Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics

2008-05-29 Thread Bruno Lowagie

Jody Garnett wrote:
Try for a couple of the metrics you use when evaluating open source 
projects


If a project or F/OSS developer has been around for a while,
there are bound to be online metrics about it/him/her, for
instance on Ohloh. Some examples:

http://www.ohloh.net/projects/305
http://www.ohloh.net/accounts/blowagie

Sure, this is just an indication based on an algorithm that
takes many parameters into account, but indications such as
increasing year-over-year development activity and maturity
can't be faked.

br,
Bruno
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics

2008-05-29 Thread Jody Garnett
Just a word of warning; those sites get tripped up; you can see the 
history for geotools is missing because we just cleaned up our 
subversion repository a bit.


Jody

Bruno Lowagie wrote:

Jody Garnett wrote:
Try for a couple of the metrics you use when evaluating open source 
projects


If a project or F/OSS developer has been around for a while,
there are bound to be online metrics about it/him/her, for
instance on Ohloh. Some examples:

http://www.ohloh.net/projects/305
http://www.ohloh.net/accounts/blowagie

Sure, this is just an indication based on an algorithm that
takes many parameters into account, but indications such as
increasing year-over-year development activity and maturity
can't be faked.

br,
Bruno
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics

2008-05-29 Thread Jody Garnett

The following one is also useful:
- http://cia.vc/stats/project/geotools

For projects going through incubation these tools are a valuable 
resource in figuring out who changed what when.

Jody


Jody Garnett wrote:
Try for a couple of the metrics you use when evaluating open source 
projects


If a project or F/OSS developer has been around for a while,
there are bound to be online metrics about it/him/her, for
instance on Ohloh. Some examples:

http://www.ohloh.net/projects/305
http://www.ohloh.net/accounts/blowagie

Sure, this is just an indication based on an algorithm that
takes many parameters into account, but indications such as
increasing year-over-year development activity and maturity
can't be faked.

br,
Bruno
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics

2008-05-29 Thread Bruno Lowagie

Jody Garnett wrote:
Just a word of warning; those sites get tripped up; you can see the 
history for geotools is missing because we just cleaned up our 
subversion repository a bit.


True: in my personal history, it's as if I have been inactive for
years, but in reality all the CVS data disappeared when we switched
from CVS to SVN.

br,
Bruno
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[OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics

2008-05-28 Thread Bruce . Bannerman
IMO:


An issue has come up recently on the OSGeo-AustNZ list that I'd appreciate 
some feedback from our wider OSGeo Community.


The context of this issue is that we are exploring ways to support 
development of the GeoNetwork ANZLIC Profile.

In particular, we're looking at options that allow permanent staff to 
contribute to ongoing OS development work outside of normal Project based 
development with its well defined deliverables and timeframes.



In Australia within the public sector and also in many larger private 
organisations there is a Human Resources process in place that is based on 
Performance Management. This process allows either staff or managers to 
initiate discussions that allow for goal based work to be undertaken.

In principal both parties agree to a set of goals. If the goals are met, 
it contributes to the employee's remuneration review.


What I'm trying to find are some examples of generic metrics that are 
meaninful to Open Source development methodologies. They must be 
specific, meaningful and measurable. 


For example, we could look at measures such as:


Get feature X accepted into the trunk of GeoNetwork by June 2009


However this is probably unrealistic  as to do this the developer will 
have to have existing credibility within the community and there may be 
good reasons why the community does not want to have 'product X' included. 



Does anyone have any examples that they use or thoughts on the above?


I do understand that metrics can be abused, may be meaningless and may not 
be the best way to handle this, however we have to start somewhere.



We have a window of opportunity to get some more developers working on OS 
projects as the Performance Planning cycle re-starts shortly and I'd like 
to help our developers get some constructive ideas to take into their 
sessions.  



Bruce Bannerman




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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics

2008-05-28 Thread Bruce . Bannerman
IMO:


Thanks for the comments Puneet,


 
 Actually, a variation on the above may be the best metric -- create
 feature X that we need in our organization and that works for us.
 That would allow your organization to determine what is meaningful for
 your organization first and for open source second. In other words,
 you would treat open source development no different from non-open
 source development. Open source would simply become a normal
 activity.
 
 Once feature X works for you, you could consider donating it to the
 open source community by whatever process that particular open source
 project has.
 
