Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Commercial Support for the OSGeo Stack

[Frank Warmerdam]

Cameron Shorter wrote:

Why pay for support?

OSGeo projects have a community of people providing extensive support 
via email lists and IRC for free! And while developers may accept 
payment for their advice, many have also stated their intent to continue 
providing feel support. So why pay?


Cameron,

I wonder who it is that intends to continue providing free support!
In my experience free support quality is highly variable.  I, for one,
am reasonable interested in requests that I think will lead to bug
fixes, but less interested in unfunded hand holding.

I'm completely in agreement with the thrust of your article, and it's
timing coincides nicely with "populate phase" of the OSGeo Service
Provider Directory which I mention in another thread.

I think that building a strong ecology of consultants, contract developers
and support organizations is important to the success of open source in the
geospatial realm.  I really noticed this at FOSS4G last year.  Lots of folks
coming to me with the question "who can I pay to help me with technology xyz?"

Having a good answer makes it much easier for organizations to deploy the
technology.  And building an environment where we can make a living off
providing support services of various kinds takes (some of us) to the point
where this can be our lifes work, instead of a sideline or hobby.

Best regards,
--
---+--
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush| President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org

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RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Commercial Support for the OSGeo Stack

[Jason Birch]

Cameron wrote:

> I think OSGeo should limit itself to providing a list of
> service providers.  I notice that Frank has emailed a
> description of exactly that. I'm not sure if that was a
> coincidence or related to this thread.

Happy coincidence.  That little app has been brewing for a couple
months; you can see some discussion of it in the webcom archives.

Looks like we've already got 13 listings :)

Jason
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Commercial Support for the OSGeo Stack

[Cameron Shorter]

Landon,
I think OSGeo should limit itself to providing a list of service providers.
I notice that Frank has emailed a description of exactly that. I'm not 
sure if that was a coincidence or related to this thread.


As you suggest, the remaining financial transactions should be between 
companies and individuals from our OSGeo community.


Landon Blake wrote:

Cameron,

Are you encouraging individual developers and companies to offer
commercial support for the OSGeo stack? Are you encouraging the OSGeo to
offer these services or to have some role in providing them?

I think you are correct when you state that the availability of
commercial services that support the OSGeo stack would increase their
adoption.

I'm a little unclear about what role the OSGeo would play in this. Would
it certify or recommend service providers? I think we should be careful
about involving the OSGeo to deeply in any venture that would involve
the exchange of money. Money seems to bring out the worst in people. :]

Landon (A.K.A. - The Sunburned Surveyor)

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Cameron Shorter
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 8:28 PM
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Commercial Support for the OSGeo Stack

I've just written the following blog about providing support for the 
OSGeo Stack. Comments welcomed.


http://terrapagestech.blogspot.com/2007/04/commercial-support-for-open-s
ource.html

Overview
In this article I argue that commercial support for Open Source 
Geospatial Software will increase its use and I propose how we as a 
community should structure ourselves to provide the support.

Background
Open Source Geospatial Software is maturing is breaking into broader 
industry adoption. We have:


   1. Robust, stable high performance software components,
   2. Strong Standards compliance and integration between components,
   3. The OSGeo Foundation , an umbrella organization
  providing cross project and community links and standards for
  organization and quality.

However, there are still things we can do to increase adoption of our 
products from enterprise customers:


   1. Make installation of the Open Source Geospatial Stack easier.
  Users often need to install a number of different software
  packages and their dependencies, all from different sources, in
  order to deploy a Geospatial solution.
   2. Improve our documentation.
   3. Offer dependable and timely support. This is what I shall be
  focusing on in this article.

Why pay for support?

OSGeo projects have a community of people providing extensive support 
via email lists and IRC for free! And while developers may accept 
payment for their advice, many have also stated their intent to continue


providing feel support. So why pay?
Lets study a typical user's experience. The user installs ~ 3 packages, 
configures and sometimes extends some components. The user runs into 
glitches and requests help. Each support request involves ~ 5 emails, 
often with up to a one day turnaround. Some responses would be to point 
the user to another email list. Sometimes the user's question requires a


lot of debugging and volunteers don't answer or take their time 
answering. The user is delayed, or forced to fend on their own. The 
user's key problems are:


   1. Schedule Slip due to long support cycles.
   2. Schedule Risk due to unpredictability of response times.
   3. Budget Risk due to unknown support and customization costs.

