Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
Paul Spencer wrote: 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. Our current incubation process favours established 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. What do others think about this? Should OSGeo be in the business of helping new OSGeo projects get off the ground? I was away after FOSS4G2007 ended, and have just now read through all the responses in this thread. If you read Paul's original email, or the above condensed version, I think many of the responses make sense, including the creation of the Labs wiki page. However, I'm not sure the issue has been properly addressed. They have no clue where to start. That's in the same paragraph where 'community' is mentioned more than once. In a reply to Howard's email, Paul said: 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 think the answer to someone who doesn't know where to start should be Join the OSGeo community - here's how to do that Maybe there should be a new wiki page that such people can be pointed to. That page, and the existing Labs wiki page, should both be in the same wiki Category. The new page could certainly reference the Labs page, as some people may be part of a project community that wants to move towards incubation, but I didn't get the sense from Paul's original email that is necessarily where some of the people he spoke to should be starting. They maybe just need to join OSGeo, and this mailing list, introduce themselves and their idea/project, and ask the existing community what their next step(s) should be. -- Dave Patton Degree Confluence Project: Canadian Coordinator Technical Coordinator http://www.confluence.org/ FOSS4G2007: Workshop Committee Conference Committee http://www.foss4g2007.org/ Personal website: Maps, GPS, etc. http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Marketing (was: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects)
Hi, good thread. On Wed, October 3, 2007 03:50, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bruce IMO: I'd caution against watering down the OSGeo 'brand' as a source of 'quality' products, particularly if we want the products accepted as a viable alternative within larger organisations. Ack! While it is good to provide pointers to projects of interest, there needs to be a clear separation of what is an OSGeo project and what is not. I think that it is acceptable to have certain hurdles that a project has to pass in order to be accepted into the OSGeo fold. Could there be a series of tiers? I think they are all there yet, but not well enough discernible yet (the Marketing Committee chair does not really do a good job currently). The first tier could have a low barrier of entry, with low support provided, plus little-or-no promotion as being of the OSGeo 'brand'. This is an OSGeo Wiki page. It is open to the public, go hack it. One of Wikipedia's early mantras was Be Bold. This should apply to the OSGeo Wiki too. Julien's page http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/OSGeo_Labs is a organizing point. I suggest making it a Category (easier to structure and find later more difficult to get people to add it to the Wiki page early on...). A project could work its way through the tiers, and incidentally through the incubation process, and be rewarded with more support from OSGeo along the way. That is the Incubation process, it is fairly well defined and also working so so. We are still in the learning process but that is fine by me as it is a long term thing. The final tier would include, amongst other things, recognition on the OSGeo home page. nick Also correct. But right from the start we published all projects indiscriminately because there was no distinction. Currently there is still practically no distinction between incubating and graduated projects becasue at first only lightweights graduated. This lack is again caused in parts by bad marketing but also because projects don't really care. There are no incentives to graduate. I am at a loss what to do about that and open for suggestions. Feeding on this extraordinary creative thread I am inclined to rephrase Paul's question and ask how to improve Supporting old projects (which is my job as marketing chair). Best regards, -- Arnulf Benno Christl http://www.osgeo.org (OSGeo Board Member) +50.7342N +7.0707E ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
On Wed, 2007-10-03 at 12:30 +1000, Cameron Shorter wrote: Yes, There should be clear separation to the casual visitor between Endorsed, Quality OSGeo projects and Labs. imho Labs should give visibility to new and experimental or fringe projects, but no rights to use the OSGeo branding in any way. Regards, Tim Bowden ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
Frank Warmerdam wrote: For promotion, well, I'm kind of with Cameron that our front page recommendations need to be reserved for projects in which we have a lot of faith in an effort to best serve the user. On the other hand, I hope the discuss list (for instance) can be a venue for folks to get some exposure for new and interesting projects. I think writing an article for the journal might be another approach. I *do* see the issue that folks with new projects need exposure and feedback. I'm just not too sure how to serve them with existing resources, and without diffusing our promotional efforts too much. Hi, I agree with you that the front page recommandations should remain for incubated or in-incubation projects, but does a OSGeo Labs page could be an option for project wanting to join OSGeo? A page with a list of project that are not part of the OSGeo yet and are not hosted by OSGeo, but are known by OSGeo as friends. Or at least a How to join page for new projects could help a lot. Most of the time when meeting with newcomers to OSGeo I felt that they were intimidated by the OSGeo infrastructure and that they didn't know where to start to get information or feedback. Most of the time those newcomers are users or developpers of projects (often new projects) that are not part of OSGeo project base. They didn't fell part of OSGeo and didn't thought to join the mailing-list or advertise on it because their project was not part of it either. IMHO, OSGeo mission to support/promote the development of open source geospatial software should also include a starting point or at least pointers, like someone earlier, on how to join. Something that is not quite clear from the outside right now. I think this could help to bring new people, new projects and new ideas. This would also help to get feedback and avoid duplication of functionalities. Best regards, Julien -- Julien-Samuel Lacroix Mapgears http://www.mapgears.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
On 10/2/07, Julien-Samuel Lacroix [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I agree with you that the front page recommandations should remain for incubated or in-incubation projects, but does a OSGeo Labs page could be an option for project wanting to join OSGeo? A page with a list of project that are not part of the OSGeo yet and are not hosted by OSGeo, but are known by OSGeo as friends. Or at least a How to join page for new projects could help a lot. Julien, Could you launch an OSGeo Labs page in the wiki? If it shapes up well, we can look at linking it from somewhere reasonably prominent. 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| Geospatial Programmer for Rent ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
I like the idea of an OSGeo Labs wiki page. I really don't think a company or organization wanting to open source a geospatial program would really need a lot of infrastructure from the OSGeo. A hosting site like SourceForge provides all of the infrastructure a project needs to get up and running. They have support for a project website, wiki, mailing lists and CVS or SVN source code repositories. Why would OSGeo put a lot of time and effort into providing similar infrastructure when it is already available? It seems a better use of resources at the OSGeo would be in providing advice and assistance for tasks like choosing an appropriate license, tips on managing a source code repository, and managing a new user and/or developer community. It seems these areas would be more unknown to a typical company or organization than something like setting up a mailing list. Landon -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Frank Warmerdam Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 8:30 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects On 10/2/07, Julien-Samuel Lacroix [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I agree with you that the front page recommandations should remain for incubated or in-incubation projects, but does a OSGeo Labs page could be an option for project wanting to join OSGeo? A page with a list of project that are not part of the OSGeo yet and are not hosted by OSGeo, but are known by OSGeo as friends. Or at least a How to join page for new projects could help a lot. Julien, Could you launch an OSGeo Labs page in the wiki? If it shapes up well, we can look at linking it from somewhere reasonably prominent. 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| Geospatial Programmer for Rent ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss Warning: Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against defects including translation and transmission errors. If the reader is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this information in error, please notify the sender immediately. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
Frank Warmerdam wrote: Julien, Could you launch an OSGeo Labs page in the wiki? If it shapes up well, we can look at linking it from somewhere reasonably prominent. Best regards, Thanks for the backup. My comment was more to get an idea of what people think about it and I think most people agree. I'll try to get something up along with guidelines to make sure we keep a little bit of control on what we advertise. Julien -- Julien-Samuel Lacroix Mapgears http://www.mapgears.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
I'm +1 for OSGeo Labs. It would be a good holding place for projects waiting to go into incubation and for new projects to meet and collaborate with each other. The key elements of OSGeo Labs are: 1. Labs draws minimal overhead from the OSGeo community. Ie, provide hosting, but not mentoring. 2. There is an entrance criteria list for OSGeo Labs which ensures that the project has a goal of becoming an incubation OSGeo project and therefore should be Open Source, Geospatial, etc. 3. The decision for accepting a project into Labs should be delegated to a committee (which should be one person but could be more). Aim is to keep the management overhead low. 4. OSGeo Board reserves the right to remove projects from Labs if the project dies or is not following OSGeo values. I suggest that OSGeo Incubation Committee hold a meeting to vote on this. Do we have a volunteer to draft the first version of Entrance Criteria and Guidelines for OSGeo Labs? You should be able to draw a lot from the Incubation process. Julien-Samuel Lacroix wrote: Frank Warmerdam wrote: Julien, Could you launch an OSGeo Labs page in the wiki? If it shapes up well, we can look at linking it from somewhere reasonably prominent. Best regards, Thanks for the backup. My comment was more to get an idea of what people think about it and I think most people agree. I'll try to get something up along with guidelines to make sure we keep a little bit of control on what we advertise. Julien -- Cameron Shorter Systems Architect, http://lisasoft.com.au Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
