Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] scale of FOSS projects
On May 6, 2008, at 3:10 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In the past i've heard it suggested that really successful open source projects now need serious organisational backing. They can't be built by a network of partly-funded enthusiast contributors alone. I think really successful open source projects are successful because of serious organization, not necessarily a fire hose of funding. By serious organization, I don't mean a rickety scaffolding of bureaucracy. OSGeo's incubation process prescribes a bureaucracy (project steering committees) onto projects to be accepted as part of incubation. Some projects within OSGeo embrace this whole heartedly, while others continue their lieutenants' model or dictatorship due to those being active ending up making the decisions -- with the checks and balances the PSC approach hopes to achieve (no project as far as I know has had such a knock-down, drag out to actually test this assumption). The incubation process tries to prescribe the PSC model because it desires that incoming projects "be organized" in such a way as to be able to keep its own house in order in the event of problems that affect its open development. I think development organization is what sets apart one blob of source code from another where both might do the same thing. I think OSGeo wants projects that are thriving communities for a number of reasons, but I'll leave it up to others to decide if we actually meet that bar with all of our projects. Serious organization requires infrastructure -- something that's easy enough to get these days (SourceForge, Google dev, even OSGeo if you can jump through the hoops) -- but more importantly, it requires *use* of that infrastructure. One thing that I have found out recently when developing on a small open source project (http://liblas.org) is that Brook's notion about geometric communication load applies. With a one or two person project, does it make sense to file every notable change into a bug tracking system, ensure that changesets only deal with one specific issue, and avoid communicating about design and code organization in forums that do not log things for posterity? The overhead to do that stuff is fixed, and quite expensive especially considering that you only have one or two folks writing the software hoping to get it to a functional point. Without it, however, interested parties have no real way to empower themselves into becoming active contributors to the project without drawing significant load from the active developers. Because developers come and go to a project, this process repeats itself unless the project itself makes it possible for people to bootstrap themselves -- a long term investment unlikely to pay off at all in the short term. If a project has a given amount of momentum, marketing resources applied to it, a contributing user community; is there any sense in "competing" by building something new with a lot of conceptual overlap? If there isn't, don't de facto monopolies start to develop inside FOSS as much as they do in proprietary software systems? There sure is a reason to compete -- to build (or aspire to build) a better product. MapServer, for example, has Mapnik. I think Artem's quest to show us how wrong we were has had a positive impact on both projects (speaking as a MapServer dev). Each software does different things better, and both projects have driven innovation in the other. I would say that Mapnik still doesn't have all of the inertia that MapServer enjoys, and I think it suffers from some of the organizational challenges I described above (MapServer too), but from my perspective it has been steadily gaining steam and meets any definition of open source success. It hasn't needed OSGeo to have an impact. MapServer and Mapnik overlap in a lot of conceptual areas, and there's plenty of room for both. What there isn't plenty of is C/C++ developers who wish to develop open source GIS rendering software for web applications. I would argue that if there are any monopolies to be gained in open source software development that they are monopolies of developers' attention, not monopolies of software products. Howard ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] scale of FOSS projects
Jo, I'm having trouble responding to your email, I think since it touches on a number of points, and perhaps just because I mostly agree with what you have said. So instead, I will just assert a few loosely related points that come to mind after reading it. 1) I still fundamentally believe a bunch of enthusiastic and reasonably skilled people can build a project with impact without the explicit backing of one promoting enterprise. 2) For projects coming out of a "single backer" situation into OSGeo we offer a level playing field to help turn the project into a fair community where all contributors have some assurance of having an influence. 3) For projects coming out of a more chaotic origin - many contributors, or at least no major enterprise associated with backing the project - we offer some degree of "organizational legitimacy" that can be helpful in selling their project to risk averse enterprise type users. 4) While this one of the things I like about geospatial open source software is the participation of some folks doing it more for fun than profit, we are still *mostly* an industrial software sector. We make software used for all sorts of gritty business / commerce / government / science as a sort of "industrial IT input" to other things. For this reason, I feel it is inevitable that a substantial part of what we do will be about serving various industrial needs. This implies our primary users will be commercial, government and academic/research - fields dominated by organizations of various sizes that can be considered enterprises. 