Why offer support?
Support contracts are relatively small, have high response requirements 
which impact internal schedules, and there is a high risk that customers


will overwhelm any fixed price contract. Why offer this service?

   1. It is a good lead generator for larger consulting work. A company
  that offers support is likely to understand the products they
support.
   2. The OSGeo community as a whole will benefit from the increased
  number of financial users which are attracted to using our
products.

Support Products
Below is a list of proposed products we should offer to match the 
support requirements:

Development Contracts
Hire a developer to add functionality or customize an existing product. 
This could be fixed price or hired per hour.

There are already a number of people doing this. Value could be added by

offering a head hunter service which finds quality developers for users.
Single Product, Second Tier Support
Offer second tier support for a fixed number of hours with guaranteed 
response times for one product. Support will generally be provided by 
email or IRC and offered internationally, so response times will usually


be one working day. This will typically be provided by respected 
developers of the product.

Local, Multiple Product, First Tier Support
Offer local, first tier phone support for multiple products as an annual

fixed price service. This will generally be provided by loca

[OSGeo-Discuss] Service Provider Directory

[Frank Warmerdam]

Folks,

We (OSGeo WebCom) are finally bringing the Service Provider Directory
online.  It is essentially a web list of consultants, service organizations
in the open source geospatial realm.  We are currently seeking consultants
and service organizations to register themselves in the directory.  In a
few weeks, assuming this goes fairly well, we will start trying to publicise
the directory to potential clients, and work it into our "VisCom Messaging"
at conferences and so forth.

There is no cost to participate.  You just need someone in your organization
to register for an OSGeo Userid, then login into the OSGeo web site (login
link is at the bottom of the main page), and then go to the form to enter
your organization details.  There are some directions and discussion at:

  http://www.osgeo.org/spd_help

Feel free to contact me, or WebCom if you have questions about this service
provider directory.  We anticipate some fine tuning before we promote it
vigorously.

Best regards,
--
---+--
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush| President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org

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RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Commercial Support for the OSGeo Stack

[Landon Blake]

Cameron,

Are you encouraging individual developers and companies to offer
commercial support for the OSGeo stack? Are you encouraging the OSGeo to
offer these services or to have some role in providing them?

I think you are correct when you state that the availability of
commercial services that support the OSGeo stack would increase their
adoption.

I'm a little unclear about what role the OSGeo would play in this. Would
it certify or recommend service providers? I think we should be careful
about involving the OSGeo to deeply in any venture that would involve
the exchange of money. Money seems to bring out the worst in people. :]

Landon (A.K.A. - The Sunburned Surveyor)

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Cameron Shorter
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 8:28 PM
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Commercial Support for the OSGeo Stack

I've just written the following blog about providing support for the 
OSGeo Stack. Comments welcomed.

http://terrapagestech.blogspot.com/2007/04/commercial-support-for-open-s
ource.html

Overview
In this article I argue that commercial support for Open Source 
Geospatial Software will increase its use and I propose how we as a 
community should structure ourselves to provide the support.
Background
Open Source Geospatial Software is maturing is breaking into broader 
industry adoption. We have:

   1. Robust, stable high performance software components,
   2. Strong Standards compliance and integration between components,
   3. The OSGeo Foundation , an umbrella organization
  providing cross project and community links and standards for
  organization and quality.

However, there are still things we can do to increase adoption of our 
products from enterprise customers:

   1. Make installation of the Open Source Geospatial Stack easier.
  Users often need to install a number of different software
  packages and their dependencies, all from different sources, in
  order to deploy a Geospatial solution.
   2. Improve our documentation.
   3. Offer dependable and timely support. This is what I shall be
  focusing on in this article.

Why pay for support?

