[OSGeo-Discuss] worldbuilding tools?
Hi Folks, I expect there are folks here who've been involved with serious "worldbuilding" exercises - for games, and/or military exercises. I have some experience with how we (used to) do things for military sims, from my days at MAK (DIS & HLA environments, BML for describing some things). And there are things like Unity for gaming. But I really wonder how the professionals approach serious world building - you know, folks like Roddenberry, Stan Lee, Steven Moffet. How do they develop and maintain a world model? What documents do they maintain, and hand out to new writers? What tools, databases, processes do they use to maintain and update the world model. What authoring tools & processes do they use to maintain continuity? What reference documents do you find in a writers' room, what's hanging on the walls. What are the intermediate steps between idea, storyboards, shooting scripts, shooting schedule, and dailys? What do the documents look like? Does anybody have an idea of where one would find a copy of the definitive Star Trek, Dr. Who, and/or Marvel Comic Universe "bibles?" The documents they hand to new writers, & the systems they use to maintain continuity? Or even better, a textbook or handbook on how Paramount maintains continuity for the Star Trek Universe, or how they do things at LucasFilms? I expect that places like LucasFilm have all kinds of well developed processes, tools, systems - equivalent to the MDMP, Air Operations planning processes, or similar doctrine. I'd love to get a look at some of them. And talk to folks who've actually used/developed some of them. Any pointers would be much appreciated. Thanks, Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra Theory is when you know everything but nothing works. Practice is when everything works but no one knows why. In our lab, theory and practice are combined: nothing works and no one knows why. ... unknown ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] who's involved with climate change planning?
Hi Folks, It keeps occurring to me that climate change requires a response that mirrors the way we now respond to natural disasters - volunteers coming together, self-organizing, getting to work. We simply don't build infrastructure from the top down anymore. And it occurs to me that folks who have been involved in crisis mapping, disaster response, and things like local "open planning" are key to all of this. As I try to get something going in my town, and region, I'm kind of wondering who else is doing such things - be it serving on local planning boards, organizing working groups to, you know, build stuff rather than simply march in the streets. I'll start: - years ago, our then non-profit (The Center for Civic Networking), among others - helped organize the "Sustainable Cambridge (MA) Coalition" - starting around a kitchen table, it led to a series of town-meeting like visioning exercises, changes to the City's master plan, line items in the Community Development Block Grant submission, and city staff dedicated to sustainability. Since then, the City, MIT, Harvard, and a bunch of other big players, have organized the "Cambridge Compact for a Sustainable Future" - who are collaborating (loosely) to plan & implement things like carbon-neutral programs, and climate resiliency efforts. - we were also involved in building a Community of Interest around municipal telecommunications (rights of way, city-wide enterprise nets, municipal broadband) - mostly an online journal, an email list, lots of speaking & writing engagements, some consulting - a lot of which led to communities organizing municipal broadband projects - typically starting with a working group drawn from municipal staff & the local business community - more recently, I spent some time in the GIS & transit arenas - which overlapped with crisis mapping, and geospatial information sharing - now, I'm trying to engage with our town planning department, and those in our neighboring communities - as well as larger condo associations & building owners - to pull something together (I think of Greta Thurnberg, and the Sunrise Movement as akin to the Sons of Liberty - putting out the cry; now it's time to stock armories, raise militias, and go to "climate war." You know, like Team Rubicon, except pro-active.) And, maybe, just maybe, do some broader community building, and networking, with folks in other communities (a COI for local groups like Team Rubicon - for mutual support, information exchange, collaboration). Anyway - it seems like this might be a place to start talking. So.. anybody out there doing anything interesting that relates? Any suggestions on other currently active communities to plant some seeds in? Cheers, Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra Theory is when you know everything but nothing works. Practice is when everything works but no one knows why. In our lab, theory and practice are combined: nothing works and no one knows why. ... unknown ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] today's xkcd
... is just so relevant: https://xkcd.com/2029/ -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Dealing with proprietary data using OSS tools.
Ok. But, and this may be a dumb question, it's a very fancy, expensive looking camera - one presumes that the person taking the pictures has the software that goes with it. Can one not ask the person providing the imagery to convert the raw files to a more usable format? Miles Fidelman On 3/21/18 8:03 PM, Tim Uckun wrote: They don't list prices for their software and there are no downloads. I am guessing they charge for the software and knowing this company it's not going to be cheap. On Thu, Mar 22, 2018 at 12:28 PM, Miles Fidelman <mfidel...@meetinghouse.net <mailto:mfidel...@meetinghouse.net>> wrote: According to the camera's data sheet, their FramePro software will take the proprietary format and output "Distortion-free, 8 and 16-bit JPEG, TIFF and BSQ images with RGB, RGBN, NRG, NIR and NDVI band combinations" It doesn't really seem unreasonable for a camera to use a proprietary internal format, as long as they provide software to convert it to standard formats. Particularly if it's a camera with some special sensor characteristics. The real question is whether they provide their software with the camera, or whether you have to pay beaucoup bucks for it. Miles Fidelman On 3/21/18 7:13 PM, Tim Uckun wrote: I just upgraded but no luck with this file. Leica still sells this camera so they have no incentive to open up their formats. You can only process this file with their software apparently. On Thu, Mar 22, 2018 at 4:28 AM, Newcomb, Doug <doug_newc...@fws.gov <mailto:doug_newc...@fws.gov>> wrote: Tim, A new version of Rawtherapee came out today, Also, http://rawpedia.rawtherapee.com/Adding_Support_for_New_Raw_Formats <http://rawpedia.rawtherapee.com/Adding_Support_for_New_Raw_Formats> Doug On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 8:18 AM, Tim Uckun <timuc...@gmail.com <mailto:timuc...@gmail.com>> wrote: Yea that was one of the first ones I tried. It looks like this raw file is proprietary so nothing is going to open it. On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 12:57 AM, Newcomb, Doug <doug_newc...@fws.gov <mailto:doug_newc...@fws.gov>> wrote: Have you looked at darktable , https://www.darktable.org/? It works with a lot of Raw image formats. Not sure if it will handle any georeferencing information that might be associated with the image. Doug On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 7:02 PM, Tim Uckun <timuc...@gmail.com <mailto:timuc...@gmail.com>> wrote: Hi All. I am trying to deal with output from a Leica RCD30 camera used in Aerial surveying. The camera outputs .RAW files but these files are not recognized by any of the tools I have used so far. Oddly enough they actually have tiff headers but renaming them to .tiff doesn't work either. If anybody has any experience decoding these files and turning them into geotiffs I would appreciate it if they dropped me a line. Thanks in advance. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org <mailto:Discuss@lists.osgeo.org> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss <https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss> -- Doug Newcomb USFWS 551F Pylon Dr <https://maps.google.com/?q=551F+Pylon+Dr+Raleigh,+NC=gmail=g> Raleigh, NC <https://maps.google.com/?q=551F+Pylon+Dr+Raleigh,+NC=gmail=g> 919-856-4520 ext. 14 doug_newc...@fws.gov <mailto:doug_newc...@fws.gov> - */NOTE: This email correspondence and any attachments to and from this sender is subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and may be disclosed to third parties./* -- Doug Newcomb USFWS 551F Pylon Dr <https://maps.google.com/?q=551F+Pylon+Dr+Raleigh,+NC=gmail=g> Raleigh, NC <https://maps.google.com/?q=551F+Pylon+Dr+Raleigh,+NC=gmail=g> 919-856-4520 ext. 14 doug_newc...@fws.gov <mailto:doug_newc...@fws.gov>
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Dealing with proprietary data using OSS tools.
According to the camera's data sheet, their FramePro software will take the proprietary format and output "Distortion-free, 8 and 16-bit JPEG, TIFF and BSQ images with RGB, RGBN, NRG, NIR and NDVI band combinations" It doesn't really seem unreasonable for a camera to use a proprietary internal format, as long as they provide software to convert it to standard formats. Particularly if it's a camera with some special sensor characteristics. The real question is whether they provide their software with the camera, or whether you have to pay beaucoup bucks for it. Miles Fidelman On 3/21/18 7:13 PM, Tim Uckun wrote: I just upgraded but no luck with this file. Leica still sells this camera so they have no incentive to open up their formats. You can only process this file with their software apparently. On Thu, Mar 22, 2018 at 4:28 AM, Newcomb, Doug <doug_newc...@fws.gov <mailto:doug_newc...@fws.gov>> wrote: Tim, A new version of Rawtherapee came out today, Also, http://rawpedia.rawtherapee.com/Adding_Support_for_New_Raw_Formats <http://rawpedia.rawtherapee.com/Adding_Support_for_New_Raw_Formats> Doug On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 8:18 AM, Tim Uckun <timuc...@gmail.com <mailto:timuc...@gmail.com>> wrote: Yea that was one of the first ones I tried. It looks like this raw file is proprietary so nothing is going to open it. On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 12:57 AM, Newcomb, Doug <doug_newc...@fws.gov <mailto:doug_newc...@fws.gov>> wrote: Have you looked at darktable , https://www.darktable.org/? It works with a lot of Raw image formats. Not sure if it will handle any georeferencing information that might be associated with the image. Doug On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 7:02 PM, Tim Uckun <timuc...@gmail.com <mailto:timuc...@gmail.com>> wrote: Hi All. I am trying to deal with output from a Leica RCD30 camera used in Aerial surveying. The camera outputs .RAW files but these files are not recognized by any of the tools I have used so far. Oddly enough they actually have tiff headers but renaming them to .tiff doesn't work either. If anybody has any experience decoding these files and turning them into geotiffs I would appreciate it if they dropped me a line. Thanks in advance. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org <mailto:Discuss@lists.osgeo.org> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss <https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss> -- Doug Newcomb USFWS 551F Pylon Dr <https://maps.google.com/?q=551F+Pylon+Dr+Raleigh,+NC=gmail=g> Raleigh, NC <https://maps.google.com/?q=551F+Pylon+Dr+Raleigh,+NC=gmail=g> 919-856-4520 ext. 14 doug_newc...@fws.gov <mailto:doug_newc...@fws.gov> - */NOTE: This email correspondence and any attachments to and from this sender is subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and may be disclosed to third parties./* -- Doug Newcomb USFWS 551F Pylon Dr <https://maps.google.com/?q=551F+Pylon+Dr+Raleigh,+NC=gmail=g> Raleigh, NC <https://maps.google.com/?q=551F+Pylon+Dr+Raleigh,+NC=gmail=g> 919-856-4520 ext. 14 doug_newc...@fws.gov <mailto:doug_newc...@fws.gov> - */NOTE: This email correspondence and any attachments to and from this sender is subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and may be disclosed to third parties./* ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [Marketing] Proprietary GIS on our OSGeo website
Jody, This is a very good point. (comments continue below...) On 9/20/17 1:19 PM, Jody Garnett wrote: On 20 September 2017 at 12:44, Maria Antonia Brovelli <maria.brove...@polimi.it <mailto:maria.brove...@polimi.it>> wrote: Jody this is not respectful of me and the community. Might I know why the people working for the project want ABSOLUTELY to keep the names and links to proprietary software on our open source software website? I feel a bit of pressure to express myself exactly correctly on this outreach topic; or risk people missing the point ... The outreach approach was determined months ago when going over our target audience (literally what the website is for). Te website was defined with these visitor journey's in mind... The primary audience for the website is non-community members: - ESRI GIS Professional (GISP), IT Professionals, Academic Faculty, Academic Students, Science and Research, Influencers & Decision makers, Software Developers - the communication goal is to promote awareness - asking non-community members to consider and evaluate - the next goal is adoption - assisting non-community members in adopting open source - the final foal is impress - having non-community members be enthusiastic and advocate open source The secondary audience is community members: - osgeo members, partners, service providers, sponsors, contributors - the steps awarness, adoption, impress reflect contributing to open source - many of the community member activities are taking place on the wiki and are happy to remain there. When talking to the broader GIS community, it's important to keep in mind two things: - most GIS users are more familiar with ESRI & Google tools - most of what passes for standards are either defacto (ESRI & Google formats & APIs), or developed by OGC - which is an industry consortium - lots of folks utilize a combination of tools - some open source, some not (e.g., folks who use MapServer to serve databases maintained on ArcGIS). Taken together, if the intent of the site is to educate & support GIS users, and promote open source geo tools - then the site really has to address compatibility, and hybrid environments. Links to commercial equivalents - perhaps with reviews and comparisons - provides a lot of value (e.g., when trying to figure out how to use OpenLayers to view layers that come from a mix of ESRI, Google, and OGC-compliant sources. Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] ancient Roman maps
Figured folks here might enjoy this Just came back from a vacation in Italy. Turns out that the Vatican Museum has this incredible collection of (paintings of) maps - mostly using data collected by Roman soldiers - and they turn out to be relatively accurate. Some photos at https://plus.google.com/photos/115992823058286949429/albums/6118751220833900065 Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Inaugural webinar of ”Open Geospatial Science Applications” webinar series on 18th October
Lluís Vicens wrote: On 18/10/13 15:05, Norman Vine wrote: On Oct 18, 2013, at 8:57 AM, Margherita Di Leo dileomargher...@gmail.com mailto:dileomargher...@gmail.com wrote: Hi! looks like the system requirements for the platform chosen for the webinar do not support Linux.. I just received the confirmation email with the specs. I mean, are you kidding? Work-arounds (or lack thereof) aside - the are you kidding comment still applies. Just as a not, webex DOES support Linux. This is absurd. -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Would you be concerned if the GeoServices REST API became an OGC standard?
TC Haddad wrote: - To elaborate on the unequal footing phrase above: One additional aspect of the government side of this equation is that for several years there has been a trend (similar to Microsoft products) in getting the ESRI architecture adopted as a GIS software standard within government IT enterprise contexts. This then requires agencies to transition to use of the ESRI platform exclusively for geospatial work. Projecting into the future, if there were 2 competing OGC service types and ESRI were to drop support for the older W*S family of OGC services (or merely push support for them out of the core packages and into an expensive interoperability add-on), this would place many agencies in a situation of only being able to serve the newer standards, effectively killing the older standards within those contexts... Of course, isn't it funny, that it's getting harder and harder to find ESRI stuff anywhere, government or not. Lot's of enterprise Google Earth, and Google Maps Engine though. Of note: I recently moved from the DoD world to the transit world. I expected to find a lot of fleet management software built on top of ESRI tracking server. Nope, everything uses Google Maps. Even the aircraft tracking stuff that used to run on ESRI seems all to be Google based these days. Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Update: Who's interested in project management collaboration tools?
Thanks to all who've sent me comments! The new, and hopefully improved Kickstarter page and video are now up at: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1947703258/smart-notebooks-keeping-on-the-same-page-across-th Take a look! Comments welcome. So are donations, likes, tweets, diggs, +1s, re-distribution, blog posts, and any other visibility! And... if you happen to have a large, distributed project coming up - a conference, event, crowd sourcing effort, flash performance, disaster response exercise that just begs for a collaboration support tool - let's talk! Best, Miles -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [CrisisCommons] Re: [CrisisMappers] Re: Who's interested in collaboration project management tools? And...
Pat Tressel wrote: Miles -- this project stems from some work on tools for mission planning and coordination that seem to have applicability for crisis management and more general project management. If you're heading in the direction of more general crisis / project management, why not -- rather than starting from scratch -- join up with an existing project, and customize / develop that? Have a look at Sahana Eden for instance Sahana Eden looks like yet another server-based system. I'm very specifically focused on building a highly decentralized, peer-to-peer system. The project is motivated by needs and experience in environments where connectivity is intermittent at best. -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Who's interested in collaboration project management tools? And...