 Other metrics such as SLOC (source lines of code) or feature in SVN
 trunk are not only subject to abuse, they are also mostly
 meaningless.
 


We want to avoid anything that could result in an isolated fork or branch. 


This is a danger with this approach.


However, it has merit in that it would allow a developer to meet their 
performance
criteria and concentrate on getting the customisation into the trunk in 
their
own time.


Bruce 





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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics

2008-05-28 Thread P Kishor
On 5/28/08, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 IMO:


 An issue has come up recently on the OSGeo-AustNZ list that I'd appreciate
 some feedback from our wider OSGeo Community.


 The context of this issue is that we are exploring ways to support
 development of the GeoNetwork ANZLIC Profile.

 In particular, we're looking at options that allow permanent staff to
 contribute to ongoing OS development work outside of normal Project based
 development with its well defined deliverables and timeframes.



  In Australia within the public sector and also in many larger private
 organisations there is a Human Resources process in place that is based on
 Performance Management. This process allows either staff or managers to
 initiate discussions that allow for goal based work to be undertaken.

 In principal both parties agree to a set of goals. If the goals are met, it
 contributes to the employee's remuneration review.


  What I'm trying to find are some examples of generic metrics that are
 meaninful to Open Source development methodologies. They must be
  specific, meaningful and measurable.


 For example, we could look at measures such as:


  Get feature X accepted into the trunk of GeoNetwork by June 2009


 However this is probably unrealistic  as to do this the developer will have
 to have existing credibility within the community and there may be good
 reasons why the community does not want to have 'product X' included.



Actually, a variation on the above may be the best metric -- create
feature X that we need in our organization and that works for us.
That would allow your organization to determine what is meaningful for
your organization first and for open source second. In other words,
you would treat open source development no different from non-open
source development. Open source would simply become a normal
activity.

Once feature X works for you, you could consider donating it to the
open source community by whatever process that particular open source
project has.

Other metrics such as SLOC (source lines of code) or feature in SVN
trunk are not only subject to abuse, they are also mostly
meaningless.




 Does anyone have any examples that they use or thoughts on the above?


 I do understand that metrics can be abused, may be meaningless and may not
 be the best way to handle this, however we have to start somewhere.



  We have a window of opportunity to get some more developers working on OS
 projects as the Performance Planning cycle re-starts shortly and I'd like to
 help our developers get some constructive ideas to take into their sessions.




 Bruce Bannerman





 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
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 email.

 Please consider the environment before printing this email.






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-- 
Puneet Kishor http://punkish.eidesis.org/
Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/
Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) http://www.osgeo.org/
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics

2008-05-28 Thread P Kishor
On 5/28/08, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 IMO:


 Thanks for the comments Puneet,


  
   Actually, a variation on the above may be the best metric -- create
   feature X that we need in our organization and that works for us.
   That would allow your organization to determine what is meaningful for
   your organization first and for open source second. In other words,
   you would treat open source development no different from non-open
   source development. Open source would simply become a normal
   activity.
  
   Once feature X works for you, you could consider donating it to the
   open source community by whatever process that particular open source
   project has.
  
   Other metrics such as SLOC (source lines of code) or feature in SVN
   trunk are not only subject to abuse, they are also mostly
   meaningless.
  


 We want to avoid anything that could result in an isolated fork or branch.

 This is a danger with this approach.


Quite the contrary -- don't fixate on forking as a bad thing. Do
what is good for your own organization. If it is of sufficient general
interest, and if enough folks find it of use to them, it will get
absorbed in the main branch anyway. Else, it will either die off (in
which case it still served your own organization's purpose) or develop
as a specialized branch. Very Darwinian.

Forking is not a bad thing. I have no idea why it is viewed as such.
Forking is one of the beauties of open source, brings diversity in the
code base, and even ensures longevity. The ability to fork is what
ensures that in open source there will not be any lock-in.

The beauty of this approach is the open source is not treated as
something special. It becomes as normal as non-open source software.




 However, it has merit in that it would allow a developer to meet their
 performance
 criteria and concentrate on getting the customisation into the trunk in
 their
 own time.


 Bruce






..
-- 
Puneet Kishor http://punkish.eidesis.org/
Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/
Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) http://www.osgeo.org/
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics

2008-05-28 Thread Jeroen Ticheler
Hmmm, I tend to strongly disagree here. Forking indeed can prevent a  
lock-in if that is becoming a serious issue in the project. Otherwise  
it just causes lots of duplication of efforts and dilution of energy  
into different forked versions.


