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[Geotools-gt2-users] Re: [Geotools-devel] should GeoTools join the new Open Source Geospatial Foundation?
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From: Chris H. <ch...@op...> - 2006-02-05 22:17:58
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Wrote this offline. I'm off for the week, but wrote up my thoughts and hope we can join soon. As for quick responses to stuff here - we definitely don't need to be a legal entity, and actually joining the foundation gives us more legal legitimacy, but with the same control over our project. And here's what I wrote offline: Hey all. So the open source geospatial foundation meeting went pretty well. Ian and I both hope that GeoTools can be one of the main projects, as the foundation looks to be a very good thing, which will bring greater attention to all our work. Everyone there was very interested in having Java projects well represented, and since GeoTools is the most mature and community driven Java project, I think it makes sense for it to be first in the foundation. We already have a PMC, which we can just turn into the Project Steering Committee name they have for the same thing. The biggest benefit that I see from joining is that we get to be associated with a number of other great projects, all of which will be presented as a whole to new users. Anyone looking to do things in Java will have us as the obvious choice. The other thing I really like is that it gets us in the same room as all the C stack guys, so that we can think about more collaboration, and perhaps try to focus on different feature sets where it makes sense. The legal thing could also be nice, but note that it's not us 'signing over' all our IP for the foundation to control. The PMC grants a license to the foundation to redistribute the code, but they will not be able to change the license. But the code will go through a process of legal scrutiny, which hopefully will result in us being able to get in touch with most all the contributors so if we wanted to change something in the future we'd at least have a record of how to get in touch with them. It's obviously better to do this sooner rather than later. Also note that we can always fork and take back the project, if anything bad were to happen. But they are very interested in having java people in leadership positions. As for changing infrastructure over, nothing will be required. Indeed I'd be incredibly against a migration away from jira or confluence. But one good suggestion was that all foundation projects would aim to make their sites similar. Like in terms of layout and styling, so that when you go to a page of a foundation project it feels like part of the same thing, and you know how to navigate, where to download, ect. But this can be accomplished without moving everything over to the infrastructures the project supplies, indeed refractions' sites show how you can use different technologies but achieve the same look and feel. Another potential benefit is that it could give people a way to 'sponser' geotools. None of this is set, but Frank had the idea that a company could pay for a sponsership, 30% (or some number) would go to the foundation to continue its existence, and the rest would go to the project. This would go towards the nitty gritty maintenance work that rarely gets funding. It gives people who are heavily using geotools a way to 'give back', and to get a bit of credit for their financial contribution. This won't compete with other paid opportunities, and we never have to go through the foundation. The final benefit is 'marketing', in that many people will be pushing the main open source geospatial foundation site, autodesk is planning on pushing it a lot, and we basically get the 'shrapnel'. This could potentially be quite big. Ok, I'll stop now, but basically I'd very much like to see GeoTools join the foundation. Our IRC meeting before seemed to indicate that no one was against it, and people seemed to be for it if it provides good benefits which I now believe it does. There seems to be no real downside, as we can keep all our processes and infrastructure. I got elected to the board, and Ian and I are 'members' of the foundation. There will be an additional 20 members, and they are interested in 'recruiting' java people, getting a good representation from our communities, so I'd like to see a number of us nominated. So we should have good representation within the foundation. The exact power structure is not completely set, that's the duty of the board, but everyone wants the projects to have autonomy. If we can get PMC and committer approval on the decision to join the foundation, we can hopefully get on the initial press releases along with the other projects. I'm heading to the mountains, as I'm actually on vacation these days, took a little break to attend the meeting. But if we could vote on email and/or irc and get back to the foundation that would be great. And everyone's opinion on this, including non-PMC and non-committers, is appreciated. I'm +1 best regards, Chris Quoting Jody Garnett <jga...@re...>: > Ian Turton wrote: > > > ChrisH and I have spent the day in Chicago discussing the new OSGEO > > foundation - (see http://logs.qgis.org/geofoundation/ for the irc > logs). > > Basically we have raised 23 members (those of us who were here) and > > elected a board of 5 (inc Chris H) who will then nominate 20 more > > members and then elect 4 more board members from the whole > membership. > > > > There is concern that Java is under represented and keen interest > in > > GeoTools joining. It would be really good if we could discuss this > at > > the irc this week and that people could read at least the end of > the > > logs to see whats happening. > > > > There would be no downside I can see and lots of up. I expect Chris > > and Jody can add more details and we can all try to answer any > questions. > > We should do better then that Ian, lets start a wiki page and revise > it > to answer peoples questions as we go :-) One nice thing was the > honest > concern that we in the Java community do so much, and the concern was > we > take part accordingly. > > The details of participation are easy at this stage, talk to the > community and sign up. They are going to base their standards > according > to which projects decide to join. We are not the only group going > back > to the community here (MapServer is going to run things over on their > email list). My impression is we have have around two weeks. > > I lurked on IRC and compared notes to our recent meeting ( legal - > check, license - check, marketting - check, version control - check, > website - check, and so on .... ). The one thing on our shopping list > that did no go over well was the idea of accessing the OGC/ISO > standards > as a group. > This is still something that we can do ourseleves. I did mention > GeoAPI > - response was mostly viewed as being too busy, and OGC controled ... > > I will start out with the first question Ian: I am also not sure if > we > need to be a legal entity ourselves in order for the foundation to > represent us. We have minuets but no bankaccount as far as I > know.... > > Jody > > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through > log files > for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes > searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD > SPLUNK! > http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=103432&bid=230486&dat=121642 > _______________________________________________ > Geotools-devel mailing list > Geo...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geotools-devel > *** Chris Holmes The Open Planning Project thoughts at: http://cholmes.wordpress.com ---------------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IMP: https://webmail.limegroup.com/ |