5) I absolutely do *not* think entrance into incubation for a project should be based on having a substantial enterprise backing the project. However, to avoid being swamped in small immature projects, I think it is reasonable to hold out for projects that are already reasonable mature, have a substantial supporting community and are of a quality and utility that we think will reflect well on OSGeo when we promote it. I would *prefer* a project coming into incubation with six developers from six different organizations to one with six developers all from one organization. 6) As Cameron mentions, consolidation is to some extent to be expected in this and all software sectors. I think that's ok and natural. We have quite a few desktop GIS software packages now for instance, and one imagines that while some will grow stronger and grow, others will wither. 7) On the other hand, I think there are other sectors where a small projects can still fill a particular need without being big, heavily backed, etc. Utility programs, web mashups, mobile location aware applets, etc. It behooves OSGeo to understand that these things play a role even if they don't need our process-heavy project steering committees, incubation, etc. Lets not hesitate to celebrate, and promote them as appropriate. Ultimately, I'm left feeling that there is no explicit action item here. The universe will continue to unfold, projects will bloom and die, consolidation and ferment will both happen. We don't need to predict it all, or guide it. We just help where we can, provide services where it makes sense, and watch it unfold. But then, I'm not really a very good "big picture" kind of guy. A little too laid back in some ways. :-) Best regards, -- ---+-- I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, [EMAIL PROTECTED] light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam and watch the world go round - Rush| President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: scale of FOSS projects
Gilberto Camara wrote: (c) Many innovations are produced at academic institutions. Most of those institutions have no incentive nor mission to support open-source development projects. Taking these innovations out of academia and giving them institutional support (private or public) is a way to ensuring these innovations are exposed to the market. Those with real value will survive. Some academic institutions have programs that help develop "support" for innovations, such as the University-Industry Liaison Office at the University of British Columbia: http://www.uilo.ubc.ca/about_mission.asp To help evangelize OS, one of the useful elements is 'use cases', to show prospective users of OS software why/how they can make use of the various OS software relevant to their needs. Perhaps people can also develop 'use cases' to show academic institutions the value of assisting innovation to flourish in an OS environment, without necessarily focusing on patents and building wealth. -- Dave Patton CIS Canadian Information Systems Victoria, B.C. Degree Confluence Project: Canadian Coordinator Technical Coordinator http://www.confluence.org/ OSGeo FOSS4G2007 conference: Workshop Committee Chair Conference Committee member http://www.foss4g2007.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
[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: scale of FOSS projects
Dear all [EMAIL PROTECTED] stated: (...) > In the past i've heard it suggested that really successful open source > projects now need serious organisational backing. They can't be built > by a network of partly-funded enthusiast contributors alone. (...) > If this is inevitable, why? Is innovation less possible outside the > "enterprise"? Is this even a FOSS problem or a computing-in-the-broad > one? As one of the list members who argued in favour of serious organizational backing for OSS, let me throw my ideas on the issue: (a) True innovation is extremely hard in any field. Companies and governments worldwide aim at promoting and producing innovation, but breakthroughs come slowly and the winners are always a happy few. (b) To have a software development that is at the same time innovative and cooperative is even more difficult. Cooperation requires shared conceptualizations. This is much easier to achieve when the aim is to reproduce an existing design. This is the case of OSGEO projects that aim to have an open source version of OGC specifications. (c) Many innovations are produced at academic institutions. Most of those institutions have no incentive nor mission to support open-source development projects. Taking these innovations out of academia and giving them institutional support (private or public) is a way to ensuring these innovations are exposed to the market. Those with real value will survive. (d) For better or worse, the GIS arena is currently OGC-driven. OGC has levelled the market, by producing a set of common specifications, that both OS and proprietary systems must adhere to. By nature, standards bodies tend to stifle innovation. OGC has helped us make a lot of progress on vector-based GIS and web services. By contrast, OGC has reduced the motivation for innovation in issues such as spatial analysis, raster-based GIS, semantics, visualization, interfaces, and spatio-temporal models. (e) Our current dilemma is that almost all FOSS4G products are focused on OGC-compliance. This reduces the potential for innovation and generates very similar products. Thus, innovation in GIS is likely to come from outside the OGC-compliance focus that pervades our community. We need new interface paradigms, new ways of interacting in with mobile devices, new ways of modelling environmental change. Someone, somewhere, might be working on these innovations. I hope that it evolves it an open source product. Best Regards Gilberto P.S. For those who are interested, may I immodestly suggest some readings on the topic: G. Camara, F. Fonseca, "Information Policies and Open Source Software in Developing Countries." JASIST, vol 58(1):121-132, January 2007. http://www.dpi.inpe.br/gilberto/papers/camara_fonseca_jasist.pdf G.Camara, H. Onsrud, "Open Source GIS Software: Myths and Realities." In: Julie M. Esanu and Paul F. Uhlir, Eds, Open Access and the Public Domain in Digital Data and Information for Science: Proceedings of an International Symposium. Washington, The National Academies Press, 2004. http://www.dpi.inpe.br/gilberto/papers/camara_open_source_myths.pdf G. Câmara et al., “TerraLib: An open-source GIS library for large-scale environmental and socio-economic applications”. In: Brent Hall (ed), “Open Source Approaches to Spatial Data Handling”. Berlin, Springer, 2008. http://www.terralib.org/docs/papers/TerraLib-OSBook-versionJanuary2008.pdf -- === Dr.Gilberto Camara Director General National Institute for Space Research (INPE) Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil voice: +55-12-3945-6035 fax: +55-12-3921-6455 web: http://www.dpi.inpe.br/gilberto blog: http://techne-episteme.blogspot.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] scale of FOSS projects
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In the past i've heard it suggested that really successful open source projects now need serious organisational backing. They can't be built by a network of partly-funded enthusiast contributors alone. The other way is to do something so obviously "correct" that a community clusters around it :-) I wonder about a cultural climate generally - NOT an OSGeo-specific one - in which projects have to have a certain amount of institutional support in order to even get *into* the incubation process, let alone graduate out of it. I have found it an interesting trade off; institutional support keeps the GeoTools project alive and very busy. None of those institutions are concerned with graduating from the incubation process directly (ie graduation does not effect any deadlines) - thus work is proceeding very slowly on volunteer time. If a project has a given amount of momentum, marketing resources applied to it, a contributing user community; is there any sense in "competing" by building something new with a lot of conceptual overlap? If there isn't, don't de facto monopolies start to develop inside FOSS as much as they do in proprietary software systems? That is true; but there is still plenty of space for collaboration (and competition) - see the recent discussion on a shared Java referencing project. A situation where a very few projects make it into broad and stable use, and a very many just spike, flutter and fade - well perhaps the open source ecology has always looked this way. But the more a few projects gather monopoly momentum, the less likely it is that newer projects can build up sufficient scale to challenge them. The kind of incubation process run by OSGeo, ASF, then serves to accentuate and promote this. One thing we stress in the incubation process (possibly as a counter to the effect you mention) is some kind of open development process. That is within each project we expect a procedure to allow new contributors (and contributions). If this is inevitable, why? Is innovation less possible outside the "enterprise"? Is this even a FOSS problem or a computing-in-the-broad one? It is a broad problem of "mind share", I recently ran across a proposal to use cocoon to do some web user interface work; the technology is certainly capable and even pretty - but web front ends have progressed so away from XSLT that cocoon does not represent a fashionable alternative (ie no "mind share"). I would appreciate hearing any thoughts that this provoked. Happy hacking, Jody ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Can I do the same GIS tasks with OS (as with ESRI)?
On 5/6/08, Christopher Schmidt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Tue, May 06, 2008 at 11:00:54PM +0200, Dirk Frigne wrote: > > > On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 08:21:21PM +0200, Arnulf Christl wrote: > > > > What was a Desktop GIS exactly? I only have a browser and for some > > > strange > > > > reason all that I do starts with an http://... > > > > > > A Desktop GIS is what you switch to when you realize that the browser > > > makes a really poor operating system, and moving outside of it and > > > using > > > the rest of your computer is important to accomplishing some tasks. > > > > > I understand your answer, but instead of switching to the desktop GIS only, > > you should decide to switch to the server in some circumstances for > > accomplishing some tasks... > > > My response to Arnulf was tongue in cheek: sorry that didn't come across > well. > > Actually, I thought it was a very well put response. It came off very well. Recognizing the boundaries of the capabilities of desktop vs. the browser is perhaps the first step toward making a sane application. A few capabilities port over from one to the other. The ones that don't and yet are force-fitted into the wrong environment make for a very sucky experience. -- Puneet Kishor ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Can I do the same GIS tasks with OS (as with ESRI)?
On Tue, May 06, 2008 at 11:00:54PM +0200, Dirk Frigne wrote: > > On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 08:21:21PM +0200, Arnulf Christl wrote: > > > What was a Desktop GIS exactly? I only have a browser and for some > > strange > > > reason all that I do starts with an http://... > > > > A Desktop GIS is what you switch to when you realize that the browser > > makes a really poor operating system, and moving outside of it and > > using > > the rest of your computer is important to accomplishing some tasks. > > I understand your answer, but instead of switching to the desktop GIS only, > you should decide to switch to the server in some circumstances for > accomplishing some tasks... My response to Arnulf was tongue in cheek: sorry that didn't come across well. Regards, -- Christopher Schmidt Web Developer ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Can I do the same GIS tasks with OS (as with ESRI)?
> -Oorspronkelijk bericht- > Van: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:discuss- > [EMAIL PROTECTED] Namens Christopher Schmidt > Verzonden: vrijdag 25 april 2008 20:52 > Aan: OSGeo Discussions > Onderwerp: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Can I do the same GIS tasks with OS (as > with ESRI)? > > On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 08:21:21PM +0200, Arnulf Christl wrote: > > What was a Desktop GIS exactly? I only have a browser and for some > strange > > reason all that I do starts with an http://... > > A Desktop GIS is what you switch to when you realize that the browser > makes a really poor operating system, and moving outside of it and > using > the rest of your computer is important to accomplishing some tasks. Hey Christopher, I understand your answer, but instead of switching to the desktop GIS only, you should decide to switch to the server in some circumstances for accomplishing some tasks... The decision is based in m.h.o. on the level of control that is needed for these complex tasks. If they are to be controlled by the user (you decide the sequences and algoritmes) then a desktop GIS makes sense. If you want to provide pre-calcualted complex tasks and use cases, the server side approach makes more sense. I am working on a Browser based 'desktop' GIS application framework. For all sort of applications in the latter case, the browser/server based architecture has advantages above the GIS desktop solution. sincerly, Dirk Frigne http://www.gegis.org http://www.frigne.be http://majas.dfc.be ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] scale of FOSS projects
Puneet, I chose my words poorly. This is what happens when I am in a hurry. :] A fork is the ultimate evil in the sense that it diverts resources like time and money. "United we stand, divided we fall." It is the ultimate good in the sense that it prevents any one organization for asserting complete control over a project. So I guess it all depends on one's perspective. It would have been better for me to say that the THREAT of a fork is very powerful, but that an actual fork is usually a bad thing for the community at large. There are exceptions to this rule. My opinion is, of course, colored by my own personal experiences. Imagine what UDig and OpenJUMP might have accomplished if they were a single program now? Landon -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of P Kishor Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 1:44 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] scale of FOSS projects On 5/6/08, Landon Blake <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: . > > I think the ability to fork open source code puts a real limitation on > the ability of any one entity to create an "open source monopoly". Forks > are the ultimate evil in the open source world, but they sometimes > become the necessary "nuclear option". .. I am finding it difficult to add up the above statement. Is forking "evil" (a very strong word especially when prefixed with "ultimate") or is it good (as implied by "necessary" in front of "nuclear option')? > One open source program that I can think of that survived a > serious fork is Inkscape/Sodipod, with Inkscape now being what > I would call an successful open source project. As described above, it seems to me that forking is the ultimate check-and-balance device which ensures longevity, as much as possible, of an OS project, and protects against lock-in. In that sense, it is the "ultimate good." -- 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/ ___ 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
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] scale of FOSS projects
On 5/6/08, Landon Blake <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: .. > > I think the ability to fork open source code puts a real limitation on > the ability of any one entity to create an "open source monopoly". Forks > are the ultimate evil in the open source world, but they sometimes > become the necessary "nuclear option". .. I am finding it difficult to add up the above statement. Is forking "evil" (a very strong word especially when prefixed with "ultimate") or is it good (as implied by "necessary" in front of "nuclear option')? > One open source program that I can think of that survived a > serious fork is Inkscape/Sodipod, with Inkscape now being what > I would call an successful open source project. As described above, it seems to me that forking is the ultimate check-and-balance device which ensures longevity, as much as possible, of an OS project, and protects against lock-in. In that sense, it is the "ultimate good." -- 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/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] scale of FOSS projects
Jo, consolidation is a natural progression in any market, even Open Source. This is driven by user requirements, which in turn drives resources. Users in general want maximum functionality for their investment. They want low risk. They want future proofing. This is usually achieved by selecting the best, most successful project in their niche. So the rich projects get richer, and poor get poorer. Note also that the cost of reviewing all applications to suite your business needs is expensive. So it is valuable for users to have a "quality stamp" applied to projects to help focus their search. At the moment, OSGeo is providing the "quality stamp" for OSGeo projects. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Increasingly the projects that OSGeo accepts into incubation are ones that have been created and supported by a large organisation - a company or agency - now seeking to get more people from "outside", who they are not directly supporting, properly involved. In the past i've heard it suggested that really successful open source projects now need serious organisational backing. They can't be built by a network of partly-funded enthusiast contributors alone. (There *are* noble exceptions, but those are projects which either have been around for a good long while, or which are libraries reused and maintained by several projects as "collective infrastructure") "This project is mature enough to be used for the task, without fear it's going to disappear without a trace... that's part of what OSGeo incubation is all about" I wonder about a cultural climate generally - NOT an OSGeo-specific one - in which projects have to have a certain amount of institutional support in order to even get *into* the incubation process, let alone graduate out of it. I heard this complaint from a few Apache Software Foundation people a couple of years ago. They were getting so many applicants for incubation - and had several dozen projects in the incubator at once - the only was to really assess quality going in, and commitment to future maintenance, was to focus on projects with 40+ committers and existing corporate support. (This "culture change" in turn led to core ASF'ers keeping their newer projects *out* of the foundation. Now there are more "ASF brings you Yahoo!'s..." projects like http://hadoop.apache.org/) If a project has a given amount of momentum, marketing resources applied to it, a contributing user community; is there any sense in "competing" by building something new with a lot of conceptual overlap? If there isn't, don't de facto monopolies start to develop inside FOSS as much as they do in proprietary software systems? A situation where a very few projects make it into broad and stable use, and a very many just spike, flutter and fade - well perhaps the open source ecology has always looked this way. But the more a few projects gather monopoly momentum, the less likely it is that newer projects can build up sufficient scale to challenge them. The kind of incubation process run by OSGeo, ASF, then serves to accentuate and promote this. If this is inevitable, why? Is innovation less possible outside the "enterprise"? Is this even a FOSS problem or a computing-in-the-broad one? (Please note i *don't* intend any criticism of the projects that are coming through incubation at the moment. It's great news that latlon.de now see more potential value in deegree becoming an OSGeo project than in being marketed as a latlon project. hooray!) I would appreciate hearing any thoughts that this provoked. jo -- Cameron Shorter Geospatial Systems Architect Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Commercial Support for Geospatial Open Source Solutions http://www.lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts.html ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] scale of FOSS projects
Jo, You have touched on an issue dear to my heart. I have a lot of work to do this afternoon, so I can't babble on as I normally do. But, I can't resist one or two short comments. Jo wrote: "In the past i've heard it suggested that really successful open source projects now need serious organisational backing. They can't be built by a network of partly-funded enthusiast contributors alone." I won't disagree with this perspective, I will only offer this point for consideration: An open source project appears more stable to me if it is supported by a "network of party-funded enthusiasts contributors" than a single corporate entity. Why? What happens when that corporate entity is sold, goes out of business, or looses interest in the open source project, or looses funding for the open source project? Users have very little control over the corporate decision making process. An open source project supported by a diverse group of volunteers has a much greater chance of surviving in my humble opinion. OpenJUMP would be one example of this. If it had depended on its original corporate sponsor for survival it would have died a long time ago. I think the ability to fork open source code puts a real limitation on the ability of any one entity to create an "open source monopoly". Forks are the ultimate evil in the open source world, but they sometimes become the necessary "nuclear option". One open source program that I can think of that survived a serious fork is Inkscape/Sodipod, with Inkscape now being what I would call an successful open source project. Landon -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 1:11 PM To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] scale of FOSS projects Increasingly the projects that OSGeo accepts into incubation are ones that have been created and supported by a large organisation - a company or agency - now seeking to get more people from "outside", who they are not directly supporting, properly involved. In the past i've heard it suggested that really successful open source projects now need serious organisational backing. They can't be built by a network of partly-funded enthusiast contributors alone. (There *are* noble exceptions, but those are projects which either have been around for a good long while, or which are libraries reused and maintained by several projects as "collective infrastructure") "This project is mature enough to be used for the task, without fear it's going to disappear without a trace... that's part of what OSGeo incubation is all about" I wonder about a cultural climate generally - NOT an OSGeo-specific one - in which projects have to have a certain amount of institutional support in order to even get *into* the incubation process, let alone graduate out