Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
Dave, So maybe we should have 1-5 stars (or osgeo logos) which is quickly visually understood by our target audience, and that is followed by a word or two describing each star rating. 5 logos (not used yet) 4 logos (very mature - passed osgeo incubation) 3 logos (mature - started or ready to start osgeo incubation process) 2 logos (stable - puts our stable, tested releases which are used in production) 1 logo (beta software) Dave Patton wrote: On 2010/06/04 1:49 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote: For the OSGeo LiveDVD and OSGeo marketing material, I propose we use a 5 star maturity rating. This is because it is too difficult to explain in a couple of words, the difference between: Graduated, In Incubation, Stable, Beta Again, I'm interested to hear comments on whether I have defined a good rating system, before we set it in stone. Don't use any rating system, as that implies to most people some (usually subjective) judgment. For example, people looking at marketing materials might think it reflects on product quality. It sounds to me like you want to define a simple categorization system, not a rating system. Don't use stars, because again, it's too often used as a visual indicator in rating systems. I'm still not convinced in my own mind that doing something as simple as calling it a Maturity Categorization, and using from 1 to 5 OSGeo Logos vs using stars would provide a solution that would be acceptable. -- Cameron Shorter Geospatial Solutions Manager Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source http://www.lisasoft.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
On 11/06/10 01:59, Michael P. Gerlek wrote: (Along those lines, I'd also ask precisely what ready to start incubation means...) Ready to start incubation implies that projects that have applied for, or are mature enough to apply, can be ranked at the same level as projects in incubation. I propose we use OSGeo's criteria for selecting incubation candidates here: http://www.osgeo.org/incubator/process/evaluation.html (At some point we should revisit OSGeo's checklists, but lets leave that for another email thread and for the moment we use what we have). -- Cameron Shorter Criteria 1. The code is under an OSI approved license (data doc projects need to specify their choice for a type of license). 2. The project is willing to keep code clear of encumbrances 3. The project is geospatial, or directly in support of geospatial applications. Desirable The following are desirable traits of projects entering into the community: 1. Open source software is already reasonably mature (working quality code). 2. Project already has a substantial user community. 3. Project already has a substantial and diverse developer community. 4. Project members are aware of, and implements support for, relevant standards (ie. OGC, etc). 5. Project has linkages with existing foundation projects. 6. Project fills a gap related to software that the foundation supports. 7. Project is prepared to develop in an open and collaborative fashion. 8. Project has contributions and interest from more than just one company/organization. 9. Project is willing to migrate some or all of its infrastructure (code repository, web site, wiki, mailing list, etc) to foundation support infrastructure, and to adopt a website style consistent with the foundation. Geospatial Director Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source http://www.lisasoft.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
that projects that have applied for Good... or are mature enough to apply ...But does mature enough mean Criteria 1-3 are met, or that some of the Desirables are met too, or..? -mpg From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Cameron Shorter Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 1:45 PM To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating On 11/06/10 01:59, Michael P. Gerlek wrote: (Along those lines, I'd also ask precisely what ready to start incubation means...) Ready to start incubation implies that projects that have applied for, or are mature enough to apply, can be ranked at the same level as projects in incubation. I propose we use OSGeo's criteria for selecting incubation candidates here: http://www.osgeo.org/incubator/process/evaluation.html (At some point we should revisit OSGeo's checklists, but lets leave that for another email thread and for the moment we use what we have). -- Cameron Shorter Criteria 1. The code is under an OSI approved license (data doc projects need to specify their choice for a type of license). 2. The project is willing to keep code clear of encumbrances 3. The project is geospatial, or directly in support of geospatial applications. Desirable The following are desirable traits of projects entering into the community: 1. Open source software is already reasonably mature (working quality code). 2. Project already has a substantial user community. 3. Project already has a substantial and diverse developer community. 4. Project members are aware of, and implements support for, relevant standards (ie. OGC, etc). 5. Project has linkages with existing foundation projects. 6. Project fills a gap related to software that the foundation supports. 7. Project is prepared to develop in an open and collaborative fashion. 8. Project has contributions and interest from more than just one company/organization. 9. Project is willing to migrate some or all of its infrastructure (code repository, web site, wiki, mailing list, etc) to foundation support infrastructure, and to adopt a website style consistent with the foundation. Geospatial Director Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source http://www.lisasoft.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
Your comments on specific logos for specific items is good; and amounts to a very light feature comparison. GeoTools ran into the limits of our own 5 star system; we ended up needing a different set of stars depending on the the kind of module being described. The limit was when we entered the incubation process and needed to verify that a module had passed its IP check. This introduced a strict pass/fail into what was formally a reflection of quality. - http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOT/Gold+Star+Quality+Assurance+Check (Along those lines, I'd also ask precisely what ready to start incubation means...) Nothing ... the incubation process is there to help projects. It is graduation that says something about a project (and mostly about a projects organisation). Jody ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
On 2010/06/04 1:49 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote: For the OSGeo LiveDVD and OSGeo marketing material, I propose we use a 5 star maturity rating. This is because it is too difficult to explain in a couple of words, the difference between: Graduated, In Incubation, Stable, Beta Again, I'm interested to hear comments on whether I have defined a good rating system, before we set it in stone. Don't use any rating system, as that implies to most people some (usually subjective) judgment. For example, people looking at marketing materials might think it reflects on product quality. It sounds to me like you want to define a simple categorization system, not a rating system. Don't use stars, because again, it's too often used as a visual indicator in rating systems. I'm still not convinced in my own mind that doing something as simple as calling it a Maturity Categorization, and using from 1 to 5 OSGeo Logos vs using stars would provide a solution that would be acceptable. -- Dave Patton CIS Canadian Information Systems Victoria, B.C. Degree Confluence Project: Canadian Coordinator Technical Coordinator http://www.confluence.org/ Personal website: Maps, GPS, etc. http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
Michael, I think you have described here a 3 star system, and I've described a 4 star (which includes beta software), with my 5th star not allocated yet. On 08/06/10 09:17, Michael P. Gerlek wrote: Since this is an OSGeo-based CD, presumably with the OSGeo logo all over it in various places, I'd suggest there are only three kinds of projects: - those which are Approved by OSGeo - those which are Undergoing OSGeo Approval Note: a separate issue that OSGeo Incubation is facing is that projects don't have a strong incentive to complete incubation. Projects get similar marketing value whether they are incubating or incubated. Consequently they are spending a long time incubating. I propose that projects ready to start incubation get the same rating as projects in incubation. Noticeable marketing credit is given to projects that have completed incubation. - everything else With two simple logos you can indicate projects of the first two categories; I don't think much explanation should be required up front, especially if one avoids jargon words like graduated and incubation. On the LiveDVD we have stable software and self described beta software. Hence we would like to distinguish between the two. -mpg -- Cameron Shorter Geospatial Director Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source http://www.lisasoft.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
Cameron, Well stated. As an organisation that is implementing Open Source spatial, we are looking to applications that have graduated from OSGeo Incubation as an indication of quality. If this is not the case, as has been indicated in this thread, then IMHO, we as OSGeo need to devise an approach that will allow organisations to select quality applications for deployment. The last thing that anyone wants is for a major player to implement a poor quality application and have problems with the bad publicity that would follow. We cannot expect that knowledgeable OS Spatial people will always be doing product selection. This is often a function assigned to an IT group through Enterprise IT Governance processes. The people doing the selection, may or may not have appropriate skills and experience. Bruce On 9/06/10 8:24 AM, Cameron Shorter cameron.shor...@gmail.com wrote: Michael, Your comments have been good in that they have made me think deeper about what OSGeo stands for and then how we market that. Successful product companies first find out what the market wants, the build a marketing message, then build the product to fit the market. Developing a shiny product then discovering no-one wants it is a sad but common story. In our case, we have created a brand called OSGeo Incubation. What does that mean? Why is it valuable? How can we get that message across to our target market of GIS users who are interested in Open Source but don't know what OSGeo is? If OSGeo Incubation doesn't represent quality or maturity (which is what the market are looking for) then what is the point of spending years of volunteer time going through incubation? I'm afraid that OSGeo Project is not a compelling sales message to our target market, unless we can tie the message to quality or maturity (or another word with similar meaning). Unless we can provide such positive marketing, I expect that we will have spin off projects or organisations defect from OSGeo create their own marketing message. (I wouldn't be surprise if OpenGeo had similar thoughts before they created and then marketed the OpenGeo suite.) Marketing like everything else has positives and negatives. Positives: + Lots of users which draws in money and developers and we all make money and thrive Negatives: - We need to distill our messages down into marketing sound bytes and generalised rating systems and the like - We need to be honest in describing ours and others projects because that is what the market wants to hear before they will spend money on us On 08/06/10 09:17, Michael P. Gerlek wrote: Since this is an OSGeo-based CD, presumably with the OSGeo logo all over it in various places, I'd suggest there are only three kinds of projects: - those which are Approved by OSGeo - those which are Undergoing OSGeo Approval - everything else With two simple logos you can indicate projects of the first two categories; I don't think much explanation should be required up front, especially if one avoids jargon words like graduated and incubation. -mpg From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Cameron Shorter Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 3:57 PM To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating There have been some passionate views against rating projects. Maybe I should start by explaining the drivers which led to the proposal for a 5 star rating. Previously only OSGeo graduated and incubation projects were promoted by OSGeo at conferences and the like, however, with the OSGeo LiveDVD, we are packaging and hence promoting many non-graduated projects. How do we credit that a project has gone through the extensive graduation process in our marketing material in a manner that will be understood by the target audience? Unfortunately, putting OSGeo Graduated against a project is meaningless because the target audience usually hasn't heard of OSGeo and is even less likely to know what Graduated means. We could write a paragrah explaining what OSGeo and Graduation are on each Project Overview flier, but that wastes valuable marketing real-estate. Note: I'm basing our target audience on the typical profile of people who drop by the OSGeo booth at conferences. They pick up a LiveDVD and fliers which have Open Source on the cover. They are typically GIS users, have heard of Open Source and want to know what Open Source packages are available to replace their existing , but usually haven't heard of OSGeo and almost certainly don't know about the graduation process. They want to know about the best 2 or 3 packakges they should consider, and they definitely don't want to have to trawl through 350 software packages on http://freegis.org . They spend 5 to 20 minutes talking at the OSGeo stand, then walk onto the other 50 exhibition booths at the conference. Visitors to the OSGeo website
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
On 9/06/10 10:40 AM, P Kishor punk.k...@gmail.com wrote: The last thing that anyone wants is for a major player to implement a poor quality application and have problems with the bad publicity that would follow. We cannot expect that knowledgeable OS Spatial people will always be doing product selection. This is often a function assigned to an IT group through Enterprise IT Governance processes. The people doing the selection, may or may not have appropriate skills and experience. Due diligence, caveat emptor and all. If the people doing selection don't have appropriate skills and experience, then those people should be replaced with people who have the appropriate skills and experience to do the selection. Makes me shudder to think that not only might we have inexperienced and inappropriate people at the helm, we are willing to accept them there instead of changing them. The point that I was making is that Enterprise IT Governance processes often remove the product selection from the people specifying the Business Requirements. This is often an IT function. Spatial requirements are often seen as a Business function. In an ideal world, organisations would have people with appropriate IT, Spatial, OGC and OS Spatial skills making the recommendations. In the real world, we cannot expect that this will actually happen. Have you tried recruiting for people with appropriate IT, Spatial, OGC and OS Spatial skills lately (and at government wages...)? Bruce ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
