[OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects

[Frank Warmerdam]

On 10/1/07, Tamas Szekeres <szekerest at gmail.com> wrote:
> As reading the replies up to now I continue to think what OSGeo can do
> is more adding some technical expertise rather than creating a venue
> and a project advertising board.
>
> Currently I feel a significant power around the users and developers
> forming the OSGeo to decide or at least give some point of
> consideration whether a project should be brought to alive or not,
> definitely. Therefore it would be prudent for the developers/designers
> to have been measured with the ideas by a broader community before
> creating a new project.

Folks,

Some interesting points in this thread!

Addressing Tamas' immediate point above, I think that
bouncing a project idea (or early prototype) off folks
in the broad OSGeo community (via discuss or person
to person discussions at FOSS4G for instance) could
be helpful in deciding how much traction it is likely to
get.  *But* as Paul mentioned earlier, the judgement of
one or a few people isn't likely to be that authoritative.

OSGeo isn't really well organized currently for
providing infrastructure for large numbers of
projects. So - barring some folks coming forward
to make that aspect work we can pretty much set
it aside.  Folks always have the option of hosting
sites like sourceforge.

For promotion, well, I'm kind of with Cameron that
our "front page recommendations" need to be
reserved for projects in which we have a lot of
faith in an effort to best serve the user.

On the other hand, I hope the discuss list (for
instance) can be a venue for folks to get some
exposure for new and interesting projects.  I
think writing an article for the journal might be
another approach.

I *do* see the issue that folks with new projects
need exposure and feedback.  I'm just not too sure
how to serve them with existing resources, and
without diffusing our promotional efforts too much.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent