, Québec)
 * 6) Laurent Jégou - (Toulouse, France)
 * 7) Eve Rousseau - (Paris, France)
 * 8) Thierry Badard - (Québec, Qc, Canada)
 * 9) Gwenael Bachelot - (Paris, France)
 * 10) Ludovic Lestrat (Orléans, France)
 * 11) René-Luc D'Hont - (Montpellier, France)
 * 12) François Prunayre - (Limoges, France)
 * 13) David Jonglez - (Chambéry, France)
 * 14) Emmanuel Belo - (Lausanne, Suisse)
 * 15) Damien Corpataux - (Lausanne, Suisse)
 * 16) Arnaud Saint Léger - (Chambéry, France)
 * 17) Pierre Giraud - (Chambéry, France)
 * 18) Alexandre Saunier - (Lausanne, Suisse)
 * 19) Mathieu Coudert - (Chambéry, France)
 * 20) Vincent Picavet - (Paris, France).
 * 21) Christophe Tuffery - (Paris, France)
 * 22) Sidonie Christophe - (Paris, France)
 * 23) Julien-Samuel Lacroix - (Chicoutimi, Québec)
 * 24) Pierre-André Le Ny - (Paris, France)
 * 25) Olivier Travaglini - (Genève, Suisse)
 * 26) Alexandre Leroux - (Montréal, Québec)
 * 27)  Martin Fafard - (Laval, Québec)
 * 28)  Nicolas KLEIN - (La Rochelle, France)
 * 29)  Grégory BOURBON - (St Etienne, France)
 * 30)  Robin PREST - (Laon, France)
 * 31)  Marie Silvestre - (Paris, France).
 * 32)  Xavier Guipon - (Vanves, France)
 * 33)  Frédéric BARNAY - (Aix-en-Provence, France)
 * 34)  Thierry GONON - (Lagnieu, France)
 * 35)  Sylvain Théry - (Paris, France).
 * 36)  Jérome Gasperi - (Toulouse, France).
 * 37)  Chris HERMANSEN - (Grenoble, France).
 * 38)  Michel MAINGUENAUD - (Rouen, France).
 * 39)  Alain Bouju (Université de La Rochelle, France).
 * 40)  Mauro Gaio - (Pau, France).
 * 41)  Julien Lesbegueries - (Pau, France).
 * 42)  Pierre Loustau - (Pau, France).
 * 43)  Gilles Taladoire - (Nouméa, Nouvelle-Calédonie).
 * 44)  Touraïvane - (Nouméa, Nouvelle-Calédonie).
 * 45)  Hervé Halbout - (Caen, France).
 * 46)  Robert Jeansoulin - (Marne-la-Vallée, France).
 * 47)  Olivier Ertz.
 * 48)  Nicolas Gignac - (Ville de Québec, Québec).
 * 49)  Edouard Legoupil - (Accra, Ghana).
 * 50)  Denis Helfer - (Strasbourg, France)
 * 51)  Benoit Véler - (Grenoble, France)
 * 52)  Ludovic Granjon - (Barcelonnette, France)
 * 53)  Thomas Gratier - (Allanche, France)
 * 54)  Vincent Heurteaux - (Montpellier, France)
 * 55)  Souleymane Ousmane - (Niamey, NIGER)
 * 56)  Christophe Bredel - (St Jean d'angely, France)
 * 57)  Eric Lemoine - (Chambéry, France)
 * 58)  Jean-Michel Follin - (Le Mans, France)
 * 59)  Pierre Lagarde - (Orléans, France)

Achievements

 * 1) OSGeo at Géoévénement 2007 Trade show:
 * 2) * OSGeo booth
 * 3) * OSGeo conference
 * 4) * Open Source Village (22 companies, lots of visitors)
 * 5) Localisation of OSGeo Journal Vol. 1
 * 6) Francophone OSGeo Board election in june/july 2007
 * 7) OSGeo brochures v1 and v2 localisation march 2007 and august/september 2007

Current actions

 * 1) Localisation:
 * 2) * OSGeo Website
 * 3) * OSGeo Journal Vol. 2
 * 4) OSGeo representation at tradeshows :
 * 5) * Booth at GeoTunis 2007
 * 6) * Conference during Autodesk's user day
 * 7) Creation of a Legal association
 * 8) * to allow sponsorship management
 * 9) * to get representative weight

Planned actions

 * 1) OSGeo Journal
 * 2) * Create a project to form and organize a french translation team
 * 3) Desktop applications benchmarking project
 * 4) Francophone FOSS4G
 * 5) ... and lots of projects depending on our contributors