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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2014/07/22 17:45, Paolo Cavallini
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:53CE870A.3020507@faunalia.it" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Il 22/07/2014 17:17, Bo Victor Thomsen ha scritto:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">My suggestion is that*one* of the three version cycles is replaced with the following:
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
Sorry Bo if I appear rude, but good ideas are not what we are missing.
Manpower (~=money) is what is missing to implement them.
Therefore: funding welcome, be sure we can devise a suitable strategy to solve these
problems once we have suitable resources.
All the best, and thanks for your thoughts.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Wow, I could be so off the mark with this, as I am not even aware if
there is a regular donor for QGIS, or just ad-hoc income - but
perhaps me coming from the outside, might give you fresh ideas to
mull over.<br>
<br>
So, <br>
<br>
The guys who have been long term dev contributors to QGIS (effort,
not money) should surely have some idea what effort it might take
maintain an LTS version.<br>
Perhaps they could agree that for the 1st LTS version, one or two of
them would take on the responsibility for maintaining that LTS
version (yes, they might need the guidance of the people who wrote
the part of code "that blew up").<br>
For the next LTS version, this responsibility could move to other
devs, and so the burden of LTS maintenance could rotate amongst
suitably qualified and willing devs.<br>
Then, given that QGIS is a mature project that is widely used, is
there not some organisation that would be willing to fund the LTS
maintainers on a monthly retention basis? (a retainer, rather than a
"fee per fix" will offer small but regular income for the dev.)<br>
Canonical?<br>
Would OSGEO have some contacts?<br>
Maybe set up a special corner of the QGIS Web page where you could
show the Company logo of anyone prepared to sponsor a particular LTS
cycle? (This last thought would mean that QGIS would have to
fund-raise for each LTS cycle - not great :-( )<br>
<br>
If you coincided the LTS versions with (say) Ubuntu, that would also
be useful for stability, but that could mean that the LTS
maintenance Devs would have to deal with backports so that QGIS does
not become too old before the next LTS cycle.<br>
<br>
Note also that most new features come with plugins, so as long as a
new plugin is also certified against the prevailing LTS version,
QGIS users won't have to suffer with a (too much) out of date QGIS.<br>
<br>
Anyway, I hope my thoughts will stimulate ideas on how to handle
this, but in short perhaps decide in this order:<br>
<ol>
<li>How long between LTS cycles (maybe pick 2 or 3 scenarios)</li>
<li>How many devs need to be available for ad-hoc bug-fixes for a
particular LTS cycle</li>
<li>How these (willing) devs could be cycled over different LTS
periods so they don't get bored and stuck with maintaining old
code.<br>
</li>
<li>What effort (read money) would they want <u>as a retainer</u>
(rather than "fee per fix")<br>
</li>
<li>How to get the money for the retainers<br>
</li>
</ol>
Regards,<br>
Zoltan<br>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
===========================================
Zoltan Szecsei PrGISc [PGP0031]
Geograph (Pty) Ltd.
GIS and Photogrammetric Services
P.O. Box 7, Muizenberg 7950, South Africa.
Mobile: +27-83-6004028
Fax: +27-86-6115323 <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.geograph.co.za">www.geograph.co.za</a>
===========================================</pre>
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