So reading through this thread, my cynical side agrees with the "this
project is dying from lack of funding, ..." approach, but I'm not sure
that works for the long run as people get tired of hear the "sky is
falling" and ignore it over time.
A different approach could be something along the lines of what AARP
does, to get it members to email congress representative to lobby for
support. OK, this might sound crazy and it would require some
coordination but might work like this:
1) we get government agencies that use GDAL and more broadly OSGeo push
up the chain of command the need to support opensource projects and the
current issues in doing so
2) we put a support web page the allows community members and public to
email a form letter to their congress people explaining that a large
number of government agencies (probably need a list of them) need and
use opensource software but are not able to support the development or
maintenance of. This is a critical issue around the US being a leader in
opensource development. If this software becomes unavailable or
unsupported that it puts these agencies at risk, blah, blah, blah
Apologies to reads in other countries that disagree with the statements
above, this is an appeal to US congress, so its slanted in their
direction. No offense is meant here.
Likewise, this could be done in other regions/countries that rely on
this software.
Commercial companies spend money on lobbying and sales calls so maybe we
need to find a strategy that works for opensource.
Anyway, it's an idea, maybe it's not workable because we don't have
funding to put something like this in place or people don't think it is
of value. I don't think this should be done at the GDAL level, but maybe
at OSGeo and maybe in coordination with other opensource organizations.
So just putting another idea out there.
-Steve W
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