where are they and how do I get their attention? Hi Folks, A lot of folks us in the GIS arena are involved in lots of forms of collaborative projects, involving virtual teams. So I wonder if some of you might have an opinion to offer on this. I've been working on some open source software to support virtual teams and projects - putting some of the experiences and techniques I've acquired over the years into code - and I'm trying to gather some support via Kickstarter. The thing is, I'm having a very hard time getting people to even visit the project's web page - so far, only about 300 people have visited the Kickstarter page, despite some serious attempts to spread the word across various email lists, twitter, and so forth. It's one thing if people were looking at the page and not contributing, but I can't even seem to get people's attention - which suggestions one or more of four things: - nobody cares about project management (I hope this isn't the case - I know administrivia isn't sexy, but an awful lot of people are working on an awful lot of projects, and getting buried in mountains of paper, email, phone calls, texts, meetings, and yellow stickies. I sure know that I'm always looking for ways to declutter that side of my life) - I'm not reaching people who care. - I'm reaching people, but not getting their attention. - I'm reaching people, getting their attention, but not providing enough motivation to go the next step and click their mouse (on http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1947703258/smart-notebooks-keeping-on-the-same-page-across-th So... I'd really welcome any feedback on the questions who cares about project management collaboration tools, how to reach them, and what might motivate them enough to take a look at what I'm doing? Thanks very much, Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Crowd Coordination Project (Kickstarter)
Hi Folks, If you're organizing a crowd mapping or similar project, I just launched a Kickstarter project that might be of interest. The short form is smart documents, running in browsers as webapps, that talk to each other via P2P protocols - as a tool for keeping virtual teams and projects on the same page. The project originated with some work on military mission planning and management, with an eye toward crisis management and project management applications. I encourage you to take a look at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1947703258/smart-notebooks-keeping-on-the-same-page-across-th and if you're so moved, get on board. A bit more background: For about 40 years my thing has always been the theory and practice of using the Internet to support virtual organizations. I've scratched this itch by working on everything from C2 systems and distributed simulation, to electronic town meetings, online rulemakings, and webmarkets. I've continued to find that the simplest tools seem to be the most effective - particularly email lists, and various forms of shared/synchronized documents, both on paper (musical scores, theatrical scripts) and electronic (RFCs, linked spreadsheets, military mission orders distributed by email). This project represents a distillation of a lot of ideas about how to support virtual projects and teams with smart documents. It started out as some funded work on smart op orders that I'm trying to generalize as an open source tools. I'm nominally calling them smart notebooks - and the core idea is keeping people on the same page, across the net. Think of a composer, writing some music, then handing out pages to orchestra members, then telling people to mark up their pages - then think about writing in a web browser, distributing by email, and linking the pages so markups propagate automatically. Functionally, I've been thinking of the tool as a cross between a DayRunner on steroids, and HyperCard, retooled for groups, running in a browser. No new tools to install, no fancy groupware running in the cloud - just web apps executing locally, email, and a P2P protocol. If you can help spread the word - by reposting/retweeting/slashdotting/putting and so forth - that would really be helpful. If you know anybody at Wired or Gizmodo, that would also be helpful (seems like coverage by one of those is a really good vehicle to successful Kickstarter funding). If you have a project coming up that needs tools for supporting a distributed effort - say a large crowdsourcing project, or organizing a large event - I'm looking for scenarios to support - particuarly if you're funded And there's a 30-day clock running, so sooner is better! Thank you very much for any support you might offer, Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] map of back bay fire impacts?
So.. anybody know of any good maps of what's been going on in Boston's Back Bay? Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open source for local government resources
Charlie Schweik wrote: OSGeo colleagues, A colleague of mine is publishing an article in Government Technology Magazine. At the end of the article he wants to list some good resources that local governments might turn to if they were considering open source. I'd like to build such a list. This doesn't have to be OS Geo in particular. It could be just on open source in general. If anyone has links to good content that would inform local gov decision-makers, can you send to me? I'll compile and send out what I learn or perhaps will make a wiki page for us with that content. The obvious starting place is Open Source for America: http://opensourceforamerica.org/ (mostly a Federal focus) for Defense: mil-oss.org the GOSCON conference, which we all know about: gocon.org Oregon State Open Source Lab (and particularly see their sponsor list): http://osuosl.org Redhat has a page on State Local Government use of Linux at http://www.redhat.com/solutions/government/state/ - with some links to resources and case studies Miles Fidelman, Principal Protocol Technologies Group -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. Infnord practice, there is. Yogi Berra ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] are there any unpaid developers?
Mark Lucas wrote: I think that most of the developers that actively contribute to the OSSIM project are funded through government contracts. Having said that, most all of them contribute well beyond the time they are paid for. Often that is to move the baseline towards capabilities that are not covered by customer requirements. I spend most all of my time securing contracts so we can expand the team. The core team has worked together over the last decade as the individual contributors have switched companies several times. This seems fairly typical of successful open source projects - an initial period where work is funded by a research grant or an internal requirement, evolving into a core team where employers fund time for various business purposes, with support broadening over time (e.g., writing books, consulting, etc.). I can't think of any successful (wide adoption, long-term sustainability) open source projects that are pure labors of love. Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. Infnord practice, there is. Yogi Berra ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G Hosting Solutions
