New OSGeo Executive Director

Sean Gillies

2006-10-19 00:00

I was complaining to Frank "El Presidente" Warmerdam last week that OSGeo was too opaque and needed to shed a little more blog light on itself. Today is different, with almost every OSGeo-related blogger reporting on the hire of Tyler Mitchell as Executive Director. I've met Tyler. He's a good guy. I think he was one of the last people to let the doomed, brain-dead, MapServer Enterprise/Cheetah notion go, long after it had crashed and burned like the Hindenburg, but I can't hold that against him forever, can I? My only question is: did the board consider anybody from outside the MapServer Foundation cabal?

Comments

Re: New OSGeo Executive Director

Author: Gary Lang

Sean, It was definitely discussed. This was one of those hiring situations where you had a great candidate in hand, and stood to lose the opportunity if you deliberated too long. That's all that happened. In big companies, you are often required to post a job description and hope that you don't lose the perfect candidate you have in your hand. Luckily, OSGeo is not a big company. Gary

Re: New OSGeo Executive Director

Author: Mateusz Loskot

Sean, I'm not sure I understand what's wrong (if there is anything) with selecting candidate from MapServer Foundation. AFAIR, the MapServer Foundation was the very first initiative trying to organize GIS and Open Source communities. People gathered around MapServer Foundation are pioneers in this area and I'm sure they have experience and knowledge that's valuable and even needed for the OSGeo.