deegree Vision (and Mission Statement)

At the first deegree community space the vision of the deegree initiative has been discussed.

The vision might consider the following aspects:

1. Vision aspects

• Organisational setup of the initiative
• Market position, among the others
• Well-defined scope
• Community size and distribution
• Driven by community (not by technology)
• Clear outer appearance
• Well-structured inner communication

More detail: see below

Question: Is this a complete list of aspects to consider? (For more details on the discussion results see below)

Question: Are there good examples for a vision in neighbour areas/initiatives to learn from?

Further more, the question came up what the mission statement of the deegree initiative might be. The following notes had been extracted from the discussion:

2. Mission Statement

• A mission statement is missing – prior to the vision – (for the outside world) to better understand what it is all about, what the motivation to do it is
• It is about running a good business in the domain of geospatial data infrastructures (for some of us) and work together with others in that regard
• The deegree initiative can be seen as a party everybody is invited to
• The "new" deegree shall be more open, shall be a "real" open source project / initiative
• personal motivation, personal goal, business goal

Question: Is it important to work on the mission statement before thinking about the vision? - Yes

Question: Are there good examples for a mission statement in neighbour areas/initiatives to learn from?

3. Linux hotel meeting

• Inventory of input from attendees (30 min)
• Try to formulate a mission statement (60 min)
• Then make a priority list of vision aspects, where "scope" is perhaps the most important aspect to discuss (15 min)
• Discuss every vision aspect in detail. Make some sentences about it. (75 min before break) (90 min after break)
• Then (if we still have the time - if we go until 5 p.m. we have another 90 min): Make a long-list of actvities grouped by goal (translation from vision to action)
• Assign priorities to activities
• ...

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Aspects of the deegree vision

4. Organisational setup of the initiative

• Initiative: Owner and home of deegree
• Support the community
• Maintain the infrastructure
• Manage resource pooling
• OGC compliance certificates
• Owner of the copyright?
• How can we integrate users into the 2 committees?
• Is it still appropriate to have the 2 committees?

5. Market position, among the others

• What is the intended market share?
• Who are the others?
• (Where) Is deegree different / special?
  • Complex application schemas
  • INSPIRE services, especially Download Service
  • Quite some potential in the integration of Map, Feature and Catalogue Services ("unleashing the potential")
• ... but at the same time be ready for simple (or more simple) applications, have a nice interface for configuration and administration etc.
• use Open Data as a driver here?

6. Well-defined scope

• Still the "most comprehensive implementation of OGC and ISO standards in the Open Source world"?
• Which OGC services?
• Which encodings?
• What else? - Why?
• priorities (e.g. extensive vs. narrow support of OGC standards, functional vs. non-functional requirements, target group/applications)

7. Community size and distribution

• Europe or the world?
• Individuals or institutions?
• Industry or public services?
• A user base of 100, 1.000 or 1.000.000?

8. Driven by community (not by technology)

• Identification of community stakeholders
• Arrange requirements management

9. Clear outer appearance

• Definition of outreach tools needed
• Outreach team?
• Outreach activity funding?

10. Well-structured inner communication

• We already made some progress here but ...