I agree. At this stage, the ranking could do more harm than good, both for developers and for users: can you imagine the consequences of giving diff rating to mapserver,geoserver and deegree? Or to grass, gvsig and qgis? All the best. --- Paolo Cavallini http://www.faunalia.it/pc - Reply message - Da: Daniel Morissette dmorisse...@mapgears.com Data: lun, giu 7, 2010 02:15 Oggetto: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating A: OSGeo Discussions discuss@lists.osgeo.org I'm also not too keen on a star ranking system, especially if it is mostly based on having passed incubation or not. To me, passing incubation is more an indication of good process management and long term viability than an indication of software quality/robustness and ability to really solve the user's needs. However, a star ranking system makes me think of hotel/restaurant rating and would mislead the user to think that a software with 4 stars (because it passed incubation) does a better job than others with 2 or 3 which is not necessarily the case. If the goal is to denote whether a project has passed incubation or not then let's call the rating that way (which is what we currently do when we differentiate between graduated and in-incubation projects on www.osgeo.org). If we want to create a project maturity rating then it will have to take into account several variables as Andrea wrote earlier... and then defining those variables and evaluating each piece of software against them will be quite a task. In the end, I just wanted to register the fact that I too am worried about the possible side-effects of a poorly handled rating system on our communities. Daniel Cameron Shorter wrote: On 06/06/10 10:14, Jason Birch wrote: IMHO getting into rating projects is just asking for trouble, infighting, bitterness, and people/projects walking away from OSGeo. Jason, this is a valid concern with decent founding. However I think the potential for conflict is not as bad as you may think, and there is a very strong user community desire for, and value to be gained from such ratings. 1. We already have a rating system, based upon: * Project has completed incubation * Project is in incubation * Project is not in incubation What I'm suggesting is that we apply a star system to these stages. 2. We already have a criteria for defining this rating, (which may be refined), which reduces the subjectiveness and hence the potential for conflict. -- Daniel Morissette http://www.mapgears.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
Cameron, AFAIK the objective of incubation is *NOT* to rate the maturity of projects: it is to verify that they have an open and active users and developers community, open and documented decision and development processes, that the source code is free from IP issues, and that as such the project seems viable and OSGeo is ready to stand behind it. That's the way incubation works today and I don't think we can go beyond that without hurting some people and eventually fragmenting our community. Of course it is easier for more mature projects to pass all those tests, but graduating incubation is not a software (source code) maturity indicator. Nowhere in the incubation process do we evaluate the quality, robustness, performance, user-friendlyness, usability, etc. of the software... so I repeat it: a star rating based solely on incubation status would mislead the users and could have some ill side-effects. Daniel Cameron Shorter wrote: Jason, I agree that it is important that any rating system has had a lot of thought put behind it, which is why I've suggested using the existing OSGeo graduation rating system - which has had input from many of us in the OSGeo community. I do think that Andrea has highlighted a couple of additional points which should be rolled into the OSGeo incubation criteria - but until that happens, we should use what we have, which is guidelines for projects going into incubation (assigned 3 stars), and criteria for projects completing graduation (assigned 4 stars). Bruce Bannerman wrote: Jason / Cameron, From the potential utiliser / implementer viewpoint: I’d like to think that any project that has graduated OSGeo Incubation could be considered a quality project with all of the vectors described by Andrea. This proposed rating system implies that this may not be the case. Comments? Bruce Daniel Morissette wrote: I'm also not too keen on a star ranking system, especially if it is mostly based on having passed incubation or not. To me, passing incubation is more an indication of good process management and long term viability than an indication of software quality/robustness and ability to really solve the user's needs. However, a star ranking system makes me think of hotel/restaurant rating and would mislead the user to think that a software with 4 stars (because it passed incubation) does a better job than others with 2 or 3 which is not necessarily the case. If the goal is to denote whether a project has passed incubation or not then let's call the rating that way (which is what we currently do when we differentiate between graduated and in-incubation projects on www.osgeo.org). If we want to create a project maturity rating then it will have to take into account several variables as Andrea wrote earlier... and then defining those variables and evaluating each piece of software against them will be quite a task. In the end, I just wanted to register the fact that I too am worried about the possible side-effects of a poorly handled rating system on our communities. Daniel Cameron Shorter wrote: On 06/06/10 10:14, Jason Birch wrote: IMHO getting into rating projects is just asking for trouble, infighting, bitterness, and people/projects walking away from OSGeo. Jason, this is a valid concern with decent founding. However I think the potential for conflict is not as bad as you may think, and there is a very strong user community desire for, and value to be gained from such ratings. 1. We already have a rating system, based upon: * Project has completed incubation * Project is in incubation * Project is not in incubation What I'm suggesting is that we apply a star system to these stages. 2. We already have a criteria for defining this rating, (which may be refined), which reduces the subjectiveness and hence the potential for conflict. -- Daniel Morissette http://www.mapgears.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 9:21 AM, Daniel Morissette dmorisse...