[OSGeo-Discuss] New Project.

Paul Spencer pspencer at dmsolutions.ca
Wed Feb 28 16:43:54 PST 2007 

Hi Bob ...

I should have said that was my take on the OSGeo policy, hopefully  
someone (Frank) will correct me if I misled you anywhere.

Personally, I think it is important to have some diversity and  
exploration into new approaches to solving some of these problems.   
That being said, there aren't many ways to write Zoom In and it would  
be nice if we (as an OS community) wrote it once and then just used  
the darn thing.  Then an organization like yours could focus on  
solving their specific problems without having to worry about how to  
drag-pan a map image (for instance).  Sophisticated data discovery  
and layer controls would be an excellent example of something that  
could be added to a project like OpenLayer or MapBuilder.

I am actually horribly guilty of not taking the time to look at  
existing stuff and building on top of it.  One problem is often that  
it seems difficult to develop sufficient knowledge of an existing  
code base (say MapBuilder) to make it feasible to add new  
functionality.  Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned in here  
somewhere?

Anyway, this all makes for a good discussion :)

Cheers

Paul

PS the link you sent didn't work in Safari?  It did work in FireFox  
though.

On 28-Feb-07, at 3:22 PM, Bob Basques wrote:

> Paul,
>
> It's funny you put it the way you did.  From an Email exchange  
> today about how our project compares ti OpenLayers :
>
> This is how I see them as being different.  Others, feel free to chime
> in.
>
> Moose has more of the Desktop GIS functionality and more tightly
> integrated with MapServer. For example: measure, data popups, graphic
> design skins, move layers, legends, printing, more configuration
> options, identify, and select.  I don't think this type of  
> functionality
> is the goal of OpenLayers, they strive more to make it easy to  
> integrate
> multiple data sources.
>
> OpenLayers strives to have easy support for numerous data sources like
> Google, Yahoo, GeoRSS, and WMS.  Then they work off of the concept of
> placing point markers and soon vector (line and polygon) on top of  
> those
> data sources.  The also support tiled and untiled data sources in the
> same interface.  This works very nice if your don't have a lot of  
> layers
> that are changing all the time and you can make use of caching.  I  
> think
> an interface like this would be pretty slow and hard to manage for a
> organization like Douglas County, MN that is updating their parcels,
> plats, E911 address points and roads every week.
>
> A more discrete description might be that MOOSE is shooting for the  
> customers that need to publish data in all sort of formats (and  
> legacy Systems), in a near Realtime fashion.  The intent is to make  
> the process as transparent to the Data publishers as it is to the  
> Data users.
>
> We're still early in things, and could quite frankly stand some  
> more evolving and stabilizing.  As to the incubation time length,  
> this client has been used internally here at the City for almost  
> two years now and integrated successfully into many of our other  
> Web Services.  In the last few months we've put it out to Open  
> Source and do have one other group using the Package, and actually  
> in the process of working up some things with the OpenLayers DEV  
> group for some WFS prototyping.
>
> The intent is to grow the DEV community at this point.
>
> No biggy on the issue of OSGEO not wanting to extend it's umbrella  
> any further.   We'll work it up some more and ask about things  
> further down the road.
>
> Thanks for the reply.
>
> bobb
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ****************  You can't be late until you show up.   
> ***************
> ************  You never learn anything by doing it right.   
> ************
> ***  War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who's left.   
> ***
>
>
> >>> Paul Spencer <pspencer at dmsolutions.ca> 2/28/2007 1:32 PM >>>
> Hi Bob,
>
> this was recently discussed in the incubation committee.  It was
> agreed by all that OSGeo is only officially interested in incubating/
> hosting reasonably mature projects that have an established code base
> and user community.  It was explicitly decided that OSGeo is not the
> breeding ground for new projects.
>
> As there are already several client projects (MapBender, MapBuilder,
> OpenLayers, MapGuide) in OSGeo or undergoing incubation, I suspect
> that there would be little interest in another Client project.  OSGeo
> is trying to spread the love around a bit and looks to fill in gaps
> in the GIS stack, another hit against a new Client project.  Finally,
> I believe one of the benefits of OSGeo is that it can focus resources
> on existing projects rather than fragmenting it.  That doesn't mean
> that someone couldn't start something new, but in an OSGeo context it
> would be better if the resources for the new project were put towards
> improving an existing one.
>
> Is there a particular reason why you are creating a new Mapping
> Client Project rather than putting resources to improving or
> customizing an existing one?
>
> I believe that it may be possible for nascent projects to use some of
> the OSGeo infrastructure (svn and trac).  I'm not sure there is a
> process in place for requesting this yet.
>
> Cheers
>
> Paul
>
> On 28-Feb-07, at 2:06 PM, Bob Basques wrote:
>
> > All,
> >
> > I'm wondering about finding a new home for a Mapping Client Project.
> > What requirements are there for proposing a new project under the
> > OSGEO
> > Umbrella?
> >
> > I can set up a Physical home for it, but was wondering more about
> > having
> > OSGEO handling the Project Ownership in some form.  Or is it  
> better to
> > set up the project standalone and just point to it.  This is an  
> option
> > as well.  I'm just trying to gage interest from the OSGEO  
> perspective
> > about these sorts of things.
> >
> > The City would still participate in development into the future (at
> > this
> > point).
> >
> > Thanks for any info.
> >
> > bobb
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ****************  You can't be late until you show up.
> > ***************
> > ************  You never learn anything by doing it right.
> > ************
> > ***  War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who's left.
> > ***
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Discuss mailing list
> > Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
> > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
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> |Paul Spencer                          pspencer at dmsolutions.ca    |
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> |Chief Technology Officer                                         |
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|Paul Spencer                          pspencer at dmsolutions.ca    |
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|Chief Technology Officer                                         |
|DM Solutions Group Inc                http://www.dmsolutions.ca/ |
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