of it. I heard this complaint from a few Apache Software Foundation people a couple of years ago. They were getting so many applicants for incubation - and had several dozen projects in the incubator at once - the only was to really assess quality going in, and commitment to future maintenance, was to focus on projects with 40+ committers and existing corporate support. (This "culture change" in turn led to core ASF'ers keeping their newer projects *out* of the foundation. Now there are more "ASF brings you Yahoo!'s..." projects like http://hadoop.apache.org/) If a project has a given amount of momentum, marketing resources applied to it, a contributing user community; is there any sense in "competing" by building something new with a lot of conceptual overlap? If there isn't, don't de facto monopolies start to develop inside FOSS as much as they do in proprietary software systems? A situation where a very few projects make it into broad and stable use, and a very many just spike, flutter and fade - well perhaps the open source ecology has always looked this way. But the more a few projects gather monopoly momentum, the less likely it is that newer projects can build up sufficient scale to challenge them. The kind of incubation process run by OSGeo, ASF, then serves to accentuate and promote this. If this is inevitable, why? Is innovation less possible outside the "enterprise"? Is this even a FOSS problem or a computing-in-the-broad one? (Please note i *don't* intend any criticism of the projects that are coming through incubation at the moment. It's great news that latlon.de now see more potential value in deegree becoming an OSGeo project than in being marketed as a latlon project. hooray!) I would appreciate hearing any thoughts that this provoked. jo -- ___ 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 h
[OSGeo-Discuss] scale of FOSS projects
Increasingly the projects that OSGeo accepts into incubation are ones that have been created and supported by a large organisation - a company or agency - now seeking to get more people from "outside", who they are not directly supporting, properly involved. In the past i've heard it suggested that really successful open source projects now need serious organisational backing. They can't be built by a network of partly-funded enthusiast contributors alone. (There *are* noble exceptions, but those are projects which either have been around for a good long while, or which are libraries reused and maintained by several projects as "collective infrastructure") "This project is mature enough to be used for the task, without fear it's going to disappear without a trace... that's part of what OSGeo incubation is all about" I wonder about a cultural climate generally - NOT an OSGeo-specific one - in which projects have to have a certain amount of institutional support in order to even get *into* the incubation process, let alone graduate out of it. I heard this complaint from a few Apache Software Foundation people a couple of years ago. They were getting so many applicants for incubation - and had several dozen projects in the incubator at once - the only was to really assess quality going in, and commitment to future maintenance, was to focus on projects with 40+ committers and existing corporate support. (This "culture change" in turn led to core ASF'ers keeping their newer projects *out* of the foundation. Now there are more "ASF brings you Yahoo!'s..." projects like http://hadoop.apache.org/) If a project has a given amount of momentum, marketing resources applied to it, a contributing user community; is there any sense in "competing" by building something new with a lot of conceptual overlap? If there isn't, don't de facto monopolies start to develop inside FOSS as much as they do in proprietary software systems? A situation where a very few projects make it into broad and stable use, and a very many just spike, flutter and fade - well perhaps the open source ecology has always looked this way. But the more a few projects gather monopoly momentum, the less likely it is that newer projects can build up sufficient scale to challenge them. The kind of incubation process run by OSGeo, ASF, then serves to accentuate and promote this. If this is inevitable, why? Is innovation less possible outside the "enterprise"? Is this even a FOSS problem or a computing-in-the-broad one? (Please note i *don't* intend any criticism of the projects that are coming through incubation at the moment. It's great news that latlon.de now see more potential value in deegree becoming an OSGeo project than in being marketed as a latlon project. hooray!) I would appreciate hearing any thoughts that this provoked. jo -- ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Geospatial Web Services workshop, CGS University of Nottingham
**Apologies for cross posting** Dear All, On behalf of Service-Oriented Software Research Network (SOSoRNET) and Centre for Geospatial Science, University of Nottingham i would like to invite you to join us for a two day workshop on geospatial web services which will be held at the University of Nottingham on 16th &17th June 2008. Registration is now activated at http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/geography/geowebservices/ Participation in the workshop is free but limited to 50 people on first come registration basis. In order to reserve your place, please register online. Please contact me for any information required. We look forward to welcoming you to Nottingham for an interesting workshop and discussions in this exciting and rapidly developing research theme. Best Wishes, Suchith Dr Suchith Anand Centre for Geospatial Science Sir Clive Granger Building University of Nottingham Tel: (0)115 846 8411 url: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cgs/anand.shtml This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an attachment may still contain software viruses, which could damage your computer system: you are advised to perform your own checks. Email communications with the University of Nottingham may be monitored as permitted by UK legislation. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
