Board Member Nominations 2011

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The following nominations have been received for the OSGeo Board in 2011 through the Election 2011 process. The end of Sunday, August 7th 2011 is the latest that new nominations, sent to cro@osgeo.org and the discuss list, will be accepted.

This list is presented in the order nominations were received.

Incumbent board members are marked with an asterisk (*).

Candidate statements, if they have been provided, are indented and provided immediately after the candidate name.

Peter Batty

I nominate Peter Batty for a position on the OSGeo Board. I've worked closely with Peter in a variety of situations - his focus and experience would serve OSGeo well as a director. As Chair of the FOSS4G 2011 event he has shown a willingness to stick his neck out for FOSS4G and OSGeo - taking on the challenge of balancing the demands of the community at large and running a large event. He is well connected but has his feet on the ground, with many ideas for how to get things done, e.g. raising sponsorship, next steps for growth, etc. I've appreciated the insights he's shared at open source speaking tracks that I've been part of, he presents OSGeo very well. He's no stranger to the boardroom table and I hope we can put that experience to work for OSGeo.


More from Peter's bio page or his blog: http://geothought.blogspot.com/

I have worked in the geospatial industry for 25 years. I am currently a co-founder and VP of geospatial technology at Ubisense, where I am leading the development of a product called Ubisense myWorld, which is focused on simple to use mapping for utilities and telcos, and makes use of several open source geospatial products including PostGIS, MapFish and OpenLayers. Previously I have been CTO of two of the top three (closed source) geospatial software companies (and two of the world's top 200 software companies) Intergraph, and Smallworld (now part of GE). I am chair of the FOSS4G 2011 conference in Denver.

I have contributed to several industry open data standards including the Open Geospatial Consortium in its formative years, and IEC TC57 Working Group 14 (for exchange of electric utility data). I am an active participant in and advocate for OpenStreetMap. I was a member of the Board of GITA (the Geospatial Information and Technology Association) for 5 years, from 2004 through 2008, and am again in 2011. I have been a member of the GeoWorld magazine Editorial Advisory Board since 1996, have published many articles and spoken at many conferences around the world, and write a blog called geothought.

I'm an active advocate for open source geospatial software. I speak regularly about open source at conferences. I have helped organize local events for FRUGOS, the Front Range Users of Geospatial Open Source, in Colorado. I was an organizer of the WhereCamp5280 event in Denver in 2009 and 2010.

-- From: Tyler Mitchell

I would like to thank Tyler Mitchell for nominating me, and I am honored to be standing with a great group of candidates, all of whom have a longer history of involvement with OSGeo than I do, I think. I have put in a lot of hours as FOSS4G chair over the past year though, so am trying to catch up to some degree!

However, as a relative newcomer to open source geospatial software I feel can bring some different attributes to the board, and I think that having a variety of strengths and perspectives among the members of any board is a good thing. In past lives I have been CTO at two of the top three (closed source) geospatial software companies, Intergraph and Smallworld. This background means that I am pretty well known in the broader geospatial industry, so I often get invitations to do keynote talks at conferences or contribute articles to publications, etc. This gives me a good platform to spread the word about OSGeo, especially to audiences who are often fairly uneducated about open source. My strong background in the closed source world adds credibility when I tell this type of audience that they need to look seriously at open source. This recent blog post is typical of the sort of story I tell this kind of audience about my experience with open source: http://bit.ly/qgI4lE. This post also talks a little more about the work I am currently doing on development of web mapping applications for large enterprises, especially utilities and telecoms, using various open source products including PostGIS, MapFish and OpenLayers.

I already do this kind of outreach and will continue to do so whether or not I'm on the board. But I think that being a board member would help add weight to the story I could tell about open source at events like these. Also as a board member I would like to help expand our outreach activities. At FOSS4G this year we have a one day event for newcomers, and I think that content and ideas from this could be packaged up and re-used elsewhere. Earlier this year I participated with several others in delivering an open source track at the GITA conference in the US, an established geospatial conference that had historically been focused mainly on closed source systems. I think we could get a much greater presence at small and large events around the world by maintaining a set of good quality presentation material, and a list of people interested in speaking, and proactively reaching out to event organizers (who are usually looking for good content).

With my background and good connections in the industry I think I am also in a good position to help attract more sponsorship / funding for OSGeo, to help us maintain and expand our activities. My experience with FOSS4G this year has made me think that there is more that we can and should do to help future organizers avoid reinventing the wheel, and I would be interested in continuing to work with Jeff McKenna, Tyler Mitchell and others on some ideas on this area. One specific idea is to expand the Drupal based web site we have put together for this year's FOSS4G, which with a little more effort could handle the whole abstract submission and selection process in a much more streamlined way than we were able to do it this year, save future organizing teams a lot of effort and cut down the scope for errors in the process. I also think that we should look seriously again at the idea which has been discussed several times of having more regional FOSS4G events in addition to the global one (though there are various things to think through about how best to do this).

I have served on the boards of multiple non-profit organizations, including 6 years on the board of GITA, a North American organization focused on geospatial education and conferences (who are also the conference organizers for FOSS4G). I have also served on the boards or advisory boards of several companies, and think I have a good ability to work with a broad range of people and help get things done.

I appreciate your consideration of me as a candidate, and hope to see many of you at FOSS4G in my adopted home town of Denver (I am from the UK originally).

-- From: Peter Batty

Charlie Schweik

I nominate Charlie Schweik for a position on the OSGeo Board. Charlie Schweik is chair of the OSGEO education committee and an effective advocate for the use of open source geospatial software in academia. He is an Associate Professor with a joint appointment shared between the Department of Natural Resources Conservation and the Center for Public Policy and Administration at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is also the Associate Director of the National Center for Digital Government, and an affiliated researcher with the Science, Technology, and Society Initiative at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

His research focuses on environmental management and policy, public-sector information technology, and the intersection of those domains. His recent peer-reviewed publications focus on free and open source software and the social frameworks and institutions that drive their development and use. With his colleague Robert English, he has just completed a 5-year National Science Foundation funded study on open source collaboration resulting in a book manuscript entitled “Successful Internet Collaboration: A Study of Open Source Software Commons” (forthcoming, June 2012, MIT Press). One chapter in this book analyzes OSGeo as a case study (thanks to interviews with OSGeo members a few years ago). Charlie has regularly taught an Introduction to Spatial Technologies course to undergraduate students using OSGeo-related technologies. He also just completed teaching a course to high school teachers using QGIS.

It was through Charlie's hard work and persistence that OSGeo first created a web-based educational content inventory system. He is now trying to work with other OSGeo affiliated academics (especially Suchith Anand at the University of Nottingham) to build a network of OSGeo-affiliated academic institutions and move OSGeo education toward a new derivative work system. He is particularly interested in focusing some of this effort on how local governments might move toward or become interested in open source geospatial technologies and believes it is critical for OSGeo to promote affiliated projects more in the government space.

Charlie's formal training and experience as a computer programmer with academic interests in studying the open source movement and promoting the use of open source geospatial tools makes him well qualified to be a board member of OSGEO.

-- From: Ned Horning

Eduardo Kanegae

I would like to nominate Eduardo Patto Kanegae for the board for he is a power F4G user and advocate in Brazil since 2001. He had contributed with brazilian users with forum replies, weblog articles, MapServer/GIS trainings ( author of 'Introdução ao MapServer' MS4W package at http://www.maptools.org/ms4w/index.phtml?page=downloads.html), translations and documentations such as ShapeLib Tools User Guide as well. Hi is currently preparing his new site/blog at http://www.webmapit.com. He would be a plus in the board, representing South American inspirations e expectations regarding F4G.

-- From: Rafael Medeiros Sperb


some achievements (for detailed info, see tracklog section here):

  • experience in MapServer & FOSS4G training
  • author of the 1st portuguese MapServer web course (Introdução ao MapServer MS4W package)
  • FOSS4G tools dependency map
  • integration cases of FOSS4G tools and ERP platforms
  • integration case of MapServer & MS-SQL 2005
  • 1st Brazilian MapServer Users Meeting - committee member
  • author of ShapeLib Tools - User Guide
  • Thuban translation to portuguese
  • author of mdb2shapefile
  • more

-- From: himself

Jo Cook

I would like to nominate Jo Cook to the OSGeo Board of Directors. Jo has been the OSGeo representative in the UK for a number of years, both formally and in practical terms as our public face, organiser, and advocate. She has ensured that OSGeo has steadily increased in strength over the past three years, with a growing mailing list, and visibility at major conferences and events, including leading well-attended workshops at the OS GIS UK conferences and elsewhere. Jo has also ensured an effective online presence for OSGeo through the OSGeo UK pages of the website, including the recent addition of a number of case studies to the site in a standardised OSGeo format, and through her blog and Twitter feed. On a personal level, speaking as someone who first started working in GIS three years ago, Jo has given me significant support and encouragement in the open source field. I am sure that Jo would be able to bring great strengths and energy to the board.

-- From: Antony Scott

I would like to nominate Jo Cook for the OSGeo Board of Directors. She is very committed to Free and Open Source Software. Her contribution to OSGeo:UK chapter has been immense. She, with help of others has managed to raise awareness about open source GIS in UK, where no one was willing to talk about it!

-- From: Saber Razmjooei

Firstly, it's an honour to be even nominated, so many thanks to Antony and Saber for that!

I recently heard someone say that in terms of the overall information technology "sphere", geospatial is such a small niche part that it's like a pimple on IT's bottom. However, we've all heard the fact about the amount of corporate data with a geospatial component! If you take those two statements together, along with the slightly uncertain financial market at the moment, there's a lot of room for growth for geospatial technology, particularly open source. I think OSGeo should be facilitating that growth, as an enabler for coders and end-users alike.

I think OSGeo does need to grow as an organisation- both in terms of sheer numbers, but also in terms of profile. I would like to get to the point where I don't have to start every discussion about OSGeo with a quick translation of what the name stands for, and what it's all about. I think opportunities at governmental level are being missed, or left to local chapters, whereas high-level involvement by OSGeo globally could be incredibly useful and persuasive. I want people (as individuals, companies, or even governments) to come to OSGeo to find out about good, sustainable, well-managed software, reputable training courses, meet-ups and mailing lists. OSGeo doesn't have to provide all of these things itself, but (at the risk of repeating myself) can act as an enabler- providing the infrastructure and the "brand", drawing people in, to the benefit of everyone involved. We do still (unfortunately) need to prove that open source geospatial software is sustainable and viable- our proprietary friends have not stopped the FUD, and OSGeo is best placed to provide the reassurance that end-users need.

The challenge is, how to do all of this with not a lot of cash! I don't propose any radical changes to how things work- I'd like to see whether there would be some benefit for spreading the pot of money for sponsoring events around a little more to raise the profile of the organisation outside of the US. I'd like to see more infrastructure in place to help local chapters (this is ongoing, so not a criticism), and I'd like to look at whether more can be done to promote company involvement in OSGeo- be that in terms of sponsorship or some other way. I guess these are both the goals I have for the organisation, and the kind of things I'd like to look at if I was elected. I'm not a coder, I'm a facilitator, and I want to make OSGeo a success by contributing in any way I can.

-- From: Jo

Jeff McKenna *

I would like to nominate Jeff McKenna to the OSGeo Board of Directors. Jeff has been an OSGeo Board member, a founding member of OSGeo, OSGeo Conference Committee chair, MapServer PSC member, FOSS4g Workshop Committee member and founding co-chair of the OSGeo Ottawa chapter. Jeff is very active in the MapServer, GDAL, FOSS4G, and OSGeo communities. He is responsible for running the ever popular WMS Benchmarking effort. Jeff is a tireless advocate for open source, open collaboration and is a big (ha!) welcoming presences in the OSGeo community for many first-timers. Jeff is responsible for the very popular MS4W Mapserver distribution, which is a mainstay for windows users of MapServer. Jeff is a graduate of the prestigious COGS (http://www.cogs.ns.ca/) and is the president of Gateway Geomatics. He has worked extensively with many international OSGeo chapters over the years. And he is a damn nice guy.

-- From: Michael Smith

Thank you very much for this nomination Mike, I really appreciate these kind words.
I would be honored to represent all OSGeo members on the Board of Directors, for 2011 to 2013. Indeed this is a great time to look back on my term on the Board from 2009 until now.
I was thinking back to then, when I came across my nomination for the Board in 2009 (http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Member_Nominations_2009#Jeff_McKenna). Thank you to Julien-Samuel Lacroix for helping me to represent OSGeo these past years on the Board. And what a great few years.:
  • I was very active in FOSS4G Sydney, Barcelona, and now Denver.
  • I traveled to OSGeo-Japan many times (enough that my usual order at a local restaurant is now a special listed on its menu as the "Jeff Set")
  • I traveled to other local chapters like OSGeo-Vietnam and OSGeo-China
  • I worked with other OSGeo Board members living in countries like India, Germany, United States, Italy, and across Canada.
I have always chosen to focus on the annual FOSS4G event, and I will continue to do so. One of my proudest achievements is bringing FOSS4G to communities around the world, including Cape Town, South Africa in 2008. I put my heart and soul into these events, and have done so since 2004. You will never see me as the visible face of these events, but scratch the surface and you'll find my comments, my recommendations, my guidance. As the chair of the OSGeo Conference Committee sometimes I am in a very hard position, being the messenger for wonderful hosting bids that are turned down that year (think of the Netherlands bid for 2010, or the Brazil bid for 2008). I enjoy working with and meeting all of these great OSGeo community people, and I appreciate each and every experience.
But as you know times are changing: the OSGeo Foundation in 2006 is much different than the OSGeo Foundation in 2012. Revenues are scarce, everyone is much busier, Open Source is being used by anyone and everyone, and the calendar seems to move faster and faster. I feel we're now in a critical time for OSGeo. For those reasons the new Board of OSGeo will play an important role in how the Open Source geospatial industry moves forward in the coming years.
Any why wouldn't I want to be a part of that on the OSGeo Board?! I would love to continue to do so.
So my friends, as Lorenzo Becchi would say, "a big hug".
Thank you for your consideration.
From: Jeff McKenna

Michael Gerlek

I would like to take this opportunity to nominate Michael Gerlek for the OSGeo Board. Michael (known to many as MPG) has been an active member of the OSGeo community from the very first planning meetings in 2006. He has been a Charter member of OSGeo since 2006 and has actively participated in many functions of OSGeo including leading the Visibility committee. Michael also co-founded CUGOS, the regional OSGeo chapter in the Pacific Northwest. He is actively involved in many open source GIS projects, and now dedicates himself to full time consulting work in the open source GIS space through his company Flaxen Geo Consulting. He has a long history in participating with the OGC and could bring unique experience in that arena to the board. Most importantly his participation in the OSGeo board would bring great industry insight, leadership experience, and a true dedication to furthering the OSGeo mission. I strongly encourage the OSGeo community to consider Michael as a valuable addition to the board and the OSGeo family.

http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Mpg

Thanks for your consideration.

--From: Aaron Racicot

Thierry Badard

I nominate Thierry Badard to serve on the OSGeo Board of Directors.

His involvement in OSGeo to date shows an encouraging commitment to advancing OSGeo's mission on many fronts. While primarily focused on the academic side through Laval University, he is also active with the OSGeo Francophone chapter and with several software projects (most notable GeoKettle).

The combination of his global outlook, educational experience and, lately, with business exposure through his work with Spatialytics gives him a powerful perspective on bringing many groups of people together. I've met Thierry several times and had encouraging discussions about how to grow the organisation and continue supporting people and projects that are connecting through OSGeo. He also worked for IGN France, so has some inside understanding of a national mapping agency, which I believe, is an increasingly important part of OSGeo's user base.

More from his Linkedin Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/thierrybadard

Dr. Thierry Badard is professor in geoinformatics at the Department of geomatics sciences of Laval University in Quebec City (Canada). He heads the GeoSOA research group and is a full time researcher of the Centre for Research in Geomatics (CRG). Former member of the steering committee of the CRG, he is also a regular researcher of the GEOIDE Network of Centres of Excellence in geomatics. He has more than 15 years of experience and he has been involved and has led national and international R&D projects of importance. His research interest deals with geospatial (Web) Services Oriented Architectures (SOA), location-based and context-aware web services and apps, geospatial Business Intelligence (GeoBI) and geo-analytical tools and the design of intelligent mobile applications for better decision support. He acts as a chair, editor and reviewer for numerous international journals and scientific conferences and has already an important record of scientific contributions. Dr. Thierry Badard is also actively involved in the geospatial free and open source community. He is developer, administrator and project coordinator of the GeoKettle (http://www.geokettle.org), GeoMondrian (http://www.geo-mondrian.org), SOLAPLayers (http://www.solaplayers.org) and GeOxygene (http://oxygene-project.sourceforge.net), open source projects. He is an OSGeo charter member and acts as a member of the OSGeo conference committee and a reviewer for the OSGeo Journal. Till last year, he was in charge of the free software commission in the OSGeo Francophone local chapter. He is a founding co-chairs the OSGeo Quebec local chapter and a founding co-chair of the ICA (International Cartographic Association) commission on open source geospatial technologies (http://ica-opensource.scg.ulaval.ca). He has also recently co-founded Spatialytics, a new company specialised in open source GeoBI where he acts as CTO. For further details, please visit http://www.spatialytics.com and http://geosoa.scg.ulaval.ca.

-- From: Tyler Mitchell

Mark Lucas

I nominate Mark Lucas for the OSGeo Board of Directors. With over 25 years experience in the geospatial and remote sensing fields, he has lots to offer, especially his enthusiasm for OSGeo and helping teams work together. He works as Principal Scientist for http://www.radiantblue.com/ where OSSIM and open source geospatial are an increasingly important component.

Mark is no stranger to both OSGeo and the Board, having helped found OSGeo at the first meeting and serving a term as a Director early in the life of the organisation. He oversees the OSSIM project and actively helps integrate open source within government. His perspective on gov't systems and open source adoption is the clearest pictures we can get. He has been crucial in writing reports and recommendations that have led to further adoption of open source within the U.S. defense and intelligence sector. His involvement in the geospatial business sphere provides good insight into where the industry is heading and how OSGeo can help encourage further uptake of our projects. I've spent enjoyable hours brainstorming with and working alongside Mark and think he is an excellent fit to help for another term on the Board. He also works with the Open Source Software Institute and more. I'm sure his skills at coordinating the launch of Titan rockets will help propel OSGeo forward too!

His profile on linkedin.com includes many telling recommendations, including Gary's encouraging comment about his previous term:

"Mark showed a capacity for collaboration and creating an environment for it with the founding of OSGeo that was crucial to getting the foundation running. He was one of the most active people involved, and without his positive energy we would not have accomplished as much as a team in creating that groundbreaking organization."

His nomination from 2006 holds true today: http://www.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2006-March/000205.html

-- From: Tyler Mitchell

Lets start with what is working well. In a very short period of time, an idea in Tyler's mind became a small meeting in Chicago where OSGeo was formed. Gary Lang and Autodesk provided the financial backing to make us a real organization- leading to infrastructure for hosting projects, conferences, and notoriety. The number of volunteers, committees, and projects that formed around us has allowed us to cast a large shadow and spread around the world in a very short period of time. Countless hours by Tyler, Frank, Arnulf, Jo, Chris, Hobu, Dave, Daniel, Geoff, Paul, Markus, Jody, Chris, Ned, Ravi, Tim, and many others have made us successful.

I support the following efforts which are currently well led by others: 

• More international participation, our technologies are ideal for areas with limited resources, 
we also have demonstrated rapid response to natural disasters around the world.
• Focus on how members without programming skills can contribute - education, documentation, marketing, coordinating and helping to integrating OSGeo projects into larger solutions.
• Live Disk efforts, more marketing
• Course materials for academia
• Enhancing and evolving the OSGeo project infrastructure

Where could I add the most value?

My desire would be to keep the culture and environment thriving while focusing on bringing in more revenue so that we can do more. Our conferences are enabled by a number of corporate sponsors. Many of us are making our livings working on open source technologies. I'd like to expand those opportunities and bring in more financial resources to the organization.

In particular, downsizing of government budgets creates significant opportunities for open source geospatial solutions and support. The OSGeo is in a position to help those organizations and agencies connect with open source resources and follow best practices. 

• Outreach to government agencies 
• Outreach to related organizations: OGC,  MIL-OSS, OSFA, OSSI, Disaster relief, humanitarian projects.
• Acting as a bridge between government agencies and OSS based companies and consultants
• Encouraging open geospatial collaboration between international governments
• Focusing on additional sponsors and revenue streams so we can do more
• I believe we should also assist proprietary companies to make the transition to open technologies and business models

Many years ago, in Chicago, we declared we wanted to move open source geospatial projects to the next level. We have already accomplished that, but there is much more that we can do.

-- From: Mark Lucas

Andrew Ross

I would like to nominate Andrew Ross for a position on the OSGeo Board.

Andrew brings a balanced mix of valuable technical and business skills which make him a great choice to become an OSGeo board member. His experience spans private, public, and academic organizations. He has been involved with OSGeo for five years, and has been a charter member of OSGeo for the past 3 years. In this time he has demonstrated considerable commitment to OSGeo, its projects, and organizations in the OSGeo ecosystem.

This list represents some of Andrew's experience and qualifications and experience relevant to his nomination:

  • Founder of FOSSLC (http://fosslc.org) - a non-profit organization dedicated to education and business development with open source technologies
  • Director of Ecosystems at the Eclipse Foundation
  • Ingres' Director of Engineering (& Geospatial Technology)
    • The development team at Ingres under his leadership contributed to OSGeo projects including GEOS, GDAL/OGR, Proj.4, and others.
    • He arranged considerable financial support for OSGeo from Ingres, both direct (cash & code contributions) and indirect (contracting people to make contributions to OSGeo projects).
  • Project founder, committer/architect for the open source video recording & streaming suite called Freeseer
  • Organized multiple OSGeo related events including Geocamp 2008, Summercamp 2009, and a number of bootcamps.
  • Organized teams to record videos for past OSGeo events including FOSS4G2009, Rendez-Vous OSGeo Quebec, and more.
  • Mentor for dozens of programming interns as part of the Google Summer of Code, Talent First Network, UCOSP, and other student programs.
  • Teaching Programming using open source technologies at Carleton University since 2006
  • 7 years experience as an architect and software developer at Nortel creating carrier grade products and services based on open source code
  • Very active member of the Ottawa OSGeo Chapter

In addition to his considerable personal experience, Andrew's work with the Eclipse Foundation, FOSSLC, and other organizations provides access to an enormous amount of experience, specialized skills, and a wealth of contacts. His addition to the board would create even more opportunities for technology sharing/development and valuable business development.

-- From: David McIlhagga

WITHDRAWN (Regina Obe)

Regina has, regrettably, withdrawn her nomination due to personal time constraints, but is grateful for the nomination.

I nominate Regina Obe for the OSGeo Board of Directors. Regina is a member of the PostGIS steering Committee and has been an OSGeo Charter Member since 2009. Regina has a particular strength that is very rare in the Open Source world and that is her dedication to making open source software and programming accessible to the often non-technical savvy GIS user. Regina (along with her husband Leo) have maintained the BostonGIS blog and the Postgres Online Journal for many years providing quick and understandable tutorials, guides, and cheat sheets for various projects with a particular focus on PostgreSQL/PostGIS, much of this has culminated in the recent publication of Postgis in Action. While Regina has a very strong technical background, I believe that Regina could help drive a focus on the usability and accessibility of OSGeo projects.

-- From: David William Bitner

David Bitner

David has been an active part of the Open Source Geospatial community for many years since helping to plan the 2005 MapServer Users meeting and helping to start the Twin Cities Mapserver Users Group (Now Twin Cities, MN OSGeo local chapter). David has been an active user and has helped to support the MapServer, PostGIS, OpenLayers, and GeoExt projects. David brings additional Board experience through serving on the Board of Directors of the Sahana Software Foundation which supports software (much of which leverages OSGeo software) used in emergency management and response.

-- From: Perry Nacionales

Candidate Statement:

I have been involved with the community that came to be OSGeo since working on the planning committee for The MapServer Users Meeting in Minnesota in 2005 (the immediate predecessor to the FOSS4G conference) and helping to found the Twin Cities MapServer Users Group (now a local OSGeo chapter) with the others who were involved in planning that conference. I have been the OSGeo Public Geospatial Data Committee chair since 2007. It is my experience with that committee that leads me to want to work more strategically with the OSGeo Board.

The Geospatial Data Committee has been largely ineffective and dormant throughout it's existence. The importance of geodata has always been recognized as a critical part of OSGeo leading to the formation of this committee alongside the founding of OSGeo. There have been a number of false starts at creating a central catalog on OSGeo resources. There have been loosely affiliated efforts such as the FlightGear Scenery Project and Open Aerial Map take 1. The only truly successful geodata project coming directly out of OSGeo has been led not by the Geospatial Data Committee, but by the Education Committee with the set of data pulled together for educational usage. I don't see the inactivity of this group as a failure, but more as a recognition that while an absolutely critical component of using OSGeo products, there simply is not the energy within our organization to tackle everything that we would like.

I have been very excited to see the partnerships and MOUs that have been coming down the pipe recently. One critical way that we can help to prevent spreading our resources too thin that we are ineffective is to work with other like minded groups. The partnerships that we have with the OGC and now in the works with several educational groups is a great way for us to leverage the strengths and particular audiences that these other groups bring in. In particular, I think that there are significant opportunities for OSGeo to support and partner with domain-specific groups. Having worked significantly in the humanitarian/emergency response world through my involvement with the Sahana Software Foundation, OSGeo software is being heavily used throughout this domain by people and projects like Sahana, the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, CrisisMappers, and Crisis Commons. By supporting these groups through cooperation we can help more people in this domain become aware of and use OSGeo software (and correspondingly can make more OSGeo folks aware of opportunities that they may have to support these humanitarian efforts). I see additional opportunities in finding ways to work with groups that have traditionally been stovepiped. In particular there is much work being done in domains such as public transportation, aviation noise, city/county public information, large government or organization SDI. Whether through creating MOUs or informal partnerships with groups that are already supporting these domains or extending our local chapter concept to create domain users groups with mailing lists this is the key direction that I would like to push for OSGeo.

Again, thank you very much for your consideration and I look forward to seeing many of you in Denver!

-- From: David Bitner

Gérald Fenoy

I am pleased to nominate Gérald Fenoy for the OSGeo Board of Directors. Many of you will recognize Gérald in his ZOO-Project t-shirts at past FOSS4G events. He is a passionate person, and he gives his heart and soul to every project that he works on.

Gérald was the initial contributor to the ZOO-Project (http://www.zoo-project.org) Open Source project, a popular WPS platform. Living in southern France, he is also active in several other local Open Source projects including PostGIS (he is the maintainer of the PostGIS.fr website http://www.postgis.fr/).

Gérald is also a long-time MapServer user, and leverages MapServer (http://www.mapserver.org) in each and every project that he delivers. Throughout the years he has submitted several patches directly to the MapServer source code.

A frequent traveler, Gérald is also very active in OSGeo communities all around the world, including OSGeo-Senegal (Africa), OSGeo-Japan, OSGeo-Vietnam, and OSGeo-China.

Gérald frequently funds many OSGeo developers to add enhancements to their software for his projects (which often include committed enhancements to the GDAL and MapServer projects). He is a very active businessman for his company GeoLabs (http://geolabs.fr/) and he is very willing to help Open Source projects grow.

Most importantly, Gérald is very accessible, and lives in IRC chat as the "djay" username. He is always quick to respond (and you can always know that his cigarette is hanging from his lips as he thinks of a response to your challenging question). Another important point is that he is very professional, always listening to feedback no matter if it is positive or negative, and then making appropriate changes.

I feel that Gérald will be a great addition to the OSGeo Board of Directors. He brings a wealth of experience from the private sector that is always useful on any Board of Directors. In my recent talks with him he is very honored that I am nominating him for this position. It is my honor to do this for him.

http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Djay

-- From: Jeff McKenna

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