@mapgears.com wrote: Cameron, AFAIK the objective of incubation is *NOT* to rate the maturity of projects: it is to verify that they have an open and active users and developers community, open and documented decision and development processes, that the source code is free from IP issues, and that as such the project seems viable and OSGeo is ready to stand behind it. That's the way incubation works today and I don't think we can go beyond that without hurting some people and eventually fragmenting our community. Of course it is easier for more mature projects to pass all those tests, but graduating incubation is not a software (source code) maturity indicator. Nowhere in the incubation process do we evaluate the quality, robustness, performance, user-friendlyness, usability, etc. of the software... so I repeat it: a star rating based solely on incubation status would mislead the users and could have some ill side-effects. I agree with Daniel. Star ratings are misguided. Stars convey a value-judgment that is neither intentional, nor calculated nor meant to be conveyed. Nevertheless, a browser looking at a project that is rated 3 stars versus a project that is rated 5 stars is bound to take away an opinion that was never meant to be given. Just state clearly what graduated from incubation means, indicate whether a project has graduated or not, and then let the browser/user decide. Daniel Cameron Shorter wrote: Jason, I agree that it is important that any rating system has had a lot of thought put behind it, which is why I've suggested using the existing OSGeo graduation rating system - which has had input from many of us in the OSGeo community. I do think that Andrea has highlighted a couple of additional points which should be rolled into the OSGeo incubation criteria - but until that happens, we should use what we have, which is guidelines for projects going into incubation (assigned 3 stars), and criteria for projects completing graduation (assigned 4 stars). Bruce Bannerman wrote: Jason / Cameron, From the potential utiliser / implementer viewpoint: I’d like to think that any project that has graduated OSGeo Incubation could be considered a quality project with all of the vectors described by Andrea. This proposed rating system implies that this may not be the case. Comments? Bruce Daniel Morissette wrote: I'm also not too keen on a star ranking system, especially if it is mostly based on having passed incubation or not. To me, passing incubation is more an indication of good process management and long term viability than an indication of software quality/robustness and ability to really solve the user's needs. However, a star ranking system makes me think of hotel/restaurant rating and would mislead the user to think that a software with 4 stars (because it passed incubation) does a better job than others with 2 or 3 which is not necessarily the case. If the goal is to denote whether a project has passed incubation or not then let's call the rating that way (which is what we currently do when we differentiate between graduated and in-incubation projects on www.osgeo.org). If we want to create a project maturity rating then it will have to take into account several variables as Andrea wrote earlier... and then defining those variables and evaluating each piece of software against them will be quite a task. In the end, I just wanted to register the fact that I too am worried about the possible side-effects of a poorly handled rating system on our communities. Daniel Cameron Shorter wrote: On 06/06/10 10:14, Jason Birch wrote: IMHO getting into rating projects is just asking for trouble, infighting, bitterness, and people/projects walking away from OSGeo. Jason, this is a valid concern with decent founding. However I think the potential for conflict is not as bad as you may think, and there is a very strong user community desire for, and value to be gained from such ratings. 1. We already have a rating system, based upon: * Project has completed incubation * Project is in incubation * Project is not in incubation What I'm suggesting is that we apply a star system to these stages. 2. We already have a criteria for defining this rating, (which may be refined), which reduces the subjectiveness and hence the potential for conflict. -- Daniel Morissette http://www.mapgears.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Puneet Kishor http://www.punkish.org Carbon Model http://carbonmodel.org Charter Member, Open Source Geospatial Foundation http://www.osgeo.org Science Commons Fellow, http://sciencecommons.org/about/whoweare/kishor Nelson Institute, UW-Madison http://www.nelson.wisc.edu
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
Boob, You mean something like this : http://www.ohloh.net/p?q=osgeo ? Regards, Y. Le lundi 07 juin 2010 17:02:44, Bob Basques a écrit : All, Instead of a 5 star rating, what about using a small standardized chart of some sort. 5-10 items each with their own rating (or classification). One of these items could be tied to the incubation process for example. Some Items off the top of my head that would be useful (grabbing some from the conversation too): * Incubation status * Age of project * Number of commiters * Language(s) (Perl, Javascript, Java, etc) * OS Supported (Window, Linux, Mac, etc) * Mobile Version (Yes/No) * etc. . . . Also upon thinking on this some more, this smaller standardized form could be expanded into a Specification sheet for each project. Additionally the standardized form could be mixed and matched based on the project focus, so that the Project leader could decide which items go into the standardized (smaller, Short Version of a) chart for Marketing. Just thinking out loud here. bobb Daniel Morissette dmorisse...@mapgears.com 06/06/10 7:21 PM I'm also not too keen on a star ranking system, especially if it is mostly based on having passed incubation or not. To me, passing incubation is more an indication of good process management and long term viability than an indication of software quality/robustness and ability to really solve the user's needs. However, a star ranking system makes me think of hotel/restaurant rating and would mislead the user to think that a software with 4 stars (because it passed incubation) does a better job than others with 2 or 3 which is not necessarily the case. If the goal is to denote whether a project has passed incubation or not then let's call the rating that way (which is what we currently do when we differentiate between graduated and in-incubation projects on www.osgeo.org). If we want to create a project maturity rating then it will have to take into account several variables as Andrea wrote earlier... and then defining those variables and evaluating each piece of software against them will be quite a task. In the end, I just wanted to register the fact that I too am worried about the possible side-effects of a poorly handled rating system on our communities. Daniel Cameron Shorter wrote: On 06/06/10 10:14, Jason Birch wrote: IMHO getting into rating projects is just asking for trouble, infighting, bitterness, and people/projects walking away from OSGeo. Jason, this is a valid concern with decent founding. However I think the potential for conflict is not as bad as you may think, and there is a very strong user community desire for, and value to be gained from such ratings. 1. We already have a rating system, based upon: * Project has completed incubation * Project is in incubation * Project is not in incubation What I'm suggesting is that we apply a star system to these stages. 2. We already have a criteria for defining this rating, (which may be refined), which reduces the subjectiveness and hence the potential for conflict. -- Yves Jacolin http://yjacolin.gloobe.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
All, Close, but it's still got the five star thing, which I have to admit is missleading. Also, where are the criteria that were used to arrive at those star ratings? . . . I mean is that a popularity metirc? In relation to other projects, or simple number of downloads, etc. Also, the only way I could get GeoMoose to pop up, was by entering GeoMoose into the search string. This interface has some logic up front that is arbitrarily being placed in there in some manner. OpenJump didn't come up either with the OSGEO sarch term. The layout is nice, but I was thinking more along the lines of a Product spec sheet. A long version, maybe a max page in length, and a shorter version for use in the corner of a promotional page. Some thike these seem to have a lot of flexibility with regard to reuse by supporting (commercial) interests in that the product sheets would look similar to each other. bobb Yves Jacolin yjaco...@free.fr wrote: Boob, You mean something like this : http://www.ohloh.net/p?q=osgeo ( http://www.ohloh.net/p?q=osgeo ) ? Regards, Y. Le lundi 07 juin 2010 17:02:44, Bob Basques a écrit : All, Instead of a 5 star rating, what about using a small standardized chart of some sort. 5-10 items each with their own rating (or classification). One of these items could be tied to the incubation process for example. Some Items off the top of my head that would be useful (grabbing some from the conversation too): * Incubation status * Age of project * Number of commiters * Language(s) (Perl, Javascript, Java, etc) * OS Supported (Window, Linux, Mac, etc) * Mobile Version (Yes/No) * etc. . . . Also upon thinking on this some more, this smaller standardized form could be expanded into a Specification sheet for each project. Additionally the standardized form could be mixed and matched based on the project focus, so that the Project leader could decide which items go into the standardized (smaller, Short Version of a) chart for Marketing. Just thinking out loud here. bobb Daniel Morissette dmorisse...@mapgears.com 06/06/10 7:21 PM I'm also not too keen on a star ranking system, especially if it is mostly based on having passed incubation or not. To me, passing incubation is more an indication of good process management and long term viability than an indication of software quality/robustness and ability to really solve the user's needs. However, a star ranking system makes me think of hotel/restaurant rating and would mislead the user to think that a software with 4 stars (because it passed incubation) does a better job than others with 2 or 3 which is not necessarily the case. If the goal is to denote whether a project has passed incubation or not then let's call the rating that way (which is what we currently do when we differentiate between graduated and in-incubation projects on www.osgeo.org). If we want to create a project maturity rating then it will have to take into account several variables as Andrea wrote earlier... and then defining those variables and evaluating each piece of software against them will be quite a task. In the end, I just wanted to register the fact that I too am worried about the possible side-effects of a poorly handled rating system on our communities. Daniel Cameron Shorter wrote: On 06/06/10 10:14, Jason Birch wrote: IMHO getting into rating projects is just asking for trouble, infighting, bitterness, and people/projects walking away from OSGeo. Jason, this is a valid concern with decent founding. However I think the potential for conflict is not as bad as you may think, and there is a very strong user community desire for, and value to be gained from such ratings. 1. We already have a rating system, based upon: * Project has completed incubati on * Project is in incubatio 2. We already have a criteria for defining this rating, (which may be refined), which reduces the subjectiveness and hence the potential for conflict. -- Yves Jacolin http://yjacolin.gloobe.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
Il 07/06/2010 17:05, Yves Jacolin ha scritto: Boob, You mean something like this : http://www.ohloh.net/p?q=osgeo ? BTW, I wouldn't agree with many of the ratings. All the best. -- Paolo Cavallini: http://www.faunalia.it/pc ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
Same here, I would also lik to compare all Javascript like things with other javascript like projects for example. I'm not sure what the best approach to this type of thing either, but the Product data sheet seems like a reasonable method of applying a product summary that could be useful for most folks. bobb Paolo Cavallini cavall...@faunalia.it wrote: Il 07/06/2010 17:05, Yves Jacolin ha scritto: Boob, You mean something like this : http://www.ohloh.net/p?q=osgeo ( http://www.ohloh.net/p?q=osgeo ) ? BTW, I wouldn't agree with many of the ratings. All the best. -- Paolo Cavallini: http://www.faunalia.it/pc ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
Additionally . . . Things like Services, vs Desktop, vs Web Frameworks don't seem to be defined for comparison purposes. Wouldn't it seem prudent to classify the projects before trying to compare them? bobb Paolo Cavallini cavall...@faunalia.it wrote: Il 07/06/2010 17:05, Yves Jacolin ha scritto: Boob, You mean something like this : http://www.ohloh.net/p?q=osgeo ( http://www.ohloh.net/p?q=osgeo ) ? BTW, I wouldn't agree with many of the ratings. All the best. -- Paolo Cavallini: http://www.faunalia.it/pc ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
On Jun 7, 2010, at 11:03 AM, Bob Basques wrote: Wouldn't it seem prudent to classify the projects before trying to compare them? /me screams into a room that no one can hear. Stop it! This whole exercise is quite frankly, masturbatory, and does nothing to help the projects who would be rated, provides very little to those users of said ratings, and calls into question our credibility by having the arrogance to rate *our own* projects in any way. OSGeo is doing enough by providing visibility for the projects, and it is up to them to pull them in as users with the quality of their software, the quality of their documentation, and the quality of their community. A silly sticker by us or anyone else isn't going to sway that process in any way. It would be more valuable to collate a series of elevator pitch-type material from each project who wishes to participate to make their case to the envisioned users of this rating. Projects who do not participate in this for whatever reason implicitly make a statement about their quality. That's going to be far more useful to both the projects and the users than an elongating graphic. Howard___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
All, Did anyone else hear that thunder in the distance? :c) That's what I've been trying to say, let the projects handle this sort of thing themselves, but OSGEO CAN (and SHOULD in my mind) coordinate a standardized look and feel to such things. bobb Howard Butler hobu@gmail.com wrote: On Jun 7, 2010, at 11:03 AM, Bob Basques wrote: Wouldn't it seem prudent to classify the projects before trying to compare them? /me screams into a room that no one can hear. Stop it! This whole exercise is quite frankly, masturbatory, and does nothing to help the projects who would be rated, provides very little to those users of said ratings, and calls into question our credibility by having the arrogance to rate *our own* projects in any way. OSGeo is doing enough by providing visibility for the projects, and it is up to them to pull them in as users with the quality of their software, the quality of their documentation, and the quality of their community. A silly sticker by us or anyone else isn't going to sway that process in any way. It would be more valuable to collate a series of elevator pitch-type material from each project who wishes to participate to make their case to the envisioned users of this rating. Projects who do not participate in this for whatever reason implicitly make a statement about their quality. That's going to be far more useful to both the projects and the users than an elongating graphic. Howard___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
