New Member Nominations 2007

This page is for posting nominees for new OSGeo Charter Membership

• Current Charter Members are listed here
• Role and responsibilities of membership are here.
• Nominations are no longer being accepted
• The CRO (Tyler) will contact the nominees directly to verify their willingness to be nominated and then move them into the Confirmed List. This will be completed during the week of June 3rd.
• Existing Charter Members will vote following confirmation of the nominees

Nominee List

Nominations will be filed under these three categories. After all nominees are confirmed or declined, then voting will be done based on the names listed in the Confirmed section.

Unconfirmed

This section is where every nominee starts, until the CRO confirms they are willing to run.

• Dr. S. N. Prasad
• Professor Rongguo Chen

Confirmed

After being confirmed, the finalised version of this list will be used for voting

• Aaron Racicot
• Yewondwossen Assefa
• Christopher Schmidt
• Lorenzo Becchi
• Tom Kralidis
• Josh Livni
• Daniel Ames
• Dr. Markus Müller
• Eduardo Patto Kanegae
• Patrick Cunningham
• Mateusz Łoskot
• David Bitner
• Victor Minor
• Landon Blake
• John Graham
• Dr K. S. Rajan
• Charlie Schweik
• Dr. Georg Loesel
• Patrick Wilke-Brown
• Simone Giannecchini
• Tamas Szekeres
• Kazunori Noda
• Dao Van Tuyet
• Till Adams
• Puneet Kishor
• Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner
• Rob Atkinson
• Christoph Baudson
• Paolo Viskanic
• Jachym Cepicky
• Martin Klopfer
• Carlos Grohmann
• Peter ter Haar
• Adrian Custer
• Dr. Lúbia Vinhas

Declined

This section is for nominees who have declined to run in the election.

• Sean Gillies

Nominee Recommendations

The following are comments received from nominators or personl descriptions of the nominees involvement.

Aaron Racicot

• eager to help out with VisCom-related activities, vocal champion of Open Source solutions, co-founder of CUGOS, all-around good guy

Yewondwossen Assefa

• Assefa has been a long time developer with commit rights to MapServer, has committed himself to the objectives of the MapServer community, and is well respected by the developer and user community surrounding MapServer. He is involved to varying degrees in several other related Open Source projects, including OWT, ROSA, MS4W, MapLab, Chameleon, andMapGuide OS (and probably others too). He has a strong personal interest in fostering the adoption of Open Source GIS software in Africa. I believe he would be a conscientious and constructive contributor to OSGeo.

Christopher Schmidt

• major players in the OpenLayers, FeatureServer, etc, arenas; member of the MetaCarta gang
• His contributions to open source geospatial have been extremely impressive.

Lorenzo Becchi

• Lorenzo is involved in OSGeo as a member of the Web Site Committee, has contributed to the OSGeo Journal, and is active in the formation of the Italian local chapter. He is also active in open source software development, contributing to ka-map, pyWPS, OpenLayers and more, and has helped make it easier for others to experience open source geospatial as part of the Ominiverdi LiveCD project. Having had contact with Lorenzo on several fronts (WebCom, FOSS4G2007), I have found him to be generally helpful and a great team player.

Tom Kralidis

• Tom has been active for several years in the OSGeo world, especially with MapServer, but also with all OSGeo projects that involve OGC specifications. Tom is very knowledgeable about interoperability and OGC specifications and has been contributing a lot on that front to the MapServer project. He is also a committer for the MapServer project and has been nominated as a new member of MapServer's expanded PSC.

Josh Livni

• eager to help out with VisCom-related activities, vocal champion of Open Source solutions, co-founder of CUGOS, all-around good guy

Daniel Ames

• I'm nominating Dan since he's an active member of the open souce geospatial community. He is the leader of the open source software MapWindow project and he has furthered the cause of open source geospatial software in general and specifically OSGeo in many of his writings and presentations. Dan is also active in the OSGeo email lists and willing to volunteer. I believe Dan would strengthen the scientific community of the OSGeo.

Dr. Markus Müller

• [These detailed answers relate to the Positive Attributes for new members list ] Markus is not yet involved directly with OSGeo. This could change with becoming an OSGeo charter member and being more directly involved with the foundation. His company participated and sponsored the Intergeo 2007 OSGeo Open Source Park and past German FOSSGIS conferences. Markus is founding Member of the company lat/lon GmbH, dedicated to promoting Free and Open Source Software. He actively contributes to the software project deegree. Markus actively promotes the use of Free and Open Source software in the geospatial area. He gives talks and presentations at conferences and contributes actively to OSGeo's mission of supporting and promoting the use of Free and Open Source Software. Additionally Markus contributes to the standardization process in the OGC and has taken part in making the Open Source package deegree reference implementation to OGC specifications. Markus is based in Hamburg, Germany and represents European and German interests. He speaks and writes German and English fluently. As member of the project deegree he comes from a Java FOSSGIS project that does not yet have a representation within OSGeo. As a mature project with broad scope it will strengthen software diversity within OSGeo. Markus is a corporate representative. Markus is a seasoned contributor to consensus based organizations (OGC) and FOSS projects (deegree) and is known to be constructive in discussion.