OSGeo projects have a community of people providing extensive support 
via email lists and IRC for free! And while developers may accept 
payment for their advice, many have also stated their intent to continue

providing feel support. So why pay?
Lets study a typical user's experience. The user installs ~ 3 packages, 
configures and sometimes extends some components. The user runs into 
glitches and requests help. Each support request involves ~ 5 emails, 
often with up to a one day turnaround. Some responses would be to point 
the user to another email list. Sometimes the user's question requires a

lot of debugging and volunteers don't answer or take their time 
answering. The user is delayed, or forced to fend on their own. The 
user's key problems are:

   1. Schedule Slip due to long support cycles.
   2. Schedule Risk due to unpredictability of response times.
   3. Budget Risk due to unknown support and customization costs.

Why offer support?
Support contracts are relatively small, have high response requirements 
which impact internal schedules, and there is a high risk that customers

will overwhelm any fixed price contract. Why offer this service?

   1. It is a good lead generator for larger consulting work. A company
  that offers support is likely to understand the products they
support.
   2. The OSGeo community as a whole will benefit from the increased
  number of financial users which are attracted to using our
products.

Support Products
Below is a list of proposed products we should offer to match the 
support requirements:
Development Contracts
Hire a developer to add functionality or customize an existing product. 
This could be fixed price or hired per hour.
There are already a number of people doing this. Value could be added by

offering a head hunter service which finds quality developers for users.
Single Product, Second Tier Support
Offer second tier support for a fixed number of hours with guaranteed 
response times for one product. Support will generally be provided by 
email or IRC and offered internationally, so response times will usually

be one working day. This will typically be provided by respected 
developers of the product.
Local, Multiple Product, First Tier Support
Offer local, first tier phone support for multiple products as an annual

fixed price service. This will generally be provided by local companies 
who have general knowledge of these products and can answer 80% of 
queries. These companies would engage Second Tier Support contracts to 
answer difficult questions.
"We offer local support with international backing."
References
OSGeo . The Open Source Geospatial Foundation is an 
umbrella organization for the key Open Source Geospatial pr

RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] NASA Earth Observations WMS

[Adair, Mike]

Hi Kevin,

This is a nice dataset, and since it includes a time dimension for some
layers I've updated the MapBuilder Time Series demo to use this server.
It also allows zoom/pan functions which is nice (the previous NASA
server we used in this demo only served fixed size images).  I have an
instance of it available at:

http://geoservices.cgdi.ca/mapbuilder/demo/timeSeries/index.html 
Click on the "NASA EO" link then select a dataset to load and press the
play button.

Hopefully this won't put too much load on your servers, but it
definitely makes for a good demo.

Mike Adair


> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kevin Ward
> Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 12:47
> To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org
> Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] NASA Earth Observations WMS
> 
> Hi osgeo!
> 
> I am pleased to announce the availability of a new service 
> for the distribution of Earth science remote sensing imagery 
> -- NASA Earth Observations Web Map Service (NEO WMS). This 
> Web Map Service is built upon the NEO collection at 
> http://neo.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ and will hopefully facilitate 
> the use of this type of imagery by a wider community.
> 
> Most of the imagery in NEO is stored at 0.1 degree resolution
> (3600x1800) but some is only at 0.25 (1440x720) and these 
> resolutions are completely dependent upon what the sensors 
> can collect and what our data partners can produce for us. In 
> time some of the datasets may be available at up to 1km 
> resolution, but that is still far on the horizon.
> 
> The NEO WMS understands WMS versions 1.1.1 and 1.3.0. The 
> capabilities documents for these are at the following urls:
> 
> 1.1.1:
> http://neowms.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/wms/wms?version=1.1.1&service=
> WMS&request=GetCapabilities
> 
> 1.3.0:
> http://neowms.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/wms/wms?version=1.3.0&service=
> WMS&request=GetCapabilities
> 
> This is the initial release of the WMS and it may be considered beta.
> Please let me know if you run into any issues or have any suggestions.
> I am still in the process of flushing out some of the 
> ancillary metadata to appear in the capabilities documents 
> but the layers should function as described by the WMS specs.
> 
> Lastly, if you find the collection useful, please let me know 
> how you are using it.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Kevin
> 
> --
> Kevin Ward
> NASA Earth Observations (NEO)
> Science Systems and Applications, Inc.
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 503-977-2970 (home)
> Office Hours 7:30am-4pm Pacific Time
> http://neo.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/
> http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/
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> 
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