There have been some passionate views against rating projects. Maybe I should start by explaining the drivers which led to the proposal for a 5 star rating. Previously only OSGeo graduated and incubation projects were promoted by OSGeo at conferences and the like, however, with the OSGeo LiveDVD, we are packaging and hence promoting many non-graduated projects. How do we credit that a project has gone through the extensive graduation process in our marketing material in a manner that will be understood by the target audience? Unfortunately, putting OSGeo Graduated against a project is meaningless because the target audience usually hasn't heard of OSGeo and is even less likely to know what Graduated means. We could write a paragrah explaining what OSGeo and Graduation are on each Project Overview flier, but that wastes valuable marketing real-estate. Note: I'm basing our target audience on the typical profile of people who drop by the OSGeo booth at conferences. They pick up a LiveDVD and fliers which have Open Source on the cover. They are typically GIS users, have heard of Open Source and want to know what Open Source packages are available to replace their existing , but usually haven't heard of OSGeo and almost certainly don't know about the graduation process. They want to know about the best 2 or 3 packakges they should consider, and they definitely don't want to have to trawl through 350 software packages on http://freegis.org . They spend 5 to 20 minutes talking at the OSGeo stand, then walk onto the other 50 exhibition booths at the conference. Visitors to the OSGeo website are probably similar in profile, but we don't get such a good opportunity to meet them face to face as we do at conferences. So the challenge is: * How do we credit OSGeo Graduated projects in a manner understandable to GIS users new to Open Source? * How can we credit other stable Open Source projects, while still acknowledging the extra kudos of passing graduation? * How can we provide this message distinctly on marketing material so that it doesn't waste valuable marketing real-estate? On 08/06/10 02:30, Michael P. Gerlek wrote: [foolishly stepping in where I should fear to tread...] This has been asked for before, but historically some projects have not step up to the plate for providing such materials -- for a variety of reasons, some good and some not so good. OSGeo should simply put a link to the project's marketing section, and if the project owners provide content on the other end, then good -- if not, then so be it. I'm all about providing quality user experiences, but anything more than that is likely not worth the effort required. Our users are, for the most part, a very savvy and discriminating bunch. And for apps that are explicitly targeting users outside of the normal open source types, it should be up to them to provide the marketing materials they deem appropriate. -mpg *From:* discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] *On Behalf Of *Bob Basques *Sent:* Monday, June 07, 2010 9:24 AM *To:* OSGeo Discussions *Subject:* Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating All, Did anyone else hear that thunder in the distance? :c) That's what I've been trying to say, let the projects handle this sort of thing themselves, but OSGEO CAN (and SHOULD in my mind) coordinate a standardized look and feel to such things. bobb Howard Butler hobu@gmail.com wrote: On Jun 7, 2010, at 11:03 AM, Bob Basques wrote: Wouldn't it seem prudent to classify the projects before trying to compare them? /me screams into a room that no one can hear. Stop it! This whole exercise is quite frankly, masturbatory, and does nothing to help the projects who would be rated, provides very little to those users of said ratings, and calls into question our credibility by having the arrogance to rate *our own* projects in any way. OSGeo is doing enough by providing visibility for the projects, and it is up to them to pull them in as users with the quality of their software, the quality of their documentation, and the quality of their community. A silly sticker by us or anyone else isn't going to sway that process in any way. It would be more valuable to collate a series of elevator pitch-type material from each project who wishes to participate to make their case to the envisioned users of this rating. Projects who do not participate in this for whatever reason implicitly make a statement about their quality. That's going to be far more useful to both the projects and the users than an elongating graphic. Howard___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
At the risk of sounding like a troll, why are we putting non-OSGeo projects on OSGeo marketing material? If this is in fact the purpose of the Live-DVD, then the best way of identifying 2 or 3 of the best packages available for users to trial is to only include 2 or 3 of the best packages on the disk. Presumably these could be graduated projects. -- Mark Cameron Shorter wrote: There have been some passionate views against rating projects. Maybe I should start by explaining the drivers which led to the proposal for a 5 star rating. Previously only OSGeo graduated and incubation projects were promoted by OSGeo at conferences and the like, however, with the OSGeo LiveDVD, we are packaging and hence promoting many non-graduated projects. How do we credit that a project has gone through the extensive graduation process in our marketing material in a manner that will be understood by the target audience? Unfortunately, putting OSGeo Graduated against a project is meaningless because the target audience usually hasn't heard of OSGeo and is even less likely to know what Graduated means. We could write a paragrah explaining what OSGeo and Graduation are on each Project Overview flier, but that wastes valuable marketing real-estate. Note: I'm basing our target audience on the typical profile of people who drop by the OSGeo booth at conferences. They pick up a LiveDVD and fliers which have Open Source on the cover. They are typically GIS users, have heard of Open Source and want to know what Open Source packages are available to replace their existing , but usually haven't heard of OSGeo and almost certainly don't know about the graduation process. They want to know about the best 2 or 3 packakges they should consider, and they definitely don't want to have to trawl through 350 software packages on http://freegis.org . They spend 5 to 20 minutes talking at the OSGeo stand, then walk onto the other 50 exhibition booths at the conference. Visitors to the OSGeo website are probably similar in profile, but we don't get such a good opportunity to meet them face to face as we do at conferences. So the challenge is: * How do we credit OSGeo Graduated projects in a manner understandable to GIS users new to Open Source? * How can we credit other stable Open Source projects, while still acknowledging the extra kudos of passing graduation? * How can we provide this message distinctly on marketing material so that it doesn't waste valuable marketing real-estate? On 08/06/10 02:30, Michael P. Gerlek wrote: [foolishly stepping in where I should fear to tread…] This has been asked for before, but historically some projects have not step up to the plate for providing such materials – for a variety of reasons, some good and some not so good. OSGeo should simply put a link to the project’s “marketing” section, and if the project owners provide content on the other end, then good – if not, then so be it. I’m all about providing quality user experiences, but anything more than that is likely not worth the effort required. Our users are, for the most part, a very savvy and discriminating bunch. And for