Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] open-source project site construction
Besides SourceForge, Google Code is a great hosting environment for open source projects, and also github is becoming very popular. Cheers Paul On 2011-03-03, at 11:54 AM, Robert Hollingsworth wrote: > Hello, > I'm giving a presentation at the GITA conference in > Grapevine TX in April, as part of the OSGEO track > there. (Audience: electric/gas/water utilities, > telecommunications, etc.) > > Subject of the talk: highlights of management of a > project as open-source, especially where that differs > from software development in the single-company, > closed-source model. > > Although the audience is likely to be mostly consisting > of non-software developers, I'll be calling on these very > people to team up with each other and with in-house > and/or consulting software engineers -- across company > lines -- to launch, build, and maintain open-source > apps that address needs in their respective subject > areas. > > I've got a fair amount of research to do to compile this > information -- what apps and file structures comprise a > viable project server, presenting all that through the > project web site, etc. > > It has occurred to me that it would be useful to create > an "Open-Source Project Starter Kit," a file structure > consisting of the means to create and maintain a > project, with none of the actual content. It's skeleton > website definition would simply point at the > unpopulated management components. > > A quick google suggests there are tools out there > addressing some of this. And there's Sourceforge, of > course. > > But if OSGEO were to create such a kit, it could be > constructed so that the resulting projects match many of > the criteria for qualifying as OSGEO member projects > later. > > Any ideas out there on the feasibility of something like > this, how to construct, etc.? I know a starter kit such as > this would be most attractive to the GITA audience I'll > be speaking to if it as close as possible to being a > one-button operation. > > Thanks, > Robert H. > _______ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@lists.osgeo.org > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss __ Paul Spencer Chief Technology Officer DM Solutions Group Inc http://research.dmsolutions.ca/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] WMS Performance Shootout presentation/results
Unfortunately, no one stepped up to represent mapguide. Cheers Paul On 2009-10-23, at 9:28 PM, Craig Miller wrote: Anyone know why Mapguide OS wasn't represented? I'd be happy to set one up if there is a conference in my area (Seattle/Vancouver BC area). Craig -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Jeff McKenna Sent: Friday, October 23, 2009 4:39 PM To: osgeo Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] WMS Performance Shootout presentation/ results For those that did not make it to Sydney, here is the WMS Performance Shootout presentation with results (GeoServer vs MapServer): http://www.slideshare.net/gatewaygeomatics.com/wms-performance-shootout MapServer: power users who manage MapServer sites with high loads/map draws should take note of the results of MapServer CGI vs MapServer FastCGI, even in the case of Shapefiles and Rasters (yes, quite surprising). All: a lot of credit should go to Andrea Aime from GeoServer who worked very hard in bringing the MapServer team up to speed to learn the testing process. It was a great experience and we're already looking forward to next year. -jeff -- Jeff McKenna FOSS4G Consulting and Training Services http://www.gatewaygeomatics.com/ ___ mapserver-users mailing list mapserver-us...@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users -- Jeff McKenna FOSS4G Consulting and Training Services http://www.gatewaygeomatics.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss __ Paul Spencer Chief Technology Officer DM Solutions Group Inc http://research.dmsolutions.ca/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] idea for an OSGeo project -- a new, open data format
Cubewerx created a binary XML implementation that is open source. They claim substantial benefits, so perhaps GML plus a binary XML library could be an alternative? http://www.cubewerx.com/web/guest/bxml Cheers Paul On 15-Nov-07, at 5:21 PM, Lucena, Ivan wrote: Sampson, I am not a GML guru and I don't know if a binary version exists already, but I would imagine that HDF5 would be a excellent choice by its own hierarchical nature. I mean, we can use GML as a schema to store the data in binary format in the HDF5 format. Best regards, Ivan Sampson, David wrote: Alright, Here are some other thoughts. First off what about a open office (open base) type approach... This mimmics the ESRI MSAccess approach and seams to work well for non server environments. Also open office is a good environment for some basic applications. Next, what ever happened to the adoption of GML... Was GML not supposed to be the NEXT interchange fomrat? Perhaps this is a good discussion to include the GML gurus in. The whole discussion of going with a binary GML format makes sense and GML is already used for many web mapping (feature) services. It sounds like a duplication of GML to me... Unless someone can offer a direct compare and contrast between the concept here and the GML/Binary GML concept. In either case being able to convert to and from GML would be a necesity for wide adoption IMHO. Another thought is to encourage some of the proprietary formats to open up. What would it take to get ESRI on board to open up the format (open as in free speech). What about other non-open standards? Once it's open then we can bring the SHP format to modern day useage. Surely much of the format could be salvaged. Besides, if you want wide adoption of an open format then why not go for those players who hold greatest market share. Some thoughts. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of P Kishor Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 09:53 To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] idea for an OSGeo project -- a new, open data format So, I am thinking, Shapefile is the de facto data standard for GIS data. That it is open (albeit not Free) along with the deep and wide presence of ESRI's products from the beginning of the epoch, it has been widely adopted. Existence of shapelib, various language bindings, and ready use by products such as MapServer has continued to cement Shapefile as the format to use. All this is in spite of Shapefile's inherent drawbacks, particularly in the area of attribute data management. What if we came up with a new and improved data format -- call it "Open Shapefile" (extension .osh) -- that would be completely Free, single-file based (instead of the multiple .shp, .dbf, .shx, etc.), and based on SQLite, giving the .osh format complete relational data handling capabilities. We would require a new version of Shapelib, improved language bindings, make it the default and preferred format for MapServer, and provide seamless and painless import of regular .shp data into .osh for native rendering. Its adoption would be quick in the open source community. The non-opensource community would either not give a rat's behind for it, but it wouldn't affect them... they would still work with their preferred .shp until they learned better. By having a completely open and Free single-file based, built on SQLite, fully relational dbms capable spatial data format, it would be positioned for continued improvement and development. Is this too crazy? -- Puneet Kishor ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss +-----+ |Paul Spencer [EMAIL PROTECTED]| +-+ |Chief Technology Officer | |DM Solutions Group Inchttp://www.dmsolutions.ca/ | +-+ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: idea for an OSGeo project -- a new, open data format
On 14-Nov-07, at 7:20 AM, Christopher Schmidt wrote: - optional coloring and styles, break values, rendering and scale limits, persistent joins or relates, color ramp, ... are things which are provided by SLD and the like, which means that you really want SDF + WMC -- I don't think that this is SDF's job, and I don't think that it should be the job of any geodata format. mapinfo files come with embedded styling so there is at least one format out there that combines the two. KML arguably does the same thing. I think it would be worth exploring the merits of providing the ability to embed styling information. I'm not sure if it is useful to place styling 'hints' in metadata, assuming that the format supports arbitrary metadata. Cheers Paul +---------+ |Paul Spencer [EMAIL PROTECTED]| +-+ |Chief Technology Officer | |DM Solutions Group Inchttp://www.dmsolutions.ca/ | +-+ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Simple Problem!
Alizera, a MapGuide 'mgp' package is actually a zip file with a different extension. It is likely your web browser detected this and helpfully (!) renamed it Sheboygan.zip. You need to rename Sheboygan.zip to Sheboygan.mgp, then all should be good. Also, you will likely find more help if you take your questions to the appropriate lists, in the case of mapguide you can find the list information at http://mapguide.osgeo.org/. This list is typically used for more general discussions. Cheers Paul On 14-Nov-07, at 6:43 AM, Alireza Nobahar wrote: Hi there, I'm a new recruit in term of GIS. I'm surveying engineer and I'm also software programmer(VB6,VB.NET,C#.NET,SQL Server2000). Nowadays as I have to design and develop a GIS project, I'm scrutinizing the net to find something usefull about Mapguide Open Source and I've found OSGeo site. Neverheless, at the first step I've encountered a problem with a sample. I've done all the following step: 1 Download the package Sheboygan.mgp from https://mapguide.osgeo.org/downloads.html#samples . 2 Copy the package Sheboygan.mgp to one of the following locations: ■ Windows: C:\Program Files\MapGuideOpenSource\Server\Packages 3 Start Site Administrator: http:///mapguide/mapadmin/login.php 4 Enter the following: ■ User ID: Administrator ■ Password: admin 5 Choose the Configure Services menu. 6 In the Resource Services section, make sure that the path for Packages Folder is the same as in Step 2. 7 Choose the Manage Packages menu. 8 In the list of packages in the Load Package section, click Sheboygan.mgp. However, it doesn't have any package in the list! and is written:(No packages found) and I'm confused. Actually I downloaded Sheboygan.zip and after extract this folder copy it to (C:\Program Files\MapGuideOpenSource\Server\Packages). The folder name is Sheboygan,NOT Sheboygan.mgp! Is there any one to help me? Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss +-----+ |Paul Spencer [EMAIL PROTECTED]| +-+ |Chief Technology Officer | |DM Solutions Group Inchttp://www.dmsolutions.ca/ | +-+ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] idea for an OSGeo project -- a new, open data format