Eduardo Patto Kanegae

• I've been around MapServer and its 'family' projects since 2000 using these technologies as an user, instructor and also have made a bit of contributions such as helping local users( for Brazilian community) with forum/list answers and some documentation products too. Most important topics include: *www.webmapit.com.br: since 2003/2004 I hosted this website( turned off recently) with own resources and spare time. I used to publish some texts, tools(mdb2shapefile, FOSS-GIS rpm's), books and tried to concentrate some usefull for GIS local users. The best rank I got with this site, was at begining of 2007 after InfoGEO (the only geomatics brazilian magazine and it has ~2,000 subscriptions in Brazil) published one article of mine about FOSS-GIS - this portuguese article presented readers to an overview of the current situation of FOSS-GIS, recent efforts(OSGEO) and also quickly described ~30 FOSS-GIS tools such as MapServer, MapGuide, GRASS, PostGIS and others. MapServer flyers: created portuguese and english flyers to be delivered for those who want to know a bit more about MapServer. *more than 60 persons trained in MapServer & related technologies from 2003 to 2007 (Alpina Ambiental, KNBS, Brazilian Ministry of Health, OmniLink, DataTerra, Escopo Geomarketing and others) *creation of the first online portuguese MapServer introduction course, which should be soonly available as a MS4W package. This material was gentily yielded for the 2nd (2005) and 3rd (2007) Brazilian MapServer Meeting for workshop purposes. *in 2004, helped Univali to plan the 1st Brazilian MapServer Meeting and also obtained small sponsorship (conference T-shirts and pens) for the event. *created a HTML guide for shapelib tools and also made its update in 2007 ( see 1694 Shapelib bug), including a portuguese version. *translated Thuban interface to portuguese in 2004. *hosted the 'MapServer ptForum - a mapserver forum for portuguese speakers' from 2003 to 2004, when it was transfered to Univali. *made a presentation introducing webmapping concepts in GeoBrasil2003 conference, showing a live case (ClickBrasil) using MapServer to serve Brazil maps.

Patrick Cunningham

• As President of Blue Marble Geographics Cunningham is responsible for all aspects of Blue Marble’s software development, sales and marketing. Blue Marble Geographics is known for their GIS data conversion software and solutions. They are a leader in coordinate conversion and geodetic software in particular. Blue Marble works to promote the development of cross-platform, scalable, open and cutting edge software everyday. Since its founding in 1993 the company has utilized a number of the libraries that OSGeo now maintains including Gdal/OGR and others. Cunningham instructs Blue Marble developers to submit bug fixes and feature enhancements on any applicable open source projects the company works with. They have been doing this in good faith for a number of years and management now feels that it is time to be more active with the open source community and in particular as it relates to geospatial software.

• Mateusz Łoskot

David Bitner

• I am a GIS Coordinator for a regional government agency (Metropolitan Airports Commission, Minneapolis, MN, USA) as well as an independent consultant (dbSpatial) utilizing OSGeo and other FOSS GIS software. I am a certified GIS Professional (GISP) through the GIS Certification Institute. Besides developing with the FOSS GIS stack, I also advocate for free data and open source practices at the regional (MetroGIS Coordinating Committee, OpenMNND collaborative) and state level (MN Governor's Council Strategic Planning and Enterprise Architecture Committees). I have been an active participant in mailing lists and IRC (user bitner or bitnerd) channels for OSGeo, PostGIS, MapServer, Ka-Map, and OpenLayers. I am one of the founders of the Twin Cities Mapserver Users Group and was on the planning committee for MUM3. I am a member of the OSGeo Geodata committee. I am also currently working at bringing together members of the OSGeo community with those of the disaster management community involved in the Sahana project.

Victor Minor

• As Director of Software Development for Blue Marble Geographics Minor is responsible for all aspects of Blue Marble’s software development, design, support and testing. Blue Marble Geographics is known for their GIS data conversion software and solutions. They are a leader in coordinate conversion and geodetic software in particular. Blue Marble works to promote the development of cross-platform, scalable, open and cutting edge software everyday. Minor has personally worked with and submitted bug fixes for many of the open source tools supported by OSGeo. As a graduate of the University of Maine at Orono he is well positioned to leverage his background with the same engineering program that is responsible for Maine’s current leading geospatial and forestry programs. Minor also has a great deal of applied expertise with spatial conversion, definition and manipulation software.

