Re: [Board] Binaries Packaging - A Strategic Investment

[seven@arnulf.us]

Tim, 
you are a regular in asking to spend money on development instead of other things. If I would understand *how* to exactly do that I can imagine supporting your suggestion. Maybe you can share some concrete ideas?

Just as background information, we have a similar dialog going on in the German speaking Local Chapter. We are in the comfortable situation here to have to spend €15k surplus because charitable orgs should not carry over too much cash. It is a nice problem to have but during the conversation in the lists it became apparent pretty soon that most are against spending money on projects directly because it is such a slippery slope to decide which, how much, who receives the funds and how to measure success. So the current idea is to sponsor Code Sprint events open to all projects including OSM. 

I would be interested in hearing if you have more concrete ideas. 

Cheers, 
Arnulf

--
Arnulf Christl (aka Seven)
http://arnulf.us

----- Reply message -----
From: "Tim Schaub" <tschaub at opengeo.org>
To: "Frank Warmerdam" <warmerdam at pobox.com>
Cc: "Alan Boudreault" <aboudreault at mapgears.com>, "osgeo4w-dev" <osgeo4w-dev at lists.osgeo.org>, <ubuntu at lists.osgeo.org>, "OSGeo-Board" <board at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: [Board] Binaries Packaging - A Strategic Investment
Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2012 17:51


How would you prioritize having the foundation spend money on
packaging/distributing software compared to developing software?

I'd much rather see the foundation spend money supporting development,
but I understand the other perspective.  I'd be curious to hear how
foundation sponsors imagine their money being best put to use.  I
imagine project sponsors might have a different set of priorities.

Tim

On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 12:04 AM, Frank Warmerdam <warmerdam at pobox.com> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> I've mentioned this before, and I don't have anything surprising to add now.
> I just wanted to bump this topic.
>
> I believe that producing good quality integrated distributions of OSGeo
> binary software for a major user platforms is strategically important for
> OSGeo and would be worth an investment of moderate amounts of money to
> promote.
>
> For me two packaging efforts stick out, though I might be biased.
>
> 1) OSGeo4W - I think the Windows environment is (still?) very important and
> OSGeo4W is a credible community effort to satisfy it that could benefit
> from more involvement, polish and a broader package set.
>
> 2) Debian/Ubuntu/LiveDVD - I believe that Ubuntu is today the dominant
> desktop/server linux system and that the packaging efforts of the DebianGIS,
> UbuntuGIS and LiveDVD groups build on one another and provide high impact.
>
> If board members or community members see high impact and reasonably
> priced opportunities to extend these efforts with OSGeo money I hope
> they will come forward with them.  I'd also like to see us do more on the
> OSGeo web site, with case studies, etc to promote these package suites
> in a manner appropriate to their level of readiness.
>
> I also think the MacOS environment is very important but I'm not entirely
> clear on the best way of addressing that.  Good ideas on this aspect are
> also welcome.
>
> Best regards,
> --
> ---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
> I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam,
> warmerdam at pobox.com
> light and sound - activate the windows | http://home.gdal.org/warmerda
> and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Software Developer
>
> _______________________________________________
> Board mailing list
> Board at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board



-- 
Tim Schaub
OpenGeo http://opengeo.org/
Expert service straight from the developers.
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