this sounds like the SDF format, although I am not sure that SDF is open source - there is an open source implementation as part of FDO (http://fdo.osgeo.org/fdosdf/index.html ) Paul On 13-Nov-07, at 9:52 AM, P Kishor wrote: So, I am thinking, Shapefile is the de facto data standard for GIS data. That it is open (albeit not Free) along with the deep and wide presence of ESRI's products from the beginning of the epoch, it has been widely adopted. Existence of shapelib, various language bindings, and ready use by products such as MapServer has continued to cement Shapefile as the format to use. All this is in spite of Shapefile's inherent drawbacks, particularly in the area of attribute data management. What if we came up with a new and improved data format -- call it "Open Shapefile" (extension .osh) -- that would be completely Free, single-file based (instead of the multiple .shp, .dbf, .shx, etc.), and based on SQLite, giving the .osh format complete relational data handling capabilities. We would require a new version of Shapelib, improved language bindings, make it the default and preferred format for MapServer, and provide seamless and painless import of regular .shp data into .osh for native rendering. Its adoption would be quick in the open source community. The non-opensource community would either not give a rat's behind for it, but it wouldn't affect them... they would still work with their preferred .shp until they learned better. By having a completely open and Free single-file based, built on SQLite, fully relational dbms capable spatial data format, it would be positioned for continued improvement and development. Is this too crazy? -- Puneet Kishor ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss +---------+ |Paul Spencer [EMAIL PROTECTED]| +-+ |Chief Technology Officer | |DM Solutions Group Inchttp://www.dmsolutions.ca/ | +-+ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] New web site
Ned, this is a very compelling site, the design is fantastically clear and easy to navigate. The information it contains is very readable. I love it! Paul On 7-Nov-07, at 5:09 PM, Ned Horning wrote: The Biodiversity Informatics Facility at the American Museum of Natural History’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation is pleased to announce the release our new web site: http://biodiversityinformatics.amnh.org?mid=5 biodiversityinformatics.amnh.org/?mid=3> Our previous site (geospatial.amnh.org) has been completely redesigned and includes all of the original content plus several new resources. The new “Geospatial Resources for Freshwater Conservation” section provides links to a range of information, software, and data that are available on the Internet, as well as guides and case studies contributed by colleagues. This section will rely heavily on contributions from the freshwater community, such as, links to content that is on the Internet and content the can be posted on our site for anyone to see. If you have links or content you would like to contribute please contact us. The Biodiversity Informatics Facility is increasing its involvement with open source projects by continuing to developing new tools and through community involvement in outside projects. Links and description of these resources can be found in the “Open Source Resources” section of our new site. We will release another new section on species distribution modeling within the next few weeks. We hope this web site is a valuable resource to people around the world. All the best, Ned Horning -- Biodiversity Informatics Facility Center for Biodiversity and Conservation American Museum of Natural History Central Park West @ 79th St New York, NY 10024 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] tel: 212-313-7947 fax: 212-769-5292 Home office tel: 802-382-9080 Web site: http://biodiversityinformatics.amnh.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss +-+ |Paul Spencer [EMAIL PROTECTED]| +-+ |Chief Technology Officer | |DM Solutions Group Inchttp://www.dmsolutions.ca/ | +-+ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo Labs
would this do what you want? http://labs.metacarta.com/rectifier/ Paul On 4-Oct-07, at 9:16 AM, Chip Taylor wrote: Is there any open source applications for Windows that will help me geo-reference raster images? Chip Taylor Prepared Response, Inc ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss +-+ |Paul Spencer [EMAIL PROTECTED]| +-+ |Chief Technology Officer | |DM Solutions Group Inchttp://www.dmsolutions.ca/ | +-+ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
On 1-Oct-07, at 2:03 PM, Howard Butler wrote: On Sep 30, 2007, at 4:10 PM, Paul Spencer wrote: What do others think about this? Should OSGeo be in the business of helping new OSGeo projects get off the ground? I don't think OSGeo should generally be in the business of getting new projects off the ground. I think a project should establish *itself* as a viable development entity before entertaining a relationship with OSGeo. OSGeo promoting startup project "Foo" has the effect of giving it equal weight to all of the other projects within OSGeo. In my opinion, this has the effect of weakening OSGeo's promotional authority and providing an unnatural advantage to the Foo project. Growth that is too fast for a project can be just as detrimental as growth that is too slow. A project jumping into OSGeo and having it provide "umph" for the project disrupts the organic growth that I think is necessary for a project to become viable and successful. A project must find its niche on its own and garner development and developer traction because it fills a need, not because OSGeo says "you should use this great new thing because ...". OSGeo's provides infrastructure to its member projects as an enticement to join. There are many options for a project's infrastructure, with everything from sourceforge to google code to standing up your own. OSGeo's infrastructure approach stands out because a project can collectively leverage other project's infrastructure while still having the flexibility to do pretty much whatever you want (given time/resources/volunteers). OSGeo's infrastructure is not a push-button operation though, and I don't think it would be as successful if it were (dealing with Google code or sourceforge is going to be much simpler than trying to deal with us, frankly). I think a project needs to read Fogel (http://producingoss.com/), find its niche, grow a community around the development of the software, and then look to OSGeo for promotional, infrastructure, legal, and other support. Thanks Howard. What I am concerned with is people who have a great idea but don't know what to do with it, or how one goes about establishing a viable community. The people that I spoke with last week didn't know how to get started. I am convinced that there are more people, especially outside north america, who can't make it to FOSS4G just to ask someone. Not reaching out a helping hand to those projects seems a little harsh to me. Maybe it is enough to have a section on the OSGeo web site something like: 'Have a Great Idea?' Here's how you can get started ... 1. read the following web sites ... 2. get a home at sourceforge or ... or ... 3. promote yourself on the following lists: ... Paul +-+ |Paul Spencer [EMAIL PROTECTED]| +-+ |Chief Technology Officer | |DM Solutions Group Inchttp://www.dmsolutions.ca/ | +-+ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
mmunity, the project would not be sustainable -- and without the efforts put forth to work with other software, and to solve other problems, that community wouldn't exist. In short, pointing potential users at any one application/package is not going to promote innovations and the overall code stack will suffer because of it. I agree. But OpenLayers isn't an application. Pointing potential users at only applications using GDAL for raster data access does not, to me, seem to limit innovation. Of course, OSGeo is open to more than just one project in the same space. FDO and GDAL/OGR are in a similar space, but both are undergoing or have undergone incubation. The community around a project is far more important. Is it self-sustaining? Is it likely to last? As OpenLayers grows -- and continues to improve -- will other projects which compete with it survive? Is a project different enough that it will have a different set of users -- different enough that OpenLayers improvements and expansions won't snuff it out? Oftentimes, the answer is "Yes." Other times, the answer is "Maybe we should change our tactic." MapBuilder has recently been working on creating a build which uses OpenLayers as the map rendering library. ka-Map has done the same thing. DM Solutions Fusion project has done the same thing. All these are building application-level functionality on top of OpenLayers -- which means that as OpenLayers improves, these other projects will also be able to improve. That is an important consideration, in my opinion, and one that any project which is directly competing with OpenLayers at the library level may want to ask itself. I say this not because I think OpenLayers is the best at what it does. Other libraries have a smaller Javascript footprint, a smaller memory footprint, a more concise object model, less dependancies on external code, easier usability, etc. I say this because I think that as time goes on, OpenLayers will improve faster than a project which can not sustain a vibrant and growing community. 1 year ago, I wouldn't have advised that anyone use OpenLayers for mission critical tasks. 6 months ago, I would have advised you would need to spend a fair amount of time understanding it to get use out of it. 3 months ago, I would have said you would need to be aware of it's limitations. Now? Now it's one of the premier places that people look for vector editing in the browser. It's got support for parsing and saving out a number of geographic information formats. Now it's got hooks so that it really is a library -- and can be treated like one, underlying other applications. Now it's got a vibrant community growing by dozens of people every week. Now I'm working with my employer to make it the primary search interface to our enterprise product. 