Landon Blake

• Landon (aka the Sunburned Surveyor) is very active as a developer and community leader with OpenJUMP and has been helping with some OSGeo efforts such as the summer of code. He is a real community builder and would be an asset to OSGeo.
• He is committed to helping the OSGeo Journal develop and is very good to work with. His interests in open source are genuine and his knowledge of surveying field is a good asset to OSGeo.

John Graham

• I would like to nominate John Graham of TelaScience and San Diego Super Computing Center. The reasons should be obvious :)
• John is a really great guy to work with who is committed to open source geospatial software. He has provided OSGeo access to several servers, storage space, tech. support and much much more through his work with TelaScience and San Diego Super Computing Center. Some of the services he helps support and run include the OSGeo free geodata project, OSGeo download server, and more.

• Dr K. S. Rajan

Charlie Schweik

• Charlie is an effective advocate for the use of open source geospatial software in academia and is an active member of the OSGEO education committee. 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. This past year he offered a college-level introductory GIS course using only open source software. The initial course was offered as a distance learning course and included participants from Nigeria, Uganda, Brazil, and the United States. He is actively developing another, more advanced course. Through Charlie's hard work and persistence, the content for these courses will be openly distributed with a creative commons license. 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 charter member of OSGEO.

• Dr. Georg Loesel

Patrick Wilke-Brown

• Patrick provides unique experience and perspective as an academic and state government employee that would benefit OSGeo. Patrick is involved in other outreach organizations like IGIC, and is a user of many OSGeo software projects.

Simone Giannecchini (aka Simboss)

• He has made a contribution to free and open source geospatial software already: He is working on GeoServer, GeoTools, JAI. He belives in the general goals of the foundation, he supports and promotes the use of free and open source geospatial software in a collaborative manner. He is working constructively and positively towards the goals of the foundation. He has great abilities to work in/with a team.
• I'm nominating him since he has an extensive experience in the GeoSpatial context and he is a constant proposer of new ideas and solutions. Furthermore he is an active member, developer and PMC of the GeoTools geospatial library belonging the OSGeo projects list and he is also an active developer of the GeoServer for which he developed along with its colleague Alessio Fabiani the WCS service and added raster support to WMS. Finally, he is a very experienced Java software developer since, on top of that, he is an active contributor in the world of open source geospatials projects since 2003.

• Tamas Szekeres
• Kazunori Noda
• Dao Van Tuyet
• Till Adams
• Puneet Kishor

Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner

• [These detailed answers relate to the Positive Attributes for new members list ] Jan-Oliver is not yet involved directly with OSGeo. His company participated and sponsored the Intergeo 2007 OSGeo Open Source Park and past German FOSSGIS conferences and supports the OSGeo booth at the LinuxTag 2007 with inkind contribution. Jan-Oliver is founding member of and active contributor to http://freegis.org/ and GAV e.v. (http://www.grass-verein.de/). He is long time contributor to a variety of FOSSGIS projects, actively involved with the Free Software Foundation Europe and is a Free Software business advocate. Jan-Oliver actively promotes the use of Free and Open Source software in the geospatial area via FreeGIS, by giving talks and presentations at conferences and being involved in several FOSSGIS projects, some of which are already part of the OSGeo foundation (GRASS, MapServer). Furthermore Jan-Oliver's experience and expertize in founding, running and promoting Free Software also with respect to licensing issues and a legal background will be a valuable addition to OSGeo's assets. [Re: diversity...] Jan-Oliver is based in Osnabrück (Osnabrueck), Germany and represents European and German interests. He speaks and writes German and English fluently. Jan-Oliver is almost agnostic with respect to programming languages and has experience in bridging gaps between technologies. He contributes to Python based Thuban. Jan-Oliver is both corporate representative and member of the Germany based GAV e.V. that currently manages financial affairs of the (officially) non-existent German local chapter. Jan-Oliver is a seasoned contributor to consensus based organizations (FreeGIS) and several FOSS projects and is known to be constructive in discussion.

• Rob Atkinson
• Christoph Baudson
• Paolo Viskanic
• Jachym Cepicky
• Martin Klopfer
• Carlos Grohmann
• Peter ter Haar

Adrian Custer

• Adrian Custer has come out of nowhere and involved himself in all manner of activities. And by activities I generally mean thankless tasks required to keep everything going. He has taken up the GeoTools stalled OSGeo incubation process and thrown himself into the midst of the legal research that has scared off others. Currently he is putting together a report for GeoAPI which no sane developer would approach, he has started off demos for the GeoTools codebase and so on. Adrian's main strength is NOT being a developer, and approaching everything from the standpoint of a user who needs to get things done - and importantly is willing to help fix the problem. I don't think being an OSGeo memeber would change his life one bit; but I would like to recognize him and mark him as an inspiration for others.

• Dr. Lúbia Vinhas