There are LOTS of hosting companies out there, ranging from Amazon and Google cloud services (as well as various other smaller vendors), folks who sell virtual slices of machines, generic hosting on a shared machine, dedicated servers, rack space for your own hardware, and various combinations. Cloud solutions give you a lot of flexibility, but you have cost exposure based on usage. The low-end shared hosting solutions are reliable (redundant hardware, backup, etc.), but you're generally don't have root access and you'll have trouble installing your stuff. Personally, I wouldn't adequate performance from a visualized or low-cost shared solution (hundreds of users per machine). Which leads to two main options: i. controlled sharing (e.g., a zone on a shared machine, where there are limits to how many users on the machine) ii. a dedicated server - be it owned by the provider or leased/provided by you Budget effects your choices a lot: - the $10/month services - be they cloud or commercial, probably don't offer the performance you need, and you'll have trouble installing the software - $50-100/month can get you service from a variety of smaller players who offer unix shell accounts - the cast of characters changes, so some googling and looking at web hosting forums is a good idea - $100-200/month can get you a low-end leased server from quite a few people - again google and web hosting forums are your friend - one interesting option might be the growing number of places that provide dedicated hosting on Mac minis - some let you ship them a pre-configured machine and they stick it on a shelf, others will lease you a machine and keep its software up-to-date - not a bad solution for medium traffic volume - $300/month and up will buy you rackspace, connectivity, access to your hardware, and someone who can monitor and restart your machine if it crashes In all cases, you need to think about backup costs - be it extra hardware or an online backup service. Most providers offer a backup service, but they're not that cheap. You can probably start by looking at rackspace.com - they're pretty reliable and offer a wide range of options, but they're not cheap. You can probably get comparable service for 60% of rackspace's price by doing some serious shopping. As one data point: I maintain two dedicated servers as a holdover from a small web development and hosting business I used to run. These days I primarily support a bunch of medium volume private email lists, along with archives - I expect the traffic volume is similar to hosting a few geodatabases (though cpu load is probably lower - not a lot of database operations). Costs: - 4U of rackspace + 1Mbps of continuous traffic (95th percentile) + monitor/restart sys admin support $300/mo. in a local, industrial strength data center (multiple backbones, redundant power with generator backup, 24/7 staffing and access, etc.) - 2 dedicated servers with lots of RAIDed disk - about $3000 of investment A few scoping questions that might guide your thinking, or allow some of us to steer you in a more specific direction: - what's the general application (internal use, a small number of external customers, a revenue generating commercial service, ...) - how big is your dataset - what kind of traffic volume are you expecting - what kind of reliability do you require - what are your peak load and scaling considerations - what level of sys admin support are you looking for - if you're looking toward eventual dedicated solutions, are you going to maintain your o/s, are you going to need physical access to hardware (note that it's pretty hard to do o/s installs without physical access to the CD slot and the terminal slot) - where are you located - what's your budget Hope this helps, Miles Kumaran Narayanaswamy wrote: No, we are looking for shared as well a dedicated hosting solutions On 2/7/2010 10:12 PM, Kumaran Narayanaswamy wrote: Hello, We are in the process of looking out for a best hosting provider to host the FOSS4G Web applications. Can anyone suggest us the best and affordable hosting solutions to deploy MapServer, GeoServer applications? -- Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs Traverse Technologies 145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor Boston, MA 02111 mfidel...@traversetechnologies.com 857-362-8314 www.traversetechnologies.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Question about FOSS4G Business Models
daniele.ocu ocu wrote: Dear all, Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions on reading material about business and FOSS4G. The idea for this report would be a summary with metrics showing how companies have changed after adopting FOSS4G. It would be a document to present why adopting open source can be interesting for a company. Again, with all due respect, I have to suggest that adopting open source is such a broad term as to be essentially meaningless. A company can: - adopt a specific piece of open source technology, as the result of a make/buy analysis for a specific software requirement (MySQL vs. PostGres vs. roll-your-own) - where all the standard metrics of purchase cost, maintenance cost, life-cycle cost apply - incorporate a piece of open source code into a product - develop a piece of software for internal use and then release it as open source as a way to reduce support costs - develop a software product and release it under an open source license and/or a dual license model, as part of a specific business strategy - develop a general open source model for internal use of software - develop a general open source model for a software business - etc., etc., etc. What problem are you trying to solve? -- Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs Traverse Technologies 145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor Boston, MA 02111 mfidel...@traversetechnologies.com 857-362-8314 www.traversetechnologies.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Question about FOSS4G Business Models
Venkatesh Raghavan wrote: I think what Daniele is looking for is some kind of a How to convince a venture (or social) captitalist to invest in FOSS4G technnologies and/or companies. Guess the venture capitalist would be inerested to see some statistical data on how FOSS4G based companies are growing elsewhere and what are their core business stratagies. I just went back and re-read Daniele's initial post, and now realize that it's not entirely clear what Daniele was asking for. So. Daniele, When you said convince his company management and finances to invest in FOSS4G technologies over the next 5 years. The company presently does a small part of its business using FOSS4G tools but is wondering if it should take a deeper plunge into the FOSS4G world. Does this refer to investing in FOSS4G tools for: - internal use - as part of the toolkit used in company engagements - as a service offering (e.g., supporting FOSS4G tools) - as components of systems built for clients - as products to develop and release/market - as something else - as a combination of the above? A little scoping along these lines would be very useful in providing input to a document with concrete data about how companies elsewhere in the world are profiting, growing, increasing market share and the kind of clients that they are catering to. Also... when you say The company also wants to consider marketing broad based services for SDI - I sort of infer that you're not talking about Strategic Defense. So... who are you expanding the acronym? Finally, when you're done - how about sharing a copy of the resulting paper, or at least a version with proprietary information removed? Cheers, Miles -- Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs Traverse Technologies 145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor Boston, MA 02111 mfidel...@traversetechnologies.com 857-362-8314 www.traversetechnologies.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Question about FOSS4G Business Models
One more reference: Wikipedia's history of open source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_history) has a pretty good discussion of the early days of software development - when pretty much everything was open source, but the term had not been coined yet. Miles Miles Fidelman wrote: Charlie, Charlie Schweik wrote: See http://www.umass.edu/opensource/schweik/Chapter_2_schweik_final_draft.pdf This book still is being finalized and not yet published. If anyone on this list reads this chapter, I'd appreciate any comments you may have. If you Daniele, or anyone else uses content from this in some capacity, I'd appreciate you contacting me so I can give you information on how to cite it. Since you asked :-) A few comments: 1. I seriously question the characterization of open source as primarily driven by volunteers. History says otherwise. 2. I'd look for some better sources re. monitary support for early open source projects. If you look a little harder, you'll find that almost all widely-used open source software started with somebody who was working at a job that paid them to write an initial code base - be it working on a a government contract or grant, or working on software as in internal IT staffer. The examples I always point to are: - Apache (started as the NCSA web daemon) - Unix (it all goes back to Bell Labs, with the BSD variations going back to Berkeley) - Sendmail - Postgres And the list goes on. (One interesting list of very early projects: http://eu.conecta.it/paper/Some_dates_open_source.html) Yes, a sizeable portion of contributors are volunteers - but some historical spelunking quickly points out that most projects started with someone who was being paid for their time. (Richard Stallman might be the exception, though MIT provided for his support in various forms). 3. Historically, the motivations you list as academic and scientific motivation #2 and #3 are the earliest and oldest motivations for open source code - dating back to the period when government funded work automatically entered the public domain (thus predating the entire notion of open source licenses). Almost ALL early software was funded by the government (notably DARPA and NSF), was shared as academic research, and automatically entered the public domain. Hope this is useful, Miles Fidelman -- Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs Traverse Technologies 145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor Boston, MA 02111 mfidel...@traversetechnologies.com 857-362-8314 www.traversetechnologies.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] new: OSGeo women mailing list