Hi, I'll try to get something done. We could then start from there and add information to it. I hesitant to add a provide hosting part for now. I'm thinking of simply pointing to Sourceforge (or others) for now since we didn't get a consensus on that part. I'm also thinking that it will be easier to start small without providing anything, but a way to get advertised and grow the service later if it's a success. Best regards, Julien Cameron Shorter wrote: I'm +1 for OSGeo Labs. It would be a good holding place for projects waiting to go into incubation and for new projects to meet and collaborate with each other. The key elements of OSGeo Labs are: 1. Labs draws minimal overhead from the OSGeo community. Ie, provide hosting, but not mentoring. 2. There is an entrance criteria list for OSGeo Labs which ensures that the project has a goal of becoming an incubation OSGeo project and therefore should be Open Source, Geospatial, etc. 3. The decision for accepting a project into Labs should be delegated to a committee (which should be one person but could be more). Aim is to keep the management overhead low. 4. OSGeo Board reserves the right to remove projects from Labs if the project dies or is not following OSGeo values. I suggest that OSGeo Incubation Committee hold a meeting to vote on this. Do we have a volunteer to draft the first version of Entrance Criteria and Guidelines for OSGeo Labs? You should be able to draw a lot from the Incubation process. Julien-Samuel Lacroix wrote: Frank Warmerdam wrote: Julien, Could you launch an OSGeo Labs page in the wiki? If it shapes up well, we can look at linking it from somewhere reasonably prominent. Best regards, Thanks for the backup. My comment was more to get an idea of what people think about it and I think most people agree. I'll try to get something up along with guidelines to make sure we keep a little bit of control on what we advertise. Julien -- Julien-Samuel Lacroix Mapgears http://www.mapgears.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
I would be willing to give some help on setting up an OSGeo Labs Project with SourceForge services if there was interest. Maybe we could put my e-mail with a note to that says as much on the wiki page. Just a thought. Landon -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Julien-Samuel Lacroix Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 2:47 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects Hi, I'll try to get something done. We could then start from there and add information to it. I hesitant to add a provide hosting part for now. I'm thinking of simply pointing to Sourceforge (or others) for now since we didn't get a consensus on that part. I'm also thinking that it will be easier to start small without providing anything, but a way to get advertised and grow the service later if it's a success. Best regards, Julien Cameron Shorter wrote: I'm +1 for OSGeo Labs. It would be a good holding place for projects waiting to go into incubation and for new projects to meet and collaborate with each other. The key elements of OSGeo Labs are: 1. Labs draws minimal overhead from the OSGeo community. Ie, provide hosting, but not mentoring. 2. There is an entrance criteria list for OSGeo Labs which ensures that the project has a goal of becoming an incubation OSGeo project and therefore should be Open Source, Geospatial, etc. 3. The decision for accepting a project into Labs should be delegated to a committee (which should be one person but could be more). Aim is to keep the management overhead low. 4. OSGeo Board reserves the right to remove projects from Labs if the project dies or is not following OSGeo values. I suggest that OSGeo Incubation Committee hold a meeting to vote on this. Do we have a volunteer to draft the first version of Entrance Criteria and Guidelines for OSGeo Labs? You should be able to draw a lot from the Incubation process. Julien-Samuel Lacroix wrote: Frank Warmerdam wrote: Julien, Could you launch an OSGeo Labs page in the wiki? If it shapes up well, we can look at linking it from somewhere reasonably prominent. Best regards, Thanks for the backup. My comment was more to get an idea of what people think about it and I think most people agree. I'll try to get something up along with guidelines to make sure we keep a little bit of control on what we advertise. Julien -- Julien-Samuel Lacroix Mapgears http://www.mapgears.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss Warning: Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against defects including translation and transmission errors. If the reader is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this information in error, please notify the sender immediately. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
Bruce IMO: I'd caution against watering down the OSGeo 'brand' as a source of 'quality' products, particularly if we want the products accepted as a viable alternative within larger organisations. While it is good to provide pointers to projects of interest, there needs to be a clear separation of what is an OSGeo project and what is not. I think that it is acceptable to have certain hurdles that a project has to pass in order to be accepted into the OSGeo fold. Could there be a series of tiers? The first tier could have a low barrier of entry, with low support provided, plus little-or-no promotion as being of the OSGeo 'brand'. A project could work its way through the tiers, and incidentally through the incubation process, and be rewarded with more support from OSGeo along the way. The final tier would include, amongst other things, recognition on the OSGeo home page. nick *** WARNING: This e-mail (including any attachments) may contain legally privileged, confidential or private information and may be protected by copyright. You may only use it if you are the person(s) it was intended to be sent to and if you use it in an authorised way. No one is allowed to use, review, alter, transmit, disclose, distribute, print or copy this e-mail without appropriate authority. If this e-mail was not intended for you and was sent to you by mistake, please telephone or e-mail me immediately, destroy any hardcopies of this e-mail and delete it and any copies of it from your computer system. Any right which the sender may have under copyright law, and any legal privilege and confidentiality attached to this e-mail is not waived or destroyed by that mistake. It is your responsibility to ensure that this e-mail does not contain and is not affected by computer viruses, defects or interference by third parties or replication problems (including incompatibility with your computer system). Opinions contained in this e-mail do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Queensland Department of Main Roads, Queensland Transport or Maritime Safety Queensland, or endorsed organisations utilising the same infrastructure. *** ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
Yes, There should be clear separation to the casual visitor between Endorsed, Quality OSGeo projects and Labs. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: IMO: I'd caution against watering down the OSGeo 'brand' as a source of 'quality' products, particularly if we want the products accepted as a viable alternative within larger organisations. While it is good to provide pointers to projects of interest, there needs to be a clear separation of what is an OSGeo project and what is not. I think that it is acceptable to have certain hurdles that a project has to pass in order to be accepted into the OSGeo fold. From memory, the structure of OSGeo has been based on the Apache Foundation. This approach has worked well for that community. I wouldn't like to see the approach watered down for OSGeo. Bruce [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 03/10/2007 06:35:22 AM: I'm +1 for OSGeo Labs. It would be a good holding place for projects waiting to go into incubation and for new projects to meet and collaborate with each other. The key elements of OSGeo Labs are: 1. Labs draws minimal overhead from the OSGeo community. Ie, provide hosting, but not mentoring. 2. There is an entrance criteria list for OSGeo Labs which ensures that the project has a goal of becoming an incubation OSGeo project and therefore should be Open Source, Geospatial, etc. 3. The decision for accepting a project into Labs should be delegated to a committee (which should be one person but could be more). Aim is to keep the management overhead low. 4. OSGeo Board reserves the right to remove projects from Labs if the project dies or is not following OSGeo values. I suggest that OSGeo Incubation Committee hold a meeting to vote on this. Do we have a volunteer to draft the first version of Entrance Criteria and Guidelines for OSGeo Labs? You should be able to draw a lot from the Incubation process. Notice: This email and any attachments may contain information that is personal, confidential, legally privileged and/or copyright. No part of it should be reproduced, adapted or communicated without the prior written consent of the copyright owner. It is the responsibility of the recipient to check for and remove viruses. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender by return email, delete it from your system and destroy any copies. You are not authorised to use, communicate or rely on the information contained in this email. Please consider the environment before printing this email. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Cameron Shorter Systems Architect, http://lisasoft.com.au Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
This is pretty much what I had in mind when I mentioned the idea in my post this morning. A structured space where projects could advertise capabilities and plans, with the goal of establishing communities. Today I feel like we (OSGeo) just turn those projects aside, and while I agree we do not want to advertise them as mature/stable projects they do need some visibility in order to grow. Bob Fawcett, David wrote: A first, and maybe only step might be to provide wiki space, or some sort of templated content management space for new open source geospatial projects to introduce and display themselves. Using a standard template, they could provide a project background, context, current capabilities, proposed/planned/future capabilities, linkages to other os geospatial projects, etc. The advantage of a template would be that one could easily put projects into context and compare them. Maybe there could be a forum to facilitate/generate communication about and between new projects. This could also be handled with a listserv, but it could (and hopefully would) be a high traffic list. In rough concept, I am thinking of a place where new osg projects can make themselves known, find opportunities for collaboration, and hopefully build a community of supporters. David. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 8:50 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects Bruce IMO: I'd caution against watering down the OSGeo 'brand' as a source of 'quality' products, particularly if we want the products accepted as a viable alternative within larger organisations. While it is good to provide pointers to projects of interest, there needs to be a clear separation of what is an OSGeo project and what is not. I think that it is acceptable to have certain hurdles that a project has to pass in order to be accepted into the OSGeo fold. Could there be a series of tiers? The first tier could have a low barrier of entry, with low support provided, plus little-or-no promotion as being of the OSGeo 'brand'. A project could work its way through the tiers, and incidentally through the incubation process, and be rewarded with more support from OSGeo along the way. The final tier would include, amongst other things, recognition on the OSGeo home page. nick *** WARNING: This e-mail (including any attachments) may contain legally privileged, confidential or private information and may be protected by copyright. You may only use it if you are the person(s) it was intended to be sent to and if you use it in an authorised way. No one is allowed to use, review, alter, transmit, disclose, distribute, print or copy this e-mail without appropriate authority. If this e-mail was not intended for you and was sent to you by mistake, please telephone or e-mail me immediately, destroy any hardcopies of this e-mail and delete it and any copies of it from your computer system. Any right which the sender may have under copyright law, and any legal privilege and confidentiality attached to this e-mail is not waived or destroyed by that mistake. It is your responsibility to ensure that this e-mail does not contain and is not affected by computer viruses, defects or interference by third parties or replication problems (including incompatibility with your computer system). Opinions contained in this e-mail do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Queensland Department of Main Roads, Queensland Transport or Maritime Safety Queensland, or endorsed organisations utilising the same infrastructure. *** ___ 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
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
Fawcett, David wrote: A first, and maybe only step might be to provide wiki space, That should be a good start. We already something similar on the OSGeo wiki http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Libgeos http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Mobile_Solutions A link OSGeo frontpage under the OSGeo Community menu, saying Related Software or OSGeo Labs. Think the Related Software menu item could be linked to the OSGeo wiki where developers could put in project description, links (to sourceforge maybe). or some sort of templated content management space for new open source geospatial projects to introduce and display themselves. Using a standard template, they could provide a project background, context, current capabilities, proposed/planned/future capabilities, linkages to other os geospatial projects, etc. The advantage of a template would be that one could easily put projects into context and compare them. Agree with the template idea too. A wiki template maybe. ... In rough concept, I am thinking of a place where new osg projects can make themselves known, find opportunities for collaboration, and hopefully build a community of supporters. Hope so too. Venka ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
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? I think OSGeo should be helping new projects in whatever way it can. Saw a couple of nice onces (including the next version of MapLab) which needed a launch pad at FOSS4G2004. I thin new projects could be treated just like OSGeo Local Chapters. We have some Local Chapters that are official and some in the waiting. New projects could be welcomed inside OSGeo and remain in the waiting too. New projects could be eventually become official depending on response from the OSGeo community and could follow the same incubation procedure to get the OSGeo Approved stamp. 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. Agree on that too. 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. Yes, OSGeo must encourage tha Long Tail phenomena for software projects. 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. Agree to wider range of community participation. ... 4. OGGeo would use some measures around whether the project is making a good progress and the community around that is somewhat increasing. Questionnaire at FOSS4G events. Ability to organize BOF (independently or jointly) FOSS4G events within a two year probation period? ... 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. Sound fine to me. ... Regards Venka ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
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 Venkatesh Raghavan wrote: 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? I think OSGeo should be helping new projects in whatever way it can. Saw a couple of nice onces (including the next version of MapLab) which needed a launch pad at FOSS4G2004. I thin new projects could be treated just like OSGeo Local Chapters. We have some Local Chapters that are official and some in the waiting. New projects could be welcomed inside OSGeo and remain in the waiting too. New projects could be eventually become official depending on response from the OSGeo community and could follow the same incubation procedure to get the OSGeo Approved stamp. 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. Agree on that too. 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. Yes, OSGeo must encourage tha Long Tail phenomena for software projects. 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. Agree to wider range of community participation. ... 4. OGGeo would use some measures around whether the project is making a good progress and the community around that is somewhat increasing. Questionnaire at FOSS4G events. Ability to organize BOF (independently or jointly) FOSS4G events within a two year probation period? ... 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. Sound fine to me. ... Regards Venka ___ 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
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
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
All, I've been reading this thread from the start. Very interested since I just submitted an application for a Incubation project. I have to side with Paul too, our application project is compared (on the surface) to OpenLayers to whom ever we show it to. While on the surface it looks to operate very much like OpenLayers, it's a different approach to services, integration and data organization on the whole. And we feel there is a need for this type of approach that is different than the one taken by OpenLayers. Also, I believe that there are some flaws with the coding approach in some cases for OpenLayers. I'm trying not to downplay Openlayers here, but I believe that Open Layers is at the point of a re-write as well. Our project is at it's third version of a rewrite for example and has ended up very stable, with a very small foot printed related to it's capabilities. Recently we've been discussing using the OpenLayers tiling get methods for incorporation into our package, but some concerns about memory leaks and coding methodologies are cause for concern by our team. 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. Making the strengtha and weakness know would be a much better approach. Some thing I think could have an effect on the GeoOpenSource space, would be to have a review process for new projects that OSGEO could manage. Even doing followups over time on project of user interest would help too. Treat it just like a electronic magazine and generate review articles about new and ongoing project. Much better way to inform new and potential users I think. bobb Paul Spencer wrote: More comments: - 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 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
Paul Spencer [EMAIL PROTECTED]: 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? Hi, IMHO this is really a good idea. Indeed, right now new projects have to create their own infrastructures to manage their projects (using a trac system or something similar) but it could be a better solution to purpose an allready existing (ready-to-use, up-to-date, secure and so on) infrastructure to store/start new projects. Even if it's not really a big work to make this kind of infrastructure running, it could be easier to use an allready ready-to-use platform for deploying the source code and make some documentation for a new project. This way, some projects should be able to start quicker, as they don't have to manage their own infrastructure. Furthermore, all new projects could get a standard and central way to start and present their own work (new projects) without bothering with presentation (for example) or something like that which could be really frustrating if they only want to share their source code and create some documentation on how to use and also defining the functionalities of their project(s). So IMHO in some sense OSGeo should became something like sourceforge but only for gis-oriented free software. But maybe I'm wrong so correct me if it's the case. Furthermore, OSGeo should became the starting point to search for gis- oriented free software, this sounds good to me. Hope to hear more about this topic soon. Regards, Gérald Fenoy Official mail : gerald [_ dot _] fenoy [_ at _] geolabs [_ dot _] fr Open source mail : djay [_ at _] gentoo [_ dot _] org, sci-geosciences herd listen on sci-geosciences [_ at _] gentoo [_ dot _] org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
On Sun, Sep 30, 2007 at 05:10:22PM -0400, 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 do not think that OSGeo should be in the business of setting up infrastructure and resources for all open source projects that are out there. Our incubation process, as it is, is relatively lengthy and resource consuming -- without a significant influx of new OSGeo incubation mentors, I don't see how OSGeo can offer more than it already does. As a volunteer run organization, I see OSGeo as already being at the stretching point (though not the breaking point). Many incubation mentors also participate on other committees, or are trying to maintain multiple things at once for OSGeo. Adding more burden onto that at this time seems to be a mistake. Creating more resources for projects on how to get started with an Open Source Geospatial project sounds great. In fact, so does providing infrastructure to projects which seem likely to be widely used in a givene space. For example, it's clear that a well-maintained proj4js library could be used by a number of projects -- but it hasn't shown a strong enough community so far that I would feel comfortable having OSGeo provide much in the way of resources for it, especially as part of the incubation process. (3-4 users does not a community make.) I said in a presentation last week: A developer's time is a limited resource. Don't waste it. I think the same applies to OSGeo resources: until we have some number of resources which is larger than what we have today, I think that we need to hold off on promising anything more to projects, especially projects which are not clearly in a position to succeed yet. I look forward to the day when OSGeo can take promising projects and provide them a route from start to finish, creating what is likely a more successful project due to OSGeo's integration into the process. However, I feel like we're stretched pretty thin at this time, so until the day where we have people in hordes waiting for things to do, I don't think we're at a point where I feel it's the best action for the foundation. Regards, -- Christopher Schmidt Web Developer ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
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. Howard ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
Hi Paul, Good discussion. Returning to my original point, then, should OSGeo provide support for getting new projects off the ground? I think it entirely fair that a project gather a little momentum and prove itself a good idea based on a number of people voting with their feet, so to speak, and getting the project going. OSGEO has developed a brand and it should be incumbent on prospective incubees to get a start. That is what I am planning to do with GeoFunctions ;-). There appear to be lots of places on the web where a project can get infrastructure, at the price of a few advertisements in your face. OSGEO should be a place where one can find quality implementations of GIS-domain software and libraries that enhance its brand, and the incubation threshold seems appropriate. Cheers, Peter Rushforth Technology Advisor / Conseiller technique GeoConnections / GéoConnexions 650-615 Booth St. / rue Booth Ottawa ON K1A 0E9 E-mail / Courriel: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone / Télephone: (613) 943-0784 Fax / telecopier: (613) 947-2410 ___ 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
All, I knew the comments were going to touch a nerve somewhere. That's why I purposely kept things vague. I don't agree 100% about the non-relevance though, overlapping stratgies were exactly what I was trying to comment on, and promote as a development method. Our Project came out of our day to day work, and we though it of value to the community. The discussion here was about supporting new project or not because of the perceived overlap, I was stating that we defintely had overlap and with which project, I don't see how the talking could proceed without naming things. The support I would rally for from OSGEO, would be in the reviewing process, something along the lines of a para-professional (team??) taking a look at the project and reviewing for others so they can take a deeper look. This is the exact type of thing that our project is missing, a promotions aspect. It executes it's designed functions very well (we think). Listing the catagories a project might be listed under and how it's functions differ from other packages of the same type. bobb Paul Spencer wrote: I would like to encourage this discussion to be less about specific projects and more about the general concept of providing new projects a place to get started. This type of discussion (the one below) also needs to happen, but at a project-specific level. I would encourage Bob to bring his list of concerns/differences of opinion to the openlayers dev mailing list where the pros and cons can be discussed in a level of detail that might otherwise nauseate others :) At a generic level, I am of the opinion that projects have design goals and architectures developed to suit the goals. I believe that it is possible to have many different approaches to solving a problem and by always encouraging folks to look at existing projects, some interesting new approaches may not be