[Incubator] Re: Is rasdaman suitable/ready for OSGeo incubation?

[Cameron Shorter]

Thank you Pieter,
I think your comments are very valuable, especially as the path you 
followed is similar to what Peter is proposing. (Ie a business building 
an Open Source project from scratch, rather than an volunteers who 
convert a hobby project into a robust business model).

Peter, if Pieter is willing, I expect you would do well to pick his 
brain for ideas on building your our marketing strategy and business 
model. (Geomajas have done a great job with their marketing).

On 6/12/2010 6:31 PM, Pieter De Graef wrote:
> I believe your situation resembles mine a bit (2 years ago). When 
> Geosparc was founded to support the Open Source project Geomajas, 
> there where people from only 2 companies behind the project. We too 
> had it quite difficult in the beginning to attract people.
>
> I believe what you need to do is make the intentions of your company 
> as clear as possible, and make sure the Open Source project is a 
> stand-alone project.
> On the Geomajas website, you will have a hard time looking for the 
> Geosparc name. We made sure that the Geomajas website was 100% 
> community based, and even though in the beginning there hardly was any 
> community, now there is.
> It could be me, but when I see services etc on the main page, it does 
> not give me the impression of being a stand-alone project. Although 
> this is just an impression, don't forget perception is king. Of course 
> I'm known to be mistaken every now and then.
>
>
>
> Op 4/12/2010 4:30, Cameron Shorter schreef:
>> Peter,
>> The (possibly incorrect) understanding I have is that you, being one 
>> person, have been the central driver behind rasdaman, sometimes under 
>> the banner of the university and sometimes under your company.
>>
>> However, my key concern from OSGeo's point of view is that the 
>> current link with a proprietary license will hinder growth of a 
>> robust community.
>> Other OSGeo Incubation members may suggest otherwise.
>>
>> On 04/12/10 13:51, Baumann, Peter wrote:
>>> Cameron,
>>>
>>> thanks for all the effort and serious considerations put into your 
>>> looking at rasdaman. I am very grateful about our discussion - among 
>>> others, it has shown me that the description provided on 
>>> www.rasdaman.org needs refinement and clarification. I have 
>>> attempted to go into that immediately with the "feature matrix" as a 
>>> start, but other places will have to undergo a check as well.
>>>
>>> About the licensing, let me correct some false impression. The 
>>> open-source rasdaman code is _not_ maintained by a company, but by a 
>>> university. So the conclusion that further development of rasdaman 
>>> would depend on one company is wrong in two respects:
>>> - it is not one, but two entities supporting rasdaman
>>> - it is not a company which is the main promoter of open source 
>>> rasdaman, but a university
>>>
>>> Hope that helps to clarify situation a bit. I feel it very fruitful 
>>> that now we have come to a discussion, hope we can continue this 
>>> fruitful exchange.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Peter
>>>
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: Cameron Shorter [cameron.shorter at gmail.com]
>>> Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2010 12:40 AM
>>> To: Baumann, Peter; Bruce Bannerman; OSGeo-incubator
>>> Subject: Is rasdaman suitable/ready for OSGeo incubation?
>>>
>>> I had the pleasure this week of meeting Peter Baumann, the primary
>>> author behind rasdaman [1], a dual licensed raster processing
>>> application. Along with Bruce Bannerman, we discussed rasdaman's
>>> application for OSGeo application (initiated 18 months ago).
>>>
>>> Understandably, Peter noted some frustration by the lack of progress
>>> moving toward OSGeo Incubation.
>>>
>>> Since talking to Peter, I've looked at rasdaman further, and think that
>>> rasdaman has some great functionality, but I'm concerned that the
>>> current dual license will hamper uptake from the open source community.
>>>
>>> Radaman is provided via an open source community edition, and then has
>>> extensions which are in a proprietary enterprise edition. [2] My 
>>> concern
>>> is the dual license will substantially reduce the number of developers
>>> prepared to grow the rasdaman developer community, as there will be a
>>> feeling that the prime developer will only maintain and advance the
>>> enterprise version.
>>>
>>> One of the key goals for incubation is to build a robust developer
>>> community, with contributors from multiple organisations, and to have
>>> the project grow sustainably. As it stands, I think that rasdaman's
>>> licence model will make the project dependent upon the organisation
>>> offering the enterprise software, which is counter to some of OSGeo
>>> principles.
>>>
>>> Peter,
>>> I understand the challenge of finding a suitable business model and
>>> deciding whether to go down the proprietary or open source route. Yes,
>>> with Open Source you do get significant marketing reach and having
>>> others share development costs. Alternatively, with proprietary, you 
>>> can
>>> charge for software. If you wish to try to achieve both, then you will
>>> likely end up having to write most/all software yourself, which doesn't
>>> align with OSGeo goals of building a robust developer community.
>>> This may be a reason why people on the incubation committee have not
>>> pushed rasdaman forward further.
>>> If you wish to continue with OSGeo incubation, I would suggest
>>> considering adjusting your licence model.
>>>
>>>
>>> [1] http://rasdaman.eecs.jacobs-university.de/trac/rasdaman
>>> [2] 
>>> http://rasdaman.eecs.jacobs-university.de/trac/rasdaman/wiki/Features
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Cameron Shorter
>>> Geospatial Director
>>> Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
>>> Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
>>>
>>> Think Globally, Fix Locally
>>> Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
>>> http://www.lisasoft.com
>>>
>>
>>
>


-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com