Hi Jack Radim has mentioned some possible 'downsides' in the preliminary discussions we had on the PSC mailing list before Gary sent the initial email in this thread out for wider comment. I think I can summarise by saying that Radims main concern was that the OSGEO becomes some kind of defacto portal for people trying to find free and open source GIS related software, essentially precluding non member projects for similar consideration. Of course this can be seen as an advantage for the OSGEO members projects, but since open source developers have a libertarian approach to life I cant help but agree with Radim a little. Not enough for me to *not* want to join PSC though because I think that lifting up some open source projects into the public eye will inevitably bring other initially less visible projects into focus too.
In fact for me the biggest 'con' I can think of is the time and effort we will need to invest to oversee the incubation process and any additional admin overhead being an OSGEO member may introduce. Since QGIS is a 100% volunteer effort at the moment, any time spent on admin generally reduces otherwise productive developer time. The counter argument to this is of course is that if OSGEO lives up to our expectations it should reduce admin overhead that we currently invest in managing our project servers, removing spammer posts to the forums etc etc Other than that I really dont see any great cons in the road ahead - though it would be interesting to get a retrospective opinion on the matter from some projects that have already gone through the process... Best regards Tim On 1/28/07, Jack Varga <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Gary, Tim, et al; On the surface it seems hard to find a reason not to support a move to OSGeo. Gary lists many Pros for joining, but no Cons. In my attempt to remain objective, it would help to hear what some of the Cons might be (for both users and developers)? The fact that QGis relies heavily on the advanced analytical capabilities inherent in Grass and that Grass is already a (along with GDAl, IMHO the two most critical) member(s) of OSGeo, it does seem a logical course of action. That alone is without consideration for many of the additional benefits Tim describes. Best regards, Jack Varga Gary Sherman wrote: > At present, there is no desktop GIS application like QGIS in the > OSGeo collection. GRASS is already part of OSGeo thus joining OSGeo > seems to be a natural step. > > OSGeo offers increased visibility, promotion at conferences, access > to legal advice, hosting of downloads and other project services, and > management of sponsorships. Promotion at major conferences includes > brochures and booth presence. _______________________________________________ Qgis-user mailing list Qgis-user@lists.qgis.org http://lists.qgis.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user
-- -- Tim Sutton Visit http://qgis.org for a great Open Source GIS Home Page: http://linfiniti.com Skype: timlinux MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jabber: timlinux Irc: timlinux on #qgis at freenode.net _______________________________________________ Qgis-user mailing list Qgis-user@lists.qgis.org http://lists.qgis.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user