[gdal-dev] Adding a "Commercial support" section on gdal.org?

[bertelli at charta.acme.com]

Charta is interested to be listed as experienced provider if gdal.org  
will ever add info about commercial support.

Nevertheless, I think this item has to receive more attention,  
considering at least:
* the license of GDAL. Using MIT license means being expecially open  
to commercial usage. I don't know if this is really consequential with  
selecting a group of commercial providers instead of being agnostic  
about usage of the code and technology created (I don't agree with  
this, but...);
* usually support means choice between several tools and technologies,  
being a core contributor could mean some bias about recurring to a  
specific tool. Being listed as such could become a double-edged sword;
* any evaluation aobut support should be based on the help provided to  
the user and not about the contribution to the project. The client  
shoud be able to choose if he needs "broad" or "focused" support, if  
he needs new developments or better integration and so on. Listing  
experiences or specialisation (geodatabases, remote sensing and so on)  
could be more useful.

Even's case is noteworthy, because he is more than a "Core  
contributor", but a project leader for GDAL. When his affiliation to  
École des Mines changed to his own company, Spatialys, I thought this  
was a very good move because he could more easily provide consulting  
services to commercial entities. Maybe his visibility as a prominent  
person in this community is already warranted, I understand that his  
proposal is addressed to others, but I think gdal-dev is about  
developing, although the list provides a lot of help to users, is this  
the right place?
c

On Thu, Aug 20, 2014 at 10:02:35 PM, Even Rouault wrote:

     Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 22:02:35 +0200
     From: Even Rouault <even.rouault at spatialys.com>
     To: "gdal-dev at lists.osgeo.org" <gdal-dev at lists.osgeo.org>
     Subject: [gdal-dev] Adding a "Commercial support" section on gdal.org
             ?
     Message-ID: <201408202202.36022.even.rouault at spatialys.com>
     Content-Type: Text/Plain;  charset="us-ascii"

     Hi,

     I'm wondering if there would be a concensus and interest to add a  
"Commercial
     support" section on gdal.org. A number of OSGeo projects have  
such page (see
     [1]), so that wouldn't be completely awkward to have one for GDAL as well.

     The OSGeo Service provider database reference 137  
companies/individuals that
     have registered themselves as providing GDAL support ([2]) !  
Pretty cool, but
     I'm wondering how a user not familiar with the project could  
effectively use
     that list to identify core contributors from casual advanced users.

     If we agree for adding a "Commercial support" section, the  
question is : on
     which criteria do we accept an organization/individual to be listed in the
     section ? We would want them to be as most objective and non debatable as
     possible.
     A simple criterion could be anyone who has commit rights (in  
trunk, not just
     in a sandbox or customer branch). There are currently 56 SVN  
committers. That
     could be strengthened with a minimum number of commits/lines  
changed during a
     period, but we perhaps don't need that level of complexity.
     We could possibly also extend that to entities that provide  
public support to
     users through gdal-dev or other public forums (gis.stackexchange,  
others?).
     Other suggestions ?

     Should we distinguish several categories of actors ?
     - QGIS makes a division between "Core contributors" vs "Contributors".
     GeoServer has "Core contributors", "Experienced providers" and "Additional
     services" (the last one is populated on service provider request).
     - On the other side, deegree, Geomoose or Geotools simply list them in a
     single section.
     The answer likely depends on the number of organizations that  
would be listed
     (I guess below 10 we don't need much structure). The difficulty  
here would be to
     establish the categories and criteria.

     So, could entities interested in being listed reply to this email  
so we can
     have a better idea of how many would be listed, and if we need  
more stricter
     criteria or several categories ?
     As far as I'm concerned, Spatialys would be interested.

     Best regards,

     Even

     [1] Non exhaustive list of OSGeo projects with a commercial  
support section :
     http://geoserver.org/support/
     http://www.geomoose.org/info/commercial_support.html
     http://docs.geotools.org/latest/userguide/welcome/support.html
     http://wiki.deegree.org/deegreeWiki/GettingSupport
     http://qgis.org/en/site/forusers/commercial_support.html

     [2] OSGeo Service Provider catalog with entities declaring GDAL  
expertise :
     http://www.osgeo.org/search_profile?SET=1&MUL_TECH[]=00013


     --
     Spatialys - Geospatial professional services
     http://www.spatialys.com


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