apps that are explicitly targeting users outside of the normal open source types, it should be up to them to provide the “marketing” materials they deem appropriate. -mpg *From:* discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] *On Behalf Of *Bob Basques *Sent:* Monday, June 07, 2010 9:24 AM *To:* OSGeo Discussions *Subject:* Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating All, Did anyone else hear that thunder in the distance? :c) That's what I've been trying to say, let the projects handle this sort of thing themselves, but OSGEO CAN (and SHOULD in my mind) coordinate a standardized look and feel to such things. bobb Howard Butler hobu@gmail.com mailto:hobu@gmail.com wrote: On Jun 7, 2010, at 11:03 AM, Bob Basques wrote: Wouldn't it seem prudent to classify the projects before trying to compare them? /me screams into a room that no one can hear. Stop it! This whole exercise is quite frankly, masturbatory, and does nothing to help the projects who would be rated, provides very little to those users of said ratings, and calls into question our credibility by having the arrogance to rate *our own* projects in any way. OSGeo is doing enough by providing visibility for the projects, and it is up to them to pull them in as users with the quality of their software, the quality of their documentation, and the quality of their community. A silly sticker by us or anyone else isn't going to sway that process in any way. It would be more valuable to collate a series of elevator pitch-type material from each project who wishes to participate to make their case to the envisioned users of this rating. Projects who do not participate
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
All, I guess it comes down to the argument of whether OSGEO stands for a state of mind, or should it be considered a brand only, not to be sullied by all those unwarmed projects? Move over Apple, there's a new brand in town . . . :c) bobb Mark Leslie mark.les...@lisasoft.com 06/07/10 8:27 PM At the risk of sounding like a troll, why are we putting non-OSGeo projects on OSGeo marketing material? If this is in fact the purpose of the Live-DVD, then the best way of identifying 2 or 3 of the best packages available for users to trial is to only include 2 or 3 of the best packages on the disk. Presumably these could be graduated projects. -- Mark ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
Jason / Cameron, From the potential utiliser / implementer viewpoint: I'd like to think that any project that has graduated OSGeo Incubation could be considered a quality project with all of the vectors described by Andrea. This proposed rating system implies that this may not be the case. Comments? Bruce On 6/06/10 10:14 AM, Jason Birch ja...@jasonbirch.com wrote: Wow, I'm really having opinions this week :) IMHO getting into rating projects is just asking for trouble, infighting, bitterness, and people/projects walking away from OSGeo. Jason On 5 June 2010 16:37, Cameron Shorter wrote: Andrea and others, does this fit with people's expectations? ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
I'm also not too keen on a star ranking system, especially if it is mostly based on having passed incubation or not. To me, passing incubation is more an indication of good process management and long term viability than an indication of software quality/robustness and ability to really solve the user's needs. However, a star ranking system makes me think of hotel/restaurant rating and would mislead the user to think that a software with 4 stars (because it passed incubation) does a better job than others with 2 or 3 which is not necessarily the case. If the goal is to denote whether a project has passed incubation or not then let's call the rating that way (which is what we currently do when we differentiate between graduated and in-incubation projects on www.osgeo.org). If we want to create a project maturity rating then it will have to take into account several variables as Andrea wrote earlier... and then defining those variables and evaluating each piece of software against them will be quite a task. In the end, I just wanted to register the fact that I too am worried about the possible side-effects of a poorly handled rating system on our communities. Daniel Cameron Shorter wrote: On 06/06/10 10:14, Jason Birch wrote: IMHO getting into rating projects is just asking for trouble, infighting, bitterness, and people/projects walking away from OSGeo. Jason, this is a valid concern with decent founding. However I think the potential for conflict is not as bad as you may think, and there is a very strong user community desire for, and value to be gained from such ratings. 1. We already have a rating system, based upon: * Project has completed incubation * Project is in incubation * Project is not in incubation What I'm suggesting is that we apply a star system to these stages. 2. We already have a criteria for defining this rating, (which may be refined), which reduces the subjectiveness and hence the potential for conflict. -- Daniel Morissette http://www.mapgears.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
Jason, I agree that it is important that any rating system has had a lot of thought put behind it, which is why I've suggested using the existing OSGeo graduation rating system - which has had input from many of us in the OSGeo community. I do think that Andrea has highlighted a couple of additional points which should be rolled into the OSGeo incubation criteria - but until that happens, we should use what we have, which is guidelines for projects going into incubation (assigned 3 stars), and criteria for projects completing graduation (assigned 4 stars). Bruce Bannerman wrote: Jason / Cameron, From the potential utiliser / implementer viewpoint: I’d like to think that any project that has graduated OSGeo Incubation could be considered a quality project with all of the vectors described by Andrea. This proposed rating system implies that this may not be the case. Comments? Bruce Daniel Morissette wrote: I'm also not too keen on a star ranking system, especially if it is mostly based on having passed incubation or not. To me, passing incubation is more an indication of good process management and long term viability than an indication of software quality/robustness and ability to really solve the user's needs. However, a star ranking system makes me think of hotel/restaurant rating and would mislead the user to think that a software with 4 stars (because it passed incubation) does a better job than others with 2 or 3 which is not necessarily the case. If the goal is to denote whether a project has passed incubation or not then let's call the rating that way (which is what we currently do when we differentiate between graduated and in-incubation projects on www.osgeo.org). If we want to create a project maturity rating then it will have to take into account several variables as Andrea wrote earlier... and then defining those variables and evaluating each piece of software against them will be quite a task. In the end, I just wanted to register the fact that I too am worried about the possible side-effects of a poorly handled rating system on our communities. Daniel Cameron Shorter wrote: On 06/06/10 10:14, Jason Birch wrote: IMHO getting into rating projects is just asking for trouble, infighting, bitterness, and people/projects walking away from OSGeo. Jason, this is a valid concern with decent founding. However I think the potential for conflict is not as bad as you may think, and there is a very strong user community desire for, and value to be gained from such ratings. 1. We already have a rating system, based upon: * Project has completed incubation * Project is in incubation * Project is not in incubation What I'm suggesting is that we apply a star system to these stages. 2. We already have a criteria for defining this rating, (which may be refined), which reduces the subjectiveness and hence the potential for conflict. -- Cameron Shorter Geospatial Solutions Manager Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source http://www.lisasoft.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