1 week ago, I might not have advised it for a number of different things -- for example, if you wanted client side reprojection support, I might have pointed you to Mapbuilder, or some other client. But now I don't have to, because there is a huge amount of work being done in OpenLayers to support exactly that. 1 week ago, I would have targeted this to 3 - 6 months in the future. But Mike Adair, building on his work with the MapBuilder project, came through and built it -- not in a week, but in a day, so far as I could tell. Now, OpenLayers can have real client side reprojection support. This single case can be expanded to dozens of others I can share -- but it wouldn't change the fact any more than I've already stated. There is room for many other web mapping applications. There may even be room for other web mapping libraries. But they better have something htat's siginficantly different from OpenLayers -- because if they don't, eventually, they may well get passed by. It might well be better to help improve OpenLayers -- we're very open to that! -- than to develop it on your own. Making the strengtha and weakness know would be a much better approach. I think the biggest thing OSGeo needs to consider when taking in projects for incubation is if they have longevity. What's the 'bus number'? Is it maintained by a single person -- and if that person wears out, who's next? That's far more important to the future of a project than whether it has competition or not. Regards, -- Christopher Schmidt Web Developer _______ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss +-+ |Paul Spencer [EMAIL PROTECTED]| +-+ |Chief Technology Officer | |DM Solutions Group Inchttp://www.dmsolutions.ca/ | +-+ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
On 30-Sep-07, at 6:21 PM, Tamas Szekeres wrote: 2007/9/30, Paul Spencer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: What do others think about this? Should OSGeo be in the business of helping new OSGeo projects get off the ground? Absolutely. That could allow the identities to focus on establishing the core funcionality much easier without having to bother with creating the infrastructure behind that. this is only part of it. More than infrastructure (which we could easily just point projects to sourceforge for), I am hoping we can build a communications channel that allows new projects to attract interest and feedback Furthermore I have the following additions/considerations according to the responsibilities of the OSGeo from this aspect: 1. OSGeo might establish the possibility to accept new project plans in a well formaized manner. In so much as we are guiding them to launching their project, not to filtering or eliminating them before they even get started 2. OSGeo should form a committe (or extend the roles of the incubation committe or the role of the charter members) to decide whether a project plan will possibly have a fair amount of interest regarding to the functionality and technology it has. I personally would prefer if a wider range of the community would be involved. Here I think the 'best of breed' approach will provide all that is needed. If we provide support in the form of communications, users will try out new projects if it aligns with their needs. If the idea/ project is good, it will grow a community of users and developers. If not, it will die or remain a one-person project. 3. OSGeo should provide the necessary infrastucture for the project initiatives so that they could proceed in approaching a stable project state (an estimated plan with the milestones should also be gathered) This is a possibility, but one that potentially stretches our existing resources. If it is feasible to have a 'zero-effort' project creation process then fine. If not, I would be happy to just provide a list of places where a new project can set up shop. 4. OGGeo would use some measures around whether the project is making a good progress and the community around that is somewhat increasing. I don't think this is necessary. Part of the initial advice can be instruction on how to approach the IncCom when the project feels that it has developed enough momentum. IncCom can provide advice on whether incubation is appropriate or not. 5. The neglected projects are to be declared as obsolete by the OSGeo (by using a voting process). 6. The project initiatives having a stable release could apply for starting the incubation process for getting the OSGeo "officially supported" state. More comments: - OSGeo should continue to "officially support" only the incubated projects having a fairly considerable community around each and possibly continue to be supported in the future as well. - As the number of the projects is increasing OSGeo should start providing a better categorization between the projects and their functionalities/technologies for guiding the new users to make the selection easier an find the differences between them in connection with the desired specifications they have. - Project duplicates should be avoided, new incremental functionalities should be stirred towards the existing projects as much as possible. I respectfully disagree on your last point. I personally believe there is great benefit in encouraging new approaches. Mapnik is a good example, we would have discouraged its development in favour of mapserver. OpenLayers vs ka-Map is another example. There are many others. In many cases, a complete rewrite is desirable to take advantage of new ideas/technologies etc and existing projects often don't want to undertake a complete rewrite. Paul +-----+ |Paul Spencer [EMAIL PROTECTED]| +-+ |Chief Technology Officer | |DM Solutions Group Inchttp://www.dmsolutions.ca/ | +-+ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
On 1-Oct-07, at 11:36 AM, Robert Bray wrote: So currently projects that are just getting off the ground can ask OSGeo for infrastructure (e.g. SVN, Trac, etc). Are you thinking we should provide more than that? If so in what way? The thought of "OSGeo Labs" is running around in my head at the moment, but I am still trying to get my head around what that would look like. Maybe just an index page of projects that are in the early stages of development? Bob Bob, OSGeo is, I think, somewhat unapproachable for infrastructure. If you are brand new to OSGeo and this whole space, you would not approach OSGeo for infrastructure because we don't advertise that it is available - in fact, more the opposite, don't talk to us unless you are a well established project. Changing this is, perhaps, part of a potential solution. Perhaps more important than infrastructure (there are many suitable homes for new open source projects) is information about how to launch a new project and a communications channel that can be used to attract an initial community of users/developers - or at least feedback. Cheers Paul +-----+ |Paul Spencer [EMAIL PROTECTED]| +-+ |Chief Technology Officer | |DM Solutions Group Inchttp://www.dmsolutions.ca/ | +-+ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
I'd like to open a discussion on how OSGeo is (or is not) supporting brand new projects. While at the FOSS4G 2007 conference (awesome job Paul R. and gang), a number of new people (new to the conference and/or to me) approached me to demonstrate their particular projects and ask how to make them Open Source. This got me thinking about OSGeo's role in fostering innovation and giving new projects a chance to get off the ground. Our current incubation process favours established projects, ones that have an established code base, established community, etc. It does not, and arguably should not, be a place to start new projects. For folks already established in OS and OSGeo, we have established communities around ourselves that can be used to attract people to new projects that we are spawning - Fusion, for instance. For others, though, there is no such place to launch a new project and to try to build the community of users and developers required to build a project. They have no clue where to start. And I don't feel that comfortable telling someone their project is a good idea or not - my view of the world is usually quite limited to the things I'm interested in and I have no clue if the rest of the community would be interested or not. The FOSS4G conference can be a good place to publicize new projects, but I would argue that it is not generally convenient to get to for most people in the world and perhaps more difficult for new projects to get on the agenda if the presenters are relatively unknown. It seems to me that there could be a role for OSGeo in providing a breeding ground for new projects by providing advice on how to create a brand new open source geospatial project, including a home, a presence, and some initial marketing to the existing OSGeo communities. What do others think about this? Should OSGeo be in the business of helping new OSGeo projects get off the ground? Cheers Paul +-----+ |Paul Spencer [EMAIL PROTECTED]| +-+ |Chief Technology Officer | |DM Solutions Group Inchttp://www.dmsolutions.ca/ | +-+ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Integration test bed thingy at FOSS4G
Daniel, I'm considering the possibility of setting one up, but am in the same position as you are ... way too much to do! Also, everyone is on holiday right now (or at least it seems that way) so I can't really commit until I talk to some folks here. If we do something, it will likely be very simple and just draw everything in default styles assuming folks will use SLD to fancy up their maps. I think we could get that done. It would also expose WFS I guess. Comments? Paul On 24-Aug-07, at 5:34 PM, Daniel Morissette wrote: Arnulf Christl wrote: Potentially the outcome of a previous workshop could be this WMS... (dream on). We share Jody's hope that someone from the MapServer community is actually setting up a WMS for or during FOSS4G. For example W05: Tom Kralidis Environmennt Canada Daniel Morissette MapGears It's a real shame that MapServer is not represented in the Integration Showcase (http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/ FOSS4G2007_IntegrationShowcase) I didn't realize that until just now. Sorry to break your hopes, but the OGC Workshop (W-05) is not currently planning to produce the WMS service based on the showcase data that you're dreaming of. I guess we could/should rework it to do that, but I don't think I have the time. My big problem is time... I'd love to see a MapServer WMS in the showcase and I really think that we're missing the boat if there is not one, but I have already got way too much stuff on my plate and cannot undertake that. I mean I could hack together a quick mapfile, but what we'd need is a mapfile that makes the data look really good and shows the real power of MapServer... and that will take time. There are hundreds of MapServer users out there who could contribute that bit. If there is anyone interested in setting up WMS services based on the showcase data then please speak up. Daniel -- Daniel Morissette http://www.mapgears.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss +---------+ |Paul Spencer [EMAIL PROTECTED]| +-+ |Chief Technology Officer | |DM Solutions Group Inchttp://www.dmsolutions.ca/ | +-+ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] New Project.
Hi Bob ... I should have said that was my take on the OSGeo policy, hopefully someone (Frank) will correct me if I misled you anywhere. Personally, I think it is important to have some diversity and exploration into new approaches to solving some of these problems. That being said, there aren't many ways to write Zoom In and it would be nice if we (as an OS community) wrote it once and then just used the darn thing. Then an organization like yours could focus on solving their specific problems without having to worry about how to drag-pan a map image (for instance). Sophisticated data discovery and layer controls would be an excellent example of something that could be added to a project like OpenLayer or MapBuilder. I am actually horribly guilty of not taking the time to look at existing stuff and building on top of it. One problem is often that it seems difficult to develop sufficient knowledge of an existing code base (say MapBuilder) to make it feasible to add new functionality. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned in here somewhere? Anyway, this all makes for a good discussion :) Cheers Paul PS the link you sent didn't work in Safari? It did work in FireFox though. On 28-Feb-07, at 3:22 PM, Bob Basques wrote: Paul, It's funny you put it the way you did. From an Email exchange today about how our project compares ti OpenLayers : This is how I see them as being different. Others, feel free to chime in. Moose has more of the Desktop GIS functionality and more tightly integrated with MapServer. For example: measure, data popups, graphic design skins, move layers, legends, printing, more configuration options, identify, and select. I don't think this type of functionality is the goal of OpenLayers, they strive more to make it easy to integrate multiple data sources. OpenLayers strives to have easy support for numerous data sources like Google, Yahoo, GeoRSS, and WMS. Then they work off of the concept of placing point markers and soon vector (line and polygon) on top of those data sources. The also support tiled and untiled data sources in the same interface. This works very nice if your don't have a lot of layers that are changing all the time and you can make use of caching. I think an interface like this would be pretty slow and hard to manage for a organization like Douglas County, MN that is updating their parcels, plats, E911 address points and roads every week. A more discrete description might be that MOOSE is shooting for the customers that need to publish data in all sort of formats (and legacy Systems), in a near Realtime fashion. The intent is to make the process as transparent to the Data publishers as it is to the Data users. We're still early in things, and could quite frankly stand some more evolving and stabilizing. As to the incubation time length, this client has been used internally here at the City for almost two years now and integrated successfully into many of our other Web Services. In the last few months we've put it out to Open Source and do have one other group using the Package, and actually in the process of working up some things with the OpenLayers DEV group for some WFS prototyping. The intent is to grow the DEV community at this point. No biggy on the issue of OSGEO not wanting to extend it's umbrella any further. We'll work it up some more and ask about things further down the road. Thanks for the reply. bobb You can't be late until you show up. *** You never learn anything by doing it right. *** War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who's left. *** >>> Paul Spencer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 2/28/2007 1:32 PM >>> Hi Bob, this was recently discussed in the incubation committee. It was agreed by all that OSGeo is only officially interested in incubating/ hosting reasonably mature projects that have an established code base and user community. It was explicitly decided that OSGeo is not the breeding ground for new projects. As there are already several client projects (MapBender, MapBuilder, OpenLayers, MapGuide) in OSGeo or undergoing incubation, I suspect that there would be little interest in another Client project. OSGeo is trying to spread the love around a bit and looks to fill in gaps in the GIS stack, another hit against a new Client project. Finally, I believe one of the benefits of OSGeo is that it can focus resources on existing projects rather than fragmenting it. That doesn't mean that someone couldn't start something new, but in an OSGeo context it would be better if the resources for the new project were put towards improving an existing one. Is there a particular reason why you are creating a new Mapping Client Project rather than putting resources to i
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] New Project.
Hi Bob, this was recently discussed in the incubation committee. It was agreed by all that OSGeo is only officially interested in incubating/ hosting reasonably mature projects that have an established code base and user community. It was explicitly decided that OSGeo is not the breeding ground for new projects. As there are already several client projects (MapBender, MapBuilder, OpenLayers, MapGuide) in OSGeo or undergoing incubation, I suspect that there would be little interest in another Client project. OSGeo is trying to spread the love around a bit and looks to fill in gaps in the GIS stack, another hit against a new Client project. Finally, I believe one of the benefits of OSGeo is that it can focus resources on existing projects rather than fragmenting it. That doesn't mean that someone couldn't start something new, but in an OSGeo context it would be better if the resources for the new project were put towards improving an existing one. Is there a particular reason why you are creating a new Mapping Client Project rather than putting resources to improving or customizing an existing one? I believe that it may be possible for nascent projects to use some of the OSGeo infrastructure (svn and trac). I'm not sure there is a process in place for requesting this yet. Cheers Paul On 28-Feb-07, at 2:06 PM, Bob Basques wrote: All, I'm wondering about finding a new home for a Mapping Client Project. What requirements are there for proposing a new project under the OSGEO Umbrella? I can set up a Physical home for it, but was wondering more about having OSGEO handling the Project Ownership in some form. Or is it better to set up the project standalone and just point to it. This is an option as well. I'm just trying to gage interest from the OSGEO perspective about these sorts of things. The City would still participate in development into the future (at this point). Thanks for any info. bobb You can't be late until you show up. *** You never learn anything by doing it right. *** War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who's left. *** ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss +---------+ |Paul Spencer [EMAIL PROTECTED]| +-+ |Chief Technology Officer | |DM Solutions Group Inchttp://www.dmsolutions.ca/ | +-+ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Google Summer of Code
Not sure that I would want to volunteer to be the administrator (how much work is it, btw?), but I think DMSG could mentor a student for MapServer or related work ... don't have a particular project in mind right now but there is always stuff to do on MapServer :) Paul, what was the level of experience/capability of the students? I'm asking so we can gauge the appropriate kind of project to give them. Cheers Paul On 20-Feb-07, at 12:52 PM, Paul Ramsey wrote: Just to re-iterate, OSGeo would be an obvious and easy candidate to be a "mentoring organization" which could serve as an umbrella for SoC submissions on all sorts of open source spatial projects. I would volunteer to be the administrator (I did it last year when Refractions was a mentoring organization) but this year I have FOSS4G as a responsibility, so I cannot make more time. OSGeo would have to provide - 1 Administrator to handle all the organizational aspects and be a point of contact to the Google SoC administration - N Mentors, one for each student project -- Mentors must review the students work, provide them support and "getting started" help, and write up two short evaluations (mid- and final). Presumably the mentors would arise naturally from projects proposing work items they want done and thereby also volunteering to oversee those items. In return, OSGeo gets N students, working on their projects for four months, and $500 cash money per mentor, which can either be given to the mentor, or kept, depending on what policy osgeo wants to adopt. Paul Paul Ramsey wrote: This program funded three students last year who worked on Geotools projects. http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/2007/02/speaking-of- summer.html It does require some volunteer time to administer, however. -- Paul Ramsey Refractions Research http://www.refractions.net [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: 250-383-3022 Cell: 250-885-0632 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss +---------+ |Paul Spencer [EMAIL PROTECTED]| +-+ |Chief Technology Officer | |DM Solutions Group Inchttp://www.dmsolutions.ca/ | +-+ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
