OSGeo-Board Re: Licenses; was: something else

[Daniel Brookshier]

There may be some middle ground here. The bigger issue is that we  
have a tools that integrates the community and that many communities  
already have tools.

Here is the easy part. As far as code through subversion, issues  
through project tracker, and email lists, the site is as good as it  
gets and meets the need. Where this breaks down is in viewing you  
'live' documentation and docs through the wiki/plone/doxygen servers.

I want to say that we can just pick one of these, but I am already  
hearing that compromise is not an option at the moment. So, I suggest  
we still have someone look into a choice for a foundation supported   
wiki/plone/doxygen server, but just let the existing projects link to  
their existing sites. We can put enough information into each  
project's osgeo.org home pages to link offsite and provide key  
navigation.

This is exactly what is done at java.net and many others, so it is  
not rocket science and actually pretty normal. In the other  
communities, Wiki was easy because there really was not a mature  
solution in any direction. The only difference here is that you are  
causing the general population to learn multiple tools to participate  
in more than one project. You are also committing to supply the  
service at least to the project you are running.

The migration to a single tool should be looked at as a longer term  
goal. If the right one is chosen, projects should migrate to it  
naturally. As Brian has said, Collabnet is not asleep about such  
tools and will be supporting an integrated system in the future that  
could be acceptable by everyone.

As the board, you are empowered to make a decision. Like all good  
problems put to a board without instant answers, note the work around  
and please form a committee.

Daniel Brookshier
Community Manager
214-207-6614

On Feb 13, 2006, at 2:36 PM, Frank Warmerdam wrote:

> Frank Warmerdam:
>> "I am sure many of the foundation projects will not choose to use  
>> foundation
>> infrastructure for their projects, and there is no great harm in a  
>> diversity
>> of hosting/service options.  "
>
> Gary Lang wrote:
>> Unless I am misunderstanding you, I guess I fundamentally disagree.
>> The benefit of a coherent, organized, single-search site with  
>> branding is of great value to the end-user and for many of the  
>> reasons we agreed to at the meeting. Doing what you describe  
>> reduces the effectiveness of the foundation and makes it much less  
>> likely to be taken seriously in the manner we all hoped, get  
>> funding or sponsoships, etc.
>> It really makes the foundation nothing much more than a fancy  
>> version of http://www.opensourcegis.org/.
>
> Gary,
>
> Well, I think this is something we will need to dig into more deeply.
>
> I think it is going to be very hard to convince all the projects to
> migrate to common infrastructure, web site appearance and so forth.
> One of the common themes I heard in Chicago was that project autonomy
> not be trod on heavily.
>
> In the case of GDAL, it is my hope that I can use CSS and/or standard
> headers and footers for my web pages to make them fit into a  
> foundation
> theme.  But, for the forseeable future I expect to continue using
> "doxygen" to generate the pages from my source code, and some  
> documents
> in "doxygen format".
>
> The GeoTools folks are likely to want to stick with their Convergence
> Wiki for their whole site.
>
> The MapServer crew has made it clear they aren't ready to chunk all  
> the
> work sunk into the "next generation" Plone site.
>
> So, from that point of view, I don't see us being able to converge on
> a single web platform in the forseeable future.
>
> One reason I asked about how the "site search" feature worked last  
> week
> was to get a sense if content hosted off the collabnet machines would
> be easily incorporated into the site search.   I hope that can be  
> done!
> Likewise, for something generated nightly, like the GDAL site, it  
> isn't
> really practical to have it re-committed to SVN each night.  Is that
> going to interfere with hosting it on collabnet's system?  If so, I  
> don't
> mind it staying where it is but I would like to see some degree of
> integration.
>
> I think this is a topic that will need some further, in depth,  
> discussion.
> And we might want to reach out to project leads from different  
> projects
> to get their feedback on what degree of commonality they are  
> willing to
> reach for.
>
> Best regards,
> -- 
> --------------------------------------- 
> +--------------------------------------
> I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam,  
> warmerdam at pobox.com
> light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
> and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for  
> Rent
>
>
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