[Incubator] OSSIM Incubation Status

[Mark Lucas]

On Apr 3, 2009, at 11:08 AM, Daniel Morissette wrote:

> Frank Warmerdam wrote:
>> At this point I am pretty satisfied with the condition of the OSSIM  
>> code.
>> Are there any issues that folks would like to see addressed before I
>> make a motion for OSSIM to graduate?  Information on incubation  
>> status
>> and provenance review are available at:
>>  http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSSIM_incubation_status
>>  http://trac.osgeo.org/ossim/wiki/ossimprovenance
>
> I read in the incubation status page and in the Openness evaluation  
> page at http://trac.osgeo.org/ossim/wiki/ossimopenness that there  
> are 6 PSC members, but the OSSIM Governance page only lists four:
> http://trac.osgeo.org/ossim/wiki/ossimgovernance. Since this "OSSIM  
> Governance page" is expected to be the main reference about the PSC  
> it should be updated now and kept up to date in the future.

Updated, there are currently 4 active PSC members.

>
> My main comment overall is that I find that the way the PSC operates  
> with face to face meetings is a bit unusual and can be a barrier to  
> new contributors following/joining the project. As an outsider,  
> reading a summary of the meeting is not the same as being able to  
> follow the whole discussion and decision process as it evolves. OTOH  
> the developers list for OSSIM seems quite active so perhaps that's  
> not that big a deal and we need to be open to new ways to do things.

It is human nature, three of us work under the same roof at the  
current time, Dave Burken works 20 minutes away. We do our best to  
force communications through the internet, but it is human nature to  
just talk things over when you are working in close proximity.  We  
also support the #ossimplanet chat channel.  Typically there are 10 to  
15 subscribers watching the checkins to the baseline.   We have always  
actively encouraged contributions from members on the list.  This  
often takes the form of infrequent patches etc.  Occasionally we will  
have an active contributor that works on a module using the plugin  
infrastructure.  If the submissions start becoming regular we normally  
grant svn checkin while they are active.  If there are long periods of  
inactivity we turn off commit.

I think the key point is that we desire and encourage contributions  
and participation.  As in any project, the active contributors will be  
the ones that control the overall direction of the project.

OSSIM is fairly active, today was typical with 13 emails posted to the  
list.  There were 9 checkins to svn today.

Mark


>
> If I remember correctly, similar concerns were raised about  
> MapBender which had most (all?) of its developers under the same  
> roof, and FDO for which I was mentor and had its graduation delayed  
> until the PSC would demonstrate the opennness of its decision  
> process and developers community.
>
> Once again, I don't necessarily see this as a blocker since contrary  
> to the other cases that I listed above the OSSIM developers list  
> seems fairly active already. Any opinions on that?
>
> Daniel
> -- 
> Daniel Morissette
> http://www.mapgears.com/
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