Landon Blake wrote: My main point is that we should encourage more diversity in our professions. Software development and land surveying would benefit from more women, and nursing would likely benefit from more men. (Ironically, I have a good friend that is in school for nursing right now, and he is a man.) It's really a thorny problem. I can't speak much to cultural issues in engineering that might turn off women. Certainly engineering professions are disproportionately populated with those of us with crude senses of humor. On the other hand, I've worked with an awful lot of women engineers over the years, and the culture didn't seem to bother them (several with pretty crude senses of humor of their own). There's certainly some self-selection going on, but that presumably applies to guys as well. The verdict seems to be out on whether there is selection going on based on developmental and/or cognitive differences in male and female brains. Again, though, I've worked with some very competent women engineers, and I know lots of guys who can't think logically if their life depended on it. A somewhat clearer issue has to do with preparation for engineering school. A while back, I spent a few years as volunteer educational councilor for MIT - alumni who both interview applicants, and who do outreach to high school students and guidance councilors. MIT has had female students since almost the beginning, and a pretty high percentage of female students and staff, BUT... at least when I was interviewing, we kept running into guidance councilors who would steer girls away from math and science classes. At a school with a very stiff math requirement for entry, and where almost every incoming student has taken a year of calculus in high school, that put a real dent in our ability to recruit women. I expect this situation has gotten better, but then, at least in our local school system, there's been a general deemphasis on science and engineering in general - somewhat problematic in a suburb of Boston with lots of MIT grads (and professors) living here. Then there's the question of role models, mentors, and such. Again, I expect this has gotten better over the years, but like senior management, senior engineering ranks are still populated by a generation of largely male engineers. Whether these are issues that can be addressed at the level of a specific project, or group of projects, is unclear. It would seem more an issue for the academic world, professional societies, and groups like AMITA (Assoc. of MIT Alumna). Having said that, I'll pose the question: How many women are working on OSGeo projects? How many are visible in the profession, and/or in academic circles? Seems to me that the best way to attract more women to OSGeo ranks are for the women who are already here to be highly visible to their female colleagues. -- Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs Traverse Technologies 145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor Boston, MA 02111 mfidel...@traversetechnologies.com 857-362-8314 www.traversetechnologies.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Location Services
P Kishor wrote: On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 3:47 AM, Cameron Shorter cameron.shor...@gmail.com wrote: As you are probably aware, just dumping code into sourceforge is not an effective way to start a successful Open Source project. The above makes sense, but honestly, I had never heard of this until now, and I have been tinkering with open source for almost a decade now. Most open source projects seemed organic to me. Someone had an itch, they scratched it, they put it out, and the project either gathered traction, or it died. Seems like my scholarship of open source has been lacking in this aspect hugely. Actually, the history of successful open source projects (long-lived, widely adopted, well supported by a broad community) is very different than having an itch to scratch. I've seen several major development paths for successful projects: 1. Funded research project that gets widely adopted. Open sourced as a way to maintain availability and support. Classic example: Apache (started as the NCSA web daemon). 2. Variant of the above: Project that starts as a research project ends up as a hybrid open-source/commercial enterprise. Classic examples: Sendmail, PostgreSQL. 3. Internally funded project - by a university or corporate team - open sourced as a way to reduce support costs and/or widen adoption. Generally retains some ties to originators. Examples: Sympa (mailing list manager funded by a consortium of French universities), Erlang, Zope. 4. The jury is still out on the various projects that have been developed for purely commercial reasons, with an open source (community) version released as both a way to broaden the market and to reduce development/support costs by leveraging outside contributors (e.g., OpenSolaris, Aptana Studio, ...). The virtualization space seems to be a place where the uncertainties associated with this model are playing out (e.g., would you stake your business on Xen or VirtualBox?). Not sure how I'd characterize the various BSD unix varients, and Linux is a clear outlier - that may well be as close to an itch to scratch that succeeded as there is. What these all have in common is that: i. somebody and/or some organization had a serious internal reason for developing a piece of software, and in almost all cases had a source of financial support for the work ii. there are serious business reasons for open sourcing the code - broadening a user base, reducing development and support costs, etc. - and serious attention was/is paid to organization and management issues Miles Fidelman -- Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs Traverse Technologies 145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor Boston, MA 02111 mfidel...@traversetechnologies.com 857-362-8314 www.traversetechnologies.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] DoD Open Source memo now on official web site
Somebody asked, here's where to find it: http://www.defenselink.mil/cio-nii/sites/oss/ -- Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs Traverse Technologies 145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor Boston, MA 02111 mfidel...@traversetechnologies.com 857-362-8314 www.traversetechnologies.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] new military OSS policy
It doesn't seem to be on the OSD web site yet - give it a few days and then you'll probably be able to find it somewhere near here: http://www.defenselink.mil/cio-nii/ Cameron Shorter wrote: Can someone point at this document on an official website somewhere? It would be good to link to it from: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Case_Studies#Open_Source_Policies Miles Fidelman wrote: ... fresh from the OSD e-press ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs Traverse Technologies 145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor Boston, MA 02111 mfidel...@traversetechnologies.com 857-362-8314 www.traversetechnologies.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Insurance for contractors?
