[Board] mapfish project status

Mon Nov 25 06:24:07 PST 2019

Thank you for this insight Emmanuel. It clarifies a lot (at least to me).

Projects evolve and mature, that's a natural process.Developers come
and go and the PSC should be renewed too if a person gets too
disconnected from the project. We have seen this happening on other
projects, it is no surprise. And although it is hard to let go a
project you consider your own, it is something we all should do at
some point.

If current PSC wants to get involved again with the project, that's a
good option. If current members of the PSC think they are no longer
connected with the newer developments, I think it makes sense to renew
the PSC with active people and check again the status of the project.
Maybe even go through incubation again, to make sure we didn't lose
anything on this process? We can look at this as a new project, if
that could make things easier. Most of the check points should be
completed already.

If OSGeo Board is shaking the tree to check if we should remove (or
not) some projects is just because we have been lacking a proper
follow up on projects. So projects that didn't make an explicit effort
to reach OSGeo kind of felt into oblivion. A lesson we have learned:
we have to be more proactive asking for feedback to make sure projects
don't die or "evolve too far from us".This evolution could have been
followed up by the Board making the transition inside OSGeo smoother.
Not sure if that's possible at this stage? I have been never very
close to Mapfish community to comment on something only the community
can tell.

Cheers!
María.

On Mon, Nov 25, 2019 at 2:08 PM Emmanuel Belo
<emmanuel.belo at camptocamp.com> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
> I'd like to add some information in preparation for the OSGeo meeting.
>
> MapFish has multiple tribes: the python one, a PHP one as well as a Ruby on Rails one. With time and experience, the python tribe (developers and the users community) identified some shortcomings in the technical architecture and decided to rewrite the mapfish python part to make it easier to implement rich webgis applications. It has been implemented without coordination with the other tribes in a new version, lead by Eric Lemoine (MapFish PSC Chair), Brunot BInet (MapFish PSC member) and many others from the MapFish community contributors, [2] like Alexandre Saunier, Yves Bolognini, Frédéric Junod, Pierre Giraud and others.  So the development team is the same, as the one that participated to the incubation process for the python and the front end part.
>
> Comparing the obsolete mapfish description with the geomapfish one tells us, the same goal is pursued:
>
> mapfish.org:  "MapFish is a flexible and complete framework for building rich web-mapping applications."
> geomapfish.org: "GeoMapFish allows to build rich and extensible WebGIS in an easy and flexible way."
>
>
> On the technology side, the implementation team kept the same frameworks they worked on in the previous version: pylons, geoalchemy, etc on the server side, and geoext on the client side.
>
> The Python tribes users base is the same, with users migrating to this new version. the community grew as this new implementation has been successful.
>
> As time passes, some developers moved on and others joined. The python implementation and the front end side are well maintained. It welcomes contributions and receives some, having on the backend 6 organisations contributing to it and 10 organisations contributing to the front end.
>
> I see no kindness in some past members saying the project should be removed from the OSGEO and see no advantage for the community doing so. It's right, the architecture is no longer exactly the same, but the project goal, the community and the frameworks are the same.
>
> I think the current issue we face is having an updated PSC reflecting current engagements in the community and being ready to update all related material. How should a retired PSC team act when developers work on the project and make it thrive, without their implications? I think it would be time for the PSC to resign and acknowledge, the community is de facto lead be a new generation of developers. Doing so, the osgeo could organize the nomination of  a new PSC, granting the community committers the voting rights.
>
> Best regards
>
> Emmanuel
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [1] https://github.com/mapfish/mapfish/wiki/Community_PSC
> [2] https://github.com/mapfish/mapfish/wiki/Community_Committers
> [3] https://github.com/camptocