FOSS4G Europe 2015 OSGeo Europe BOF Agenda

Agenda:

1. A European legal entity representing OSGeo
   1. SWOT Analysis concerning the foundation of an European legal structure
   2. mission of a future OSGeo Europe
2. Membership discussion: face2face continuation of the thread on the discuss list OSGeo-Discuss 2015 Charter Member elections (here! and here etc)
3. Planning of activities and goals for the industry workgroup (in relation with OSGeo Europe?)

Minutes of BOF meeting

1. question from Dirk: do we need an OSGeo Europe entity?
   1. another org helps to act as legal entity to deal with more local projects
   2. lobby in Europe specifically
2. Helena: how does this relate to OSGeo?
3. Maxi: there are already other OSGeo local chapters as legal entities
4. Alessandro: not aware of this, in the Italian community. Do we need a legal entity, or just a more organized movement along existing chapters
5. Kari: Finnish chapter in formation. Organizing workshops are costly to organize on own, so external funding could help.

Description

OSGeo legal structure

I think it is important to create a European legal structure representing OSGeo in Europe, to be able to speak as one voice, and as a legal entity representing OSGeo values to the EU Administration, industry and R&D institutions. OSGeo Europe should give support to OSGeo in lobbying European Union Institutions (Commission, Parliament, etc) related to specific EU-Themes (INSPIRE, H2020, Procurement policy, ...) It can act as an entity to manage H2020 projects, etc... (from the preconference meeting of Geo4All on Tuesday July 14, Como): Osgeo could play a role in encouraging and should be issued by OSGeo. Also here OSGeo-EU legal structure can play a role for Europe.

Planning of activities and goals of the [industry] workgroup

I believe in eco-systems. A system where all the entities are acting in an equal important role in a whole system. Wednesday July 15, I have a presentation: " HOW OPEN SOURCE AND INSPIRE CAN BE USED AS A TACTICAL WEAPON FOR ECONOMICAL GROWTH IN EUROPE" where I want to start a discussion about using open source and open source licenses to support an ecosystem and get more impact as a network of SME's. I think openness to other parts of the eco-system is very important. Bring the different stakeholders together.

The membership discussion.

It is a yearly returning topic about the elections of the charter members and the board. Should there be a membership fee, and/or should we have charter members, where it is not clear that we have a charter. During this topic we have the chance to discuss face2face about this theme.