Michael P. Gerlek wrote: * in the US, sole proprietorship is the way to go for simple one-person, garage-based shops Having contracted as both a sole proprietorship and a corporation, I'd qualify that one. Sole proprietorship is easy, but. - you don't get quite as many tax benefits - you open yourself up to a lot of personal liability, even with insurance - if you have any serious assets (say a house or stock portfolio that hasn't completely tanked), putting a corporate shell between you and a lawsuit provides some serious protection - you can simplify some of the paperwork by incorporating as either Subchapter S or an LLC Miles ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Insurance for contractors?
For what it's worth, I believe IEEE offers a professional liability policy to members. If it's in line with their other insurance, the price will be reasonable (I've carried their life insurance for years, and their medical policy when I was out on my own for a while). I wouldn't be surprise if ACM has a similar offering. -- Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs Traverse Technologies 145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor Boston, MA 02111 mfidel...@traversetechnologies.com 857-362-8314 www.traversetechnologies.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Where are all the FOSS OGC Client implementations?
There's a pretty good On Tue, 2008-12-30 at 15:17 +0100, Miguel Montesinos wrote: Yes I mean list FOSS products and which OGC standards they support (and whether as client or server if applicable). There's a pretty good list of clients, both FOSS and commercial, at http://geoserver.org/display/GEOSDOC/Clients There's another list at http://lyceum.massgis.state.ma.us/wiki/doku.php?id=wms:simple_clients -- Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs Traverse Technologies 145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor Boston, MA 02111 mfidel...@traversetechnologies.com 857-362-8314 www.traversetechnologies.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Layers
Mateusz Loskot wrote: Bob Pawley wrote: Hi I am looking at Open Layers to display Postgis data. I have a couple of questions to start. - Can Open Layers connect directly to Postgis or does it require other software? - Is there documentation that shows how to make the connections and put the system together?? didn't see any detailed answer to this, so... I believe that Open Layers needs to talk to a WMS or WFS service, rather than directly executing SQL against a datatabase (PostGIS or otherwise). A pretty standard configuration is to run Geoserver (geoserver.org) w/ postgis. Mapserver (mapserver.gis.umn.edu) might be another option. -- Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs Traverse Technologies 145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor Boston, MA 02111 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 857-362-8314 www.traversetechnologies.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Software Language
Paul Ramsey wrote: On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 10:32 AM, Landon Blake [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The reality is that the software world is dominated by the western world and the English language. (How many programming languages do you know of that are written in Russian?) :] There's always APL - not Russian, but then not any other natural language either. -- Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs Traverse Technologies 145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor Boston, MA 02111 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 857-362-8314 www.traversetechnologies.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Should OSGeo get involved in the Information Architecture realm and nurture the development of definitive spatial ontologies?
Bruce Bannerman wrote: We need robust debate on these types of issues if we are to progress them. Ok.. let's try this :-) I see that there are two main ways of utilising spatial information: - producing a pretty picture that helps people understand an issue. We have a number of types of products that fall in this realm, including Google Maps, Google Earth, Virtual Earth, Slippy Maps etc. - as an input into structured analysis that is used as an aid to answering a particular question and also as an aid to exploring inter-relationships between spatial, business, scientific data etc. The output from this analysis could be a 'map', but of equal relevance it could be in tabular, graphical or textual form. This is the realm of traditional spatial analysis, image analysis or a range of spatial products that I like to term 'Spatial Intelligence Frameworks' e.g. Cohga's Weave, NGIS' GeoSamba, ESRI Australia's Eview. I don't think this dichotomy holds up under close scrutiny. I don't see that much difference in the cognitive processes or computing tools involved in producing a pretty picture that helps people understand an issue and structured analysis as an aid to answering a particular question or exploring inter-relationships between ... data. Is not structured analysis part of producing any form of useful presentation? In general, it's HARDER to organize and present issues to an audience that is not already familiar with the intricacies of an issue. This implies that one needs more powerful tools, and more flexible data representations, to produce pretty pictures than to simply perform a specialized analysis. A specialized analysis is amenable to a specialized tool. The broader the range of analyses one wants to perform, and the broader the range of presentations that one might want to use to illustrate an issue, the MORE powerful and flexible the tools one needs - even more so if one wants to provide interactive capabilities to the audience of the pretty picture. Tools that support breadth, depth, and flexibility, coupled with ease-of-use and a touch of elegance, are far harder to build than those that support more narrowly scoped problems. As a simple example: yes you can produce pretty pie charts using a drawing program, and you can perform incredibly powerful statistical analyses using SPSS or Mathematica, but you can address a far larger set of problems using a spreadsheet with graphics capabilities, particularly if the spreadsheet can tap into SQL databases, and you have a library of specialized macros available. Throw into this the big picture issues that we are facing, e.g. Climate Change, Water Shortage (in Australia) etc that require analysis at a continental or global scale and we have a big problem. How can we as an industry help this work to progress quickly with minimal impact on the analysis, minimal double handling of data and in many cases the use of dynamic data from multiple sources? snip In the end, I suspect that we will need community driven involvement to get it right. Communities of practice (like the geoscience community) will need to work together to develop *their* profiles describing *their* data. Is it an OSGeo responsibility? Probably not. I take the point of your earlier email that OSGeo is predominantly about OS software. snip When you consider the analysis requirement for spatial data, I suspect that we as an industry may be heading in the wrong direction. Some of the issues that are are attracting a lot of effort are about simplifying spatial data (GeoRSS, GeoJSON, BXFS etc). These appear to be about catering to the 'pretty picture' use of spatial information. I'm sort of driven to the opposite conclusion. The more that data profiles are developed by specialized communities, the less likely that different data sets will be amenable to combination and correlation to support complex, cross-discipline issues such as climate change. In one direction lies the need for anyone, working on a complicated problem, to understand in great detail all the overlapping disciplines that might be involved. In the other direction lies framing higher levels of abstraction that allow examination of different types of ordering and interactions. The example that comes to mind is systems engineering (my own discipline, as it turns out). Yes, a systems engineer has to understand quite a bit about all the disciplines involved in building a system (or these days, a system-of-systems). If you're building an aircraft, you'd better understand a lot about aeronautics, avionics (including hardware, real-time software environments, specific algorithms), and so forth. But the discipline involves understanding interactions and tradeoffs, at a higher level. It's been a long time since I've written a large program, or designed hardware - and I haven't kept up with the intricacies of today's development tools - but making
