Talk:Local Chapter Guidelines

Review

As posted by FrankW to International-Discuss and the board list. Please send all major edits on this page also to mailto:international-discuss@osgeo.org.

Concerns and Sggestions

Local chapter does not need to have a voting member of OSGeo involved

Suggestion to have 2-3 "levels" of chapter.

Level one

does not need to have any "official" existance

mailing list
wiki pages

Category: Working Group; Interest Group

Level two

Official existance

reports to the board

no OSGeo funding or management

mailing list
wiki pages
web pages
Documents directory
SVN(?)

Category: Project

Level three

Official Organization in the country where it is formed

own chapter board

no OSGeo oversight of finances

bank account
funding and management
local conferences

Groups working on building some momentum to form a chapter (level 1) might start in category 1, and might never get past that level if there is no need.

General Guidelines

Some local chapters that are essentially very local "social and support" groups. For instance the mooted (what is mooted?) "OSGeo Ottawa Chapter".

   Such chapters would be focused around a local group that meets regularly
   as opposed to a "language or national" based group that might not actually
   meet in person frequently.

4) Generally I think OSGeo needs to ensure that local chapters are

   behaving in a manner congruent with the OSGeo mission, and not
   otherwise bringing the foundation into disrepute, but beyond that
   we shouldn't need to interfere much.

I do like the idea of language based chapters acting as an advocate for translation into their language.