It also does not help the average user much in selecting what's good  
for him/her. I think that Ubuntu as a popular release is one of the  
proofs that too much choice does not help to reach the large crowd. By  
limiting the installed default software packages they quickly reached  
a huge user group.


My 2 cents, ciao,
Jeroen

On May 28, 2008, at 12:01 PM, P Kishor wrote:


Forking is not a bad thing. I have no idea why it is viewed as such.
Forking is one of the beauties of open source, brings diversity in the
code base, and even ensures longevity. The ability to fork is what
ensures that in open source there will not be any lock-in.

The beauty of this approach is the open source is not treated as
something special. It becomes as normal as non-open source software.
..
--
Puneet Kishor http://punkish.eidesis.org/
Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/
Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) http://www.osgeo.org/
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics

2008-05-28 Thread P Kishor
On 5/28/08, Jeroen Ticheler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Hmmm, I tend to strongly disagree here. Forking indeed can prevent a lock-in
 if that is becoming a serious issue in the project. Otherwise it just causes
 lots of duplication of efforts and dilution of energy into different forked
 versions.

I think you agreed with me above. Forking for the heck of it is bad.
Having the ability to fork, when forking becomes necessary, can be
heaven-sent.

I am not advocating to go make your own version of the beast. I am
saying -- look, don't treat open source any different. Make it
mainstream. Use it to solve your own specific problem. Trying to
create open source to solve the world's problem is a sure recipe for
failure. Of course, it just might happen that your own problem might
also be the problem for many others in the world. In which case,
donate your work back to open source so others may benefit. And, don't
worry about forking. Given that most problems faced by most folks are
likely to be mostly similar, your solution would likely work for
someone else as well.

Very Darwinian, no?





  It also does not help the average user much in selecting what's good for
 him/her. I think that Ubuntu as a popular release is one of the proofs that
 too much choice does not help to reach the large crowd. By limiting the
 installed default software packages they quickly reached a huge user group.

  My 2 cents, ciao,
  Jeroen

  On May 28, 2008, at 12:01 PM, P Kishor wrote:


  Forking is not a bad thing. I have no idea why it is viewed as such.
  Forking is one of the beauties of open source, brings diversity in the
  code base, and even ensures longevity. The ability to fork is what
  ensures that in open source there will not be any lock-in.
 
  The beauty of this approach is the open source is not treated as
  something special. It becomes as normal as non-open source software.
  ..



-- 
Puneet Kishor http://punkish.eidesis.org/
Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/
Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) http://www.osgeo.org/
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RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics

2008-05-28 Thread Landon Blake
Bruce,

 

I agree with Puneet. In this scenario it would make more sense for the
organization to maintain their own fork of the code to which
improvements can be made. This really doesn't cause problems for the
parent of the fork as long as there is an established process and some
honest effort made to integrate the best of the improvements back into
the parent code base.

 

This is actually how OpenJUMP works. There are only a handful of
developers that actually work on the parent code base. Most of our
contributors maintain their own fork, but siphon back improvements to
the parent.

 

Landon

 



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 12:00 AM
To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org
Cc: Aust-NZ OSGeo
Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics

 


IMO: 


An issue has come up recently on the OSGeo-AustNZ list that I'd
appreciate some feedback from our wider OSGeo Community. 


The context of this issue is that we are exploring ways to support
development of the GeoNetwork ANZLIC Profile. 

In particular, we're looking at options that allow permanent staff to
contribute to ongoing OS development work outside of normal Project
based development with its well defined deliverables and timeframes. 



In Australia within the public sector and also in many larger private
organisations there is a Human Resources process in place that is based
on Performance Management. This process allows either staff or managers
to initiate discussions that allow for goal based work to be undertaken.


In principal both parties agree to a set of goals. If the goals are met,
it contributes to the employee's remuneration review.


What I'm trying to find are some examples of generic metrics that are
meaninful to Open Source development methodologies. They must be 
specific, meaningful and measurable. 


For example, we could look at measures such as: 


Get feature X accepted into the trunk of GeoNetwork by June 2009 


However this is probably unrealistic  as to do this the developer will
have to have existing credibility within the community and there may be
good reasons why the community does not want to have 'product X'
included. 