considered. As much as Chris (and I for that matter) like OpenLayers, it is possible that someone could have a better idea for how to approach the problem it solves and that this new approach would not fit OpenLayers for any of a number of reasons. If we didn't encourage this, we'd still have ka-Map and OpenLayers wouldn't exist. Returning to my original point, then, should OSGeo provide support for getting new projects off the ground? Cheers Paul On 1-Oct-07, at 1:29 PM, Christopher Schmidt wrote: (I'll disclaim this by saying that OpenLayers is one of the projects I think of as 'my' open source projects: OpenLayers, TileCache, FeatureServer. However, I think that I could make the same argument for other libraries that are not mine as well.) On Mon, Oct 01, 2007 at 11:35:58AM -0500, Bob Basques wrote: Also, I believe that there are some flaws with the coding approach in some cases for OpenLayers. I'm trying not to downplay Openlayers here, but I believe that Open Layers is at the point of a re-write as well. I'm wondering what makes you think that. Is it something that has been said, or do you feel this way from observation of the code or something else? For the record, although I do feel that OpenLayers can only last another 6 months or so before we go to version 3.0 (though I'd love to make it last longer), even when we do so, by the time we do, it will probably be very similar to Python's setup -- you write your application for 2.x, turn on debugging to ensure there are no deprecation warnings, and if there aren't, then you can probablye switch to 3.0 without any problems. I can't say that this will be the path for sure, but I highly doubt there will be a substantial rewrite of OpenLayers in the next 12-18 months. Recently we've been discussing using the OpenLayers tiling get methods for incorporation into our package, but some concerns about memory leaks and coding methodologies are cause for concern by our team. These types of things are great to share between projects, and sharing them might lead to alleviating the concerns on both sides -- either by resolving the issues within OpenLayers, or in the worst case, confirming the status is the way you think it is, thus leading to a sounder call on this type of decision. A project which doesn't reach out like this is, in my opinion, one which should be carefully considered when approaching incubation: much of the purpose of OSGeo and the community of Open Source developers is to establish the bonds needed to ensure that the products coming out are the best they can be. If someone is doing something similar to OpenLayers, and is implementing the same wheel simply because they are unable to make OpenLayers do what they want given its current state, I think they are likely to be passed up as time goes on. OpenLayers has grown a large -- and growing daily -- community. Part of the reason is because we have taken an active attempt to reach out to similar projects and offer to maintain the functionality they are using for them. Many OpenLayers use cases
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
Ditto!! Thanks Howard. bobb ... and then look to OSGeo for promotional, infrastructure, legal, and other support. Howard ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
Should OSGeo be the Ubuntu of Debian of Geospatial? Ubuntu focuses on USERS by pre-selecting and recommending best of breed software. Debian and other Linux distributions focused more on DEVELOPERS by letting many flowers bloom. Consequently, Ubuntu has attracted a large user following and increased Open Source uptake. OSGeo priorities should be to USERS first, developers second. As noted by others, OSGeo human resources are limited and although it would be nice to help everyone we will be more effective by focusing on our priorities. In practice I suggest: 1. Offer OSGeo infrastructure to new projects (low cost to us) but not much more until the project is stable and reaching incubation quality. 2. Encourage projects to work together and amalgamate libraries rather than spawning and splitting our developers, user bases, and sponsors. Starting a new project often has short term gains, but is detrimental to the community long term. Chris explained this is more detail. Christopher Schmidt wrote: On Mon, Oct 01, 2007 at 03:08:12PM -0500, Bob Basques wrote: Chris, Ahh crap, I knew this was going to happen, the questions I mean. :c) I can continue with the detail offline if you like too . . . My statements, though made about your specific case, were really more of a general statement about any project seeking to enter into a space with a large following for another open source project. I feel that the incubation process should, as part of its process, seek to ensure that a project is sustainable long term -- and one of the most important questions in that is Can the community behind this project sustain it? In the case where a project has a small, but loyal, following, that may be true even when a larger player in the field is taking up the majority of the mindshare. It can also be true where a project has a different approach to a problem -- FDO and OGR seem (from the outside) to be solving many of the same data access issues. However, after learning a bit about the FDO model, I can see that it has a significantly different approach than OGR. Clearly FDO has a significant user-base through its use in Autodesk's products, so I understand why having both would be beneficial to the community. It's about viability. It can come in many sources -- a large, mostly silent community is not always better than a small, vibrant community. Evaluating community viability is hard -- but I think it's the purpose of the entire OSGeo incubation process, and being able to ask the hard questions of a project before it enters incubation seems like a good way to head off at the pass too many attmepts to reimplement the same things. No clue how that applies here -- just rambling, as usual :) But did want to toss in my $0.04 (That's $0.02 CDN these days.) Regards, -- Cameron Shorter Systems Architect, http://lisasoft.com.au Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 ___ 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 5:32 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote: OSGeo priorities should be to USERS first, developers second. Respectfully, I disagree -- 250,000,000 downloads of Google Earth is more than all the other geospatial software installations in the industry combined, and GDAL is at the heart of it. Not a bad user base I think? Ok - I realize that's an extreme example -- but it is not isolated. MapServer has arguably the largest web mapping install base in the world. Our issues are not concerning lack of users. Focus on giving a great environment for Developers to do their job better than ever, and get the word out to industry and users that we have our house in order that this technology is ready for prime time. If you do those two things -- the 250,000,000 downloads of Google Earth will simply be a starting point. Dave ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
Paul, As reading the replies up to now I continue to think what OSGeo can do is more adding some technical expertise rather than creating a venue and a project advertising board. Currently I feel a significant power around the users and developers forming the OSGeo to decide or at least give some point of consideration whether a project should be brought to alive or not, definitely. Therefore it would be prudent for the developers/designers to have been measured with the ideas by a broader community before creating a new project. This would be good for the project and the OSGeo as well, because: 1. The designer could avoid spending quite some time and money for a functionality they already have, but no one have ever mentioned about the possibilities by pointing them to a right project's direction. 2. The new project could make sure that the idea behind that is compelling enough to grow a large community around that. Having the support of the majority of the developers and users of OSGeo could add the necessary initiative to that. 3. The OSGeo could get to know whether we've lack of the functionality in some areas or the relevant projects should solve some substantial issues they still haven't been aware of to make their existing functionality usable. 4. The OSGeo could have some feedback what is happening behind the scenes of the projects around the open source geospatial area. I'm pretty sure getting to know about a full featured new project with it's functionality is more frustrating for the existing projects than getting up to date information about the ongoing projects and how those will complement the current functionality. Certainly the new project may decide to go on it's own way an omit all of the information the OSGeo could provide, however that might possibly cause potential difficulties when they'd like to apply for an official support by the community one day. Having the infrastructure inside the OSGeo or not is not the biggest issue. In my opinion allowing to host the new projects inside the OSGeo could save some efforts from the developers when they decide to join to the infrastructure. Doing so after the incubation is somewhat painful as far as I've experienced that with some already incubated projects. However, AFAIK, it's not compulsory either to join to the infrastucture after the incubation process. I think OSGeo could support projects with similar functionalities as well, but we should make sure about the extra information how these projects behave in a different way for the user. For example those might be different in technology (like java or C/C++ based) or provide a different user experience etc. OSGeo should only support those open source geospatial projects that are definitely incubatable by the means those'll someday get the officially supported certificate from the community. Best regards, Tamas 2007/10/1, Paul Spencer [EMAIL PROTECTED]: 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
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
On 10/1/07, Tamas Szekeres [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As reading the replies up to now I continue to think what OSGeo can do is more adding some technical expertise rather than creating a venue and a project advertising board. Currently I feel a significant power around the users and developers forming the OSGeo to decide or at least give some point of consideration whether a project should be brought to alive or not, definitely. Therefore it would be prudent for the developers/designers to have been measured with the ideas by a broader community before creating a new project. Folks, Some interesting points in this thread! Addressing Tamas' immediate point above, I think that bouncing a project idea (or early prototype) off folks in the broad OSGeo community (via discuss or person to person discussions at FOSS4G for instance) could be helpful in deciding how much traction it is likely to get. *But* as Paul mentioned earlier, the judgement of one or a few people isn't likely to be that authoritative. OSGeo isn't really well organized currently for providing infrastructure for large numbers of projects. So - barring some folks coming forward to make that aspect work we can pretty much set it aside. Folks always have the option of hosting sites like sourceforge. For promotion, well, I'm kind of with Cameron that our front page recommendations need to be reserved for projects in which we have a lot of faith in an effort to best serve the user. On the other hand, I hope the discuss list (for instance) can be a venue for folks to get some exposure for new and interesting projects. I think writing an article for the journal might be another approach. I *do* see the issue that folks with new projects need exposure and feedback. I'm just not too sure how to serve them with existing resources, and without diffusing our promotional efforts too much. 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| Geospatial Programmer for Rent ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects
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. 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. 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. 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) 4. OGGeo would use some measures around whether the project is making a good progress and the community around that is somewhat increasing. 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. Best regards, Tamas ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