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] scale of FOSS projects
Tim Bowden wrote: On Thu, 2008-05-08 at 21:28 -0400, Miles Fidelman wrote: Michael P. Gerlek wrote: Or, to quote the IETF, rough consensus and running code. Except that the reference is to the informal criteria for when one might even beginning to firm up a standard. In the IETF community - unlike pretty much every other standards body on the planet - there's a pretty strong insistence that there are multiple implementations of something, that an talk to each other, before even thinking about pinning down anything that looks like a standard. IMHO standards are just a fancy way of documenting the solution. Until you've build the solution, you don't understand the problem properly [1]. If you try and write your standard while your understanding of the solution space is underdeveloped, you'll end up with a pile of shite. We're in violent agreement here. Unfortunately, outside the IETF world, that's how standards are done - to just the effect you describe. But that's really besides the point - which is that that the IETF quote does not refer to the subject at hand (the cost/scale of software development, the degree to which institutional support is called for, and when support is needed) but to a philosophy of when to standardize communications protocols. Miles -- Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs Traverse Technologies 145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor Boston, MA 02111 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 617-395-8254 www.traversetechnologies.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] scale of FOSS projects
P Kishor wrote: On 5/8/08, Schuyler Erle [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: One important point that Fogel makes that I think is worth noting here is that the number-one sine-qua-non of *any* potentially successful software project is *shipping working code*. Until a developer does that, the discussion of whether or not his/her project needs or deserves institutional/organizational support to succeed further is moot. Steve Coast (OSM) echoed the same sentiment very elegantly -- Real artists ship. For everyone else, there is wanking. After a short hesitation, I have really come to appreciate it. Yup, unless there is working code, everything else -- sponsorships, organization, standards, committees, mailing lists -- is pointless. Always one to provide a contrarian view, I've always felt that it always helps to start with a problem that's worth solving (speaking as an engineer), or something interesting to explore (from a scientific point of view). From there, funding, equipment, and a good team of people are good next steps. With rare exception (there are geniuses among us), it's pretty hard for one person to accomplish all that much, in a short amount of time, in odd hours outside their day job. At least none of the interesting projects I've been involved with required at least 6 months of full-time work show initial results - not a part-time endeavor. Mind you, I'm a systems engineer and project manager by trade - it's been a long time since I've been involved in a project that didn't have at least a small team, working a hard problem, over an extended amount of time. Ok, you can shoot at me now :-) Miles -- Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs Traverse Technologies 145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor Boston, MA 02111 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 617-395-8254 www.traversetechnologies.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] scale of FOSS projects
Howard Butler wrote: On May 6, 2008, at 3:10 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In the past i've heard it suggested that really successful open source projects now need serious organisational backing. They can't be built by a network of partly-funded enthusiast contributors alone. I think really successful open source projects are successful because of serious organization, not necessarily a fire hose of funding. By serious organization, I don't mean a rickety scaffolding of bureaucracy. snip I think I've made this comment before, but it probably bears repeating: History is a useful indicator. As far as I can tell, most really successful open source projects started out as efforts that had some serious funding behind them, or something that allowed the initial developer(s) some running room to get a project started. The examples of really successful open source projects that come to mind: Sendmail: University based, lots of RD funding. Eventually led to a private company that maintains the open source version and provides commercial versions. Arguably the most successful open source project ever. Apache: Started as the NCSA web daemon, lots of government RD funding. It has already been widely distributed and adopted by the time it stopped being research. Adopted by key members of its user community. A good competitor for the most successful open source project ever. Linux: Started as a thesis project. Filled a critical niche (free alternative to Unix) - though it's still unclear why the BSD variants didn't end up dominating this niche. GNU tools: Stallman, and a cast of thousands - with MIT providing a home. Sympa (mailing list manager): Still largely funded by a consortium of French universities. And from the geospatial domain, GRASS: Originally developed by the US Army. At the moment, I can't think of any really successful open source projects that didn't have their origins with a network of partly-funded enthusiast contributors where the originator didn't have some form of organizational home and/or a funding stream for the first few releases of the software. Now, if anybody has a good example of a more grass roots project that has survived - please, some examples would be a great contribution to this discussion. Miles -- Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs Traverse Technologies 145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor Boston, MA 02111 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 617-395-8254 www.traversetechnologies.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Your open source career
Landon Blake wrote: The lack of good user documentation is a weakness of many open source projects. The problem is that most of us like to code, but few of us like to write! It is something that needs to be addressed, although I am unsure of the solution. Maybe we need to invent an IDE for user documentation. :] It sort of depends. One of the few ways open source developers get PAID for their work (unless their day job pays for their open source endeavors) is to write books about their software. Hence the plethora of books about Apache, various Linux and BSD varieties, and so forth - written by the major developers thereof. What, you expect high quality software, with high quality documentation, and support - with nobody getting paid anywhere along the line? -- Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs Traverse Technologies 145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor Boston, MA 02111 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 617-395-8254 www.traversetechnologies.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