Cameron Shorter ha scritto: For the OSGeo LiveDVD and OSGeo marketing material, I propose we use a 5 star maturity rating. This is because it is too difficult to explain in a couple of words, the difference between: Graduated, In Incubation, Stable, Beta Again, I'm interested to hear comments on whether I have defined a good rating system, before we set it in stone. A rating system, imho, should take into consideration multiple vectors: - does the project have a long history? - how big is the developers community (e.g. number of active committers in the last year) - what are the steps taken to keep the code base quality high (unit tests, nightly builds, code reviews, and so on) - how diversified is the developer community (are all developers affiliated to a single entity, or distributed among many? What is the bus factor in terms of companies) - how live the development is (e.g., number of commits/changed files/ size of the diff between today and one year ago) - how big is the user community (e.g., nummber of subscribers to the users list) - does it have user documentation - does it have developer documentation - does it have stable/frequent releases - has it been awarded OSGEO project status, is it in incubation? These (and others) could be assigned some score, and then you could sum them and get to an overall score. Some elements could have a weight higher than others to accomodate for relative importance (e.g., part of OSGEO could be weighted higher than the other items). Just my 2 cents Cheers Andrea -- Andrea Aime OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org Expert service straight from the developers. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
On 06/06/10 05:10, Andrea Aime wrote: Cameron Shorter ha scritto: For the OSGeo LiveDVD and OSGeo marketing material, I propose we use a 5 star maturity rating. This is because it is too difficult to explain in a couple of words, the difference between: Graduated, In Incubation, Stable, Beta Again, I'm interested to hear comments on whether I have defined a good rating system, before we set it in stone. A rating system, imho, should take into consideration multiple vectors: - does the project have a long history? - how big is the developers community (e.g. number of active committers in the last year) - what are the steps taken to keep the code base quality high (unit tests, nightly builds, code reviews, and so on) - how diversified is the developer community (are all developers affiliated to a single entity, or distributed among many? What is the bus factor in terms of companies) - how live the development is (e.g., number of commits/changed files/ size of the diff between today and one year ago) - how big is the user community (e.g., nummber of subscribers to the users list) - does it have user documentation - does it have developer documentation - does it have stable/frequent releases - has it been awarded OSGEO project status, is it in incubation? These (and others) could be assigned some score, and then you could sum them and get to an overall score. Some elements could have a weight higher than others to accomodate for relative importance (e.g., part of OSGEO could be weighted higher than the other items). Just my 2 cents Cheers Andrea Andrea, This is a good list and looks quite similar to the OSGeo Graduation checklist [1] (You have a few extra suggestions which probably should be added to the checklist). I propose that 4 stars are allocated to projects that have graduated. [1] I propose that 3 stars are allocated to projects ready to enter incubation, as per Project Evaluation Criteria [2]. (We may need to make this criteria a bit more specific in future). Andrea and others, does this fit with people's expectations? [1] http://www.osgeo.org/incubator/process/project_graduation_checklist.html [2] http://www.osgeo.org/incubator/process/evaluation.html -- Cameron Shorter Geospatial Director Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source http://www.lisasoft.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
Wow, I'm really having opinions this week :) IMHO getting into rating projects is just asking for trouble, infighting, bitterness, and people/projects walking away from OSGeo. Jason On 5 June 2010 16:37, Cameron Shorter wrote: Andrea and others, does this fit with people's expectations? ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
Agreed on it being a hassle. However the OSGeo foundation also has a responsibility to users - who *really* want to see a feature list and to be able to compare projects. The foundation can take steps to help projects communicate - and this is the task/mandate of the marketing committee. Competition and Collaboration are both key. I am also happy to see the marketing committee engaging with projects directly; I hope they also have some volunteer hours for writing and are not expecting developers to step away from their core responsibility to the codebase. Jody On 06/06/2010, at 10:14 AM, Jason Birch wrote: Wow, I'm really having opinions this week :) IMHO getting into rating projects is just asking for trouble, infighting, bitterness, and people/projects walking away from OSGeo. Jason On 5 June 2010 16:37, Cameron Shorter wrote: Andrea and others, does this fit with people's expectations? ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
On 06/06/10 10:14, Jason Birch wrote: IMHO getting into rating projects is just asking for trouble, infighting, bitterness, and people/projects walking away from OSGeo. Jason, this is a valid concern with decent founding. However I think the potential for conflict is not as bad as you may think, and there is a very strong user community desire for, and value to be gained from such ratings. 1. We already have a rating system, based upon: * Project has completed incubation * Project is in incubation * Project is not in incubation What I'm suggesting is that we apply a star system to these stages. 2. We already have a criteria for defining this rating, (which may be refined), which reduces the subjectiveness and hence the potential for conflict. -- Cameron Shorter Geospatial Director Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source http://www.lisasoft.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
On 06/06/10 12:23, Jody Garnett wrote: I am also happy to see the marketing committee engaging with projects directly; I hope they also have some volunteer hours for writing and are not expecting developers to step away from their core responsibility to the codebase. Jody, Our aim is to create a standard documentation template, which will make creating marketing material much easier for projects, and then once created, will provide a wide avenue for publishing the material. Maximise value, minimise effort. We will still be asking people from projects to help populate the marketing material as these people know their projects better than anyone else. -- Cameron Shorter Geospatial Director Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source http://www.lisasoft.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