Does anyone have any examples that they use or thoughts on the above? 


I do understand that metrics can be abused, may be meaningless and may
not be the best way to handle this, however we have to start somewhere. 



We have a window of opportunity to get some more developers working on
OS projects as the Performance Planning cycle re-starts shortly and I'd
like to help our developers get some constructive ideas to take into
their sessions.  



Bruce Bannerman




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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
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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.

 

 

 



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RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics

2008-05-28 Thread Miguel Montesinos
Landon,
 
on the other hand, following that logic, if forking is advisable, it will keep 
on growing, with new forks, new forks-of-the-fork, and so on. The energy needed 
to keep all that project forkhood somehow synchronized is not only honest, 
but discouraging and efectiveless.
 
I don't see neither how a user can simply make a proper decission among a 
fork-hood. Not everybody is expert enough to understand differences, or has 
enough time to download several forks and compare them (continously in time).
 
Are really all the differences among forks impossible to reconcile, using that 
'honest effort'? ;-)
 
Miguel
 



De: [EMAIL PROTECTED] en nombre de Landon Blake
Enviado el: mié 28/05/2008 16:27
Para: OSGeo Discussions
Asunto: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics



Bruce,

 

I agree with Puneet. In this scenario it would make more sense for the 
organization to maintain their own fork of the code to which improvements can 
be made. This really doesn't cause problems for the parent of the fork as long 
as there is an established process and some honest effort made to integrate the 
best of the improvements back into the parent code base.

 

This is actually how OpenJUMP works. There are only a handful of developers 
that actually work on the parent code base. Most of our contributors maintain 
their own fork, but siphon back improvements to the parent.

 

Landon

 



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 12:00 AM
To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org
Cc: Aust-NZ OSGeo
Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics

 


IMO: 


An issue has come up recently on the OSGeo-AustNZ list that I'd appreciate some 
feedback from our wider OSGeo Community. 


The context of this issue is that we are exploring ways to support development 
of the GeoNetwork ANZLIC Profile. 

In particular, we're looking at options that allow permanent staff to 
contribute to ongoing OS development work outside of normal Project based 
development with its well defined deliverables and timeframes. 



In Australia within the public sector and also in many larger private 
organisations there is a Human Resources process in place that is based on 
Performance Management. This process allows either staff or managers to 
initiate discussions that allow for goal based work to be undertaken. 

In principal both parties agree to a set of goals. If the goals are met, it 
contributes to the employee's remuneration review.


What I'm trying to find are some examples of generic metrics that are meaninful 
to Open Source development methodologies. They must be 
specific, meaningful and measurable. 


For example, we could look at measures such as: 


Get feature X accepted into the trunk of GeoNetwork by June 2009 


However this is probably unrealistic  as to do this the developer will have to 
have existing credibility within the community and there may be good reasons 
why the community does not want to have 'product X' included. 


Does anyone have any examples that they use or thoughts on the above? 


I do understand that metrics can be abused, may be meaningless and may not be 
the best way to handle this, however we have to start somewhere. 



We have a window of opportunity to get some more developers working on OS 
projects as the Performance Planning cycle re-starts shortly and I'd like to 
help our developers get some constructive ideas to take into their sessions.  



Bruce Bannerman




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.

 

 

 



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. 
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RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics

2008-05-28 Thread Bruce . Bannerman
IMO:

Thanks Landon and Puneet,


In this case, I tend to agree with Jeroen.

There is a community developing GeoNetwork (and other projects) with 
ongoing work occuring.

This would be occurring concurrently with our development work on a fork.


We would want to be able to take advantage of the new developments that 
others make to the parent project, without having to refactor our 'fork' 
each time, or conversly, the additional work of refactoring our 
customisations, or part there of back to the parent project.


We (the Australian ANZLIC community) have tried this approach already with 
the GeoNetwork ANZLIC Profile, and it is clearly not working (despite 
might I add the outstanding efforts of the main developer).


I think that the only sane approach is to work within the parent project's 
community as peer participants.



I do agree with Puneet that the *ability* to fork a project is critical to 
the success of open source projects, however I think that it should really 
only be used as a last resort if a situation is clearly unsalvagable. 
There is too much dilution of effort otherwise.



Bruce Bannerman 




 Bruce,
 
 I agree with Puneet. In this scenario it would make more sense for 
 the organization to maintain their own fork of the code to which 
 improvements can be made. This really doesn’t cause problems for the
 parent of the fork as long as there is an established process and 
 some honest effort made to integrate the best of the improvements 
 back into the parent code base.
 
 This is actually how OpenJUMP works. There are only a handful of 
 developers that actually work on the parent code base. Most of our 
 contributors maintain their own fork, but siphon back improvements 
 to the parent.
 
 Landon
 

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RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics

2008-05-28 Thread Landon Blake
I think I should clarify what I mean by a fork. There is the very public, 
conflict-driven version of a fork, and then there is an often private, 
cooperative version of a fork.

 

Imagine this scenario:

 

The company Who's Wet Now Inc. is using OpenJUMP internally to produce flood 
maps of urban areas in the United States. They have several features that they 
would like to add to OpenJUMP, but need to integrate the features more quickly 
than is normally possible in the OpenJUMP community. As a result, they maintain 
a private fork of the main OpenJUMP code base in their own SVN repository. This 
allows them to integrate there new features quickly, without waiting for 
discussion and approval by the larger OpenJUMP community. The private build of 
OpenJUMP is distributed to all their employees. The most commonly used features 
are then moved by Who's Wet Now into the main OpenJUMP code base after 
community discussion and approval. Any patches for bugs found during the Who's 
Wet Now development process are also migrated back to the main OpenJUMP code 
base.

 

In a scenario like this I think a fork may be acceptable, and even a beneficial 
thing. I think any of the following reasons would be valid reasons for 
maintaining this type of cooperative fork:

 

[1] New features that an organization wants to integrate into the program are 
very specialized and would not be utilized by most of the community.

[2] Changes an organization wants to make to a program are controversial or 
experimental.

[3] An organization needs to move development ahead at a pace that is faster 
than the larger community of developers is comfortable with.

 

As long as the organization maintaining the private fork does [1] a good job of 
tracking their modifications compared to the parent code base, and [2] actively 
participates in moving the benefits of their fork development back to the 
parent code base when appropriate, I don't see any problem with the fork.

 

This is based on my own limited experience with OpenJUMP, which is just one 
program among many. If the organization creating the fork is not a good 
citizen of the community then I recognize that a fork can be a very bad thing.

 

Landon

 



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Miguel Montesinos
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 3:09 PM
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics

 

Landon,

 

on the other hand, following that logic, if forking is advisable, it will keep 
on growing, with new forks, new forks-of-the-fork, and so on. The energy needed 
to keep all that project forkhood somehow synchronized is not only honest, 
but discouraging and efectiveless.

 

I don't see neither how a user can simply make a proper decission among a 
fork-hood. Not everybody is expert enough to understand differences, or has 
enough time to download several forks and compare them (continously in time).

 

Are really all the differences among forks impossible to reconcile, using that 
'honest effort'? ;-)

 

Miguel

 

 



De: [EMAIL PROTECTED] en nombre de Landon Blake
Enviado el: mié 28/05/2008 16:27
Para: OSGeo Discussions
Asunto: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics

Bruce,

 

I agree with Puneet. In this scenario it would make more sense for the 
organization to maintain their own fork of the code to which improvements can 
be made. This really doesn't cause problems for the parent of the fork as long 
as there is an established process and some honest effort made to integrate the 
best of the improvements back into the parent code base.

 

This is actually how OpenJUMP works. There are only a handful of developers 
that actually work on the parent code base. Most of our contributors maintain 
their own fork, but siphon back improvements to the parent.

 

Landon

 



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 12:00 AM
To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org
Cc: Aust-NZ OSGeo
Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source development metrics

 


IMO: 


An issue has come up recently on the OSGeo-AustNZ list that I'd appreciate some 
feedback from our wider OSGeo Community. 


The context of this issue is that we are exploring ways to support development 
of the GeoNetwork ANZLIC Profile. 

In particular, we're looking at options that allow permanent staff to 
contribute to ongoing OS development work outside of normal Project based 
development with its well defined deliverables and timeframes. 



In Australia within the public sector and also in many larger private 
organisations there is a Human Resources process in place that is based on 
Performance Management. This process allows either staff or managers to 
initiate discussions that allow for goal based work to be undertaken. 

In principal both parties agree to a set of goals