[fdo-internals] FDO and Incubation

[Robert Fortin]

Daniel,

Some comments below.

- I agree with Zak that we need to increase the tools available for FDO:
fdo2fdo is a good example.  There is other certainly available or that
would need to be build.  A standalone FDO browser would also be very
helpful.

- "How to build a provider?" would help as long as we have people
interested in building more providers and that there provider can be
made available to other user rapidly.

- Most of the activities are on the provider and there is not much cross
providers activities.  The activities on this provider are often limited
to few developers which main interest is to make some data available in
MapGuide.  

- Some of the activities are generated on the MapGuide mailing list and
sometime answered there.  Some people knows to send their question on
both list, but not everybody does it.

- The current road map is unclear to many user.    Also it should not be
tight up to another project milestones.  FDO should exist on its own and
have its own life cycle and a predictable release road map.  

- When is the last time PSC meet to discuss the direction on the
project?  How was that communicated to user?  Some dynamics need to be
generated from the PSC itself. 

- We could have a better strategy around build.   At the moment the
build are published periodically around release time.  Builds are done
more frequently, yet not published.  With a clear release road map, it
would help. 

- Better integration of new providers. There is a separation between the
"supported" providers and other providers.  Sl-king for Oracle and
PostGIS providers are currently not integrated in the build processs and
therefore not published. Some work need to be done in this direction. 

I'm not sure how keeping the FDO project under incubation longer will
help. Doesn't it create this impression that the project doesn't belong
to the community yet? It would be good to communicate some of incubation
activities that are undergoing to the community so each one know how
they can contribute to help moving this project forward.  

Thanks for your support on mentoring this project!  I'm sure this pause
to ask questions about the project will be helpful. 

RF 


-----Original Message-----
From: fdo-internals-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:fdo-internals-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Zak James
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2007 9:26 AM
To: FDO Internals Mail List
Subject: Re: [fdo-internals] FDO and Incubation

Daniel,

I think a key difference between FDO and GDAL in this context is the  
number of client applications that make use of the functionality.  
Discussion on this list occurs mainly when a non-AutoDesk developer  
is working on a  provider or related application but there just  
aren't that many. Perhaps the introduction of tools like FDO2FDO and  
the increasing popularity of Mapguide will drive other groups to  
develop providers and drive community involvement.

One proactive way to increase outside developer interest would be for  
the existing community to produce a 'beginner's' guide to creating a  
provider. There is some excellent documentation for FDO but something  
relatively simple like that is missing.

zak
--
Zak James
Applications and Software Development
DM Solutions Group Inc.
http://www.dmsolutions.ca


On 19 Jul 2007, at 15:48, Daniel Morissette wrote:

> FDO Developers,
>
> One of the requirements to graduate from OSGeo Incubation is that  
> the project has to show that it has a healthy and active developer  
> and user community, that they communicate openly via open channels  
> (e.g. lists, IRC, etc.), and that decisions are made by consensus  
> via those channels (following the PSC guidelines).
>
> I find that the level of traffic is fairly low on this list and  
> that we don't see the level of open discussions here that we find  
> in other OSGeo projects.
>
> As your incubation mentor I am wondering if there is anything we  
> can do to help open up communication to show to OSGeo that this  
> project really operates in a healthy and open way. Or is it just  
> that there is not much to discuss? Of course the nature of a data  
> access library doesn't attract users as much as a webmapping engine  
> such as MapGuide or MapServer, but we're far from the level of  
> interaction that we find around GDAL which is of similar nature.
>
> I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. At least that should help  
> generating more traffic and open discussions.  :)
>
> Daniel
> -- 
> Daniel Morissette
> http://www.mapgears.com/
> _______________________________________________
> fdo-internals mailing list
> fdo-internals at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/fdo-internals

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