Andrea, You wrote: "This tells me the project has lots of contributors, lots of people that have a stake on it, a big enough user base that the possibility of funding is no more a pipe dream but a solid reality. Such a project by its very nature will tend to attract more people that can find funding to work on the project itself."
I'm curious about how we get a project to the point you describe. That seems to be an even greater challenge. Landon Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268 Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658 -----Original Message----- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Andrea Aime Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 1:51 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo barriers to entry Frank Warmerdam ha scritto: > Certainly all of the above tend to apply to many people contributing > to OSGeo projects. Certainly the bulk of my work on GDAL, and MapServer > is client funded. I know that most of the contributors to GDAL and > MapServer have at least some of their time funded. Likewise many of > the other projects though my knowledge gets thinner on some of them. > > I think one challenge is to get people who have funded time to work on > specific features into broader involvement with the projects and > OSGeo in general. I believe the idea that OSGEO projects contributor tend to be paid to work on the project itself is the result the very selection criteria to become an OSGEO project: - mature project - established user base - a formal governance model This tells me the project has lots of contributors, lots of people that have a stake on it, a big enough user base that the possibility of funding is no more a pipe dream but a solid reality. Such a project by its very nature will tend to attract more people that can find funding to work on the project itself. Also, being estabilshed, it will have some barriers to entry in terms of the code base size and complexity itself, and QA processes that will make it harder to just look at the project for a weekend, cook up something, give it back and disappear. I guess one of the challenges for projects in OSGEO is exactly that: how do we create easy contribution opportunities that can be tackled with limited effort by people interested in contributing a weekend and/or just get a little involved in the community? 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 Warning: Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against defects including translation and transmission errors. If the reader is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this information in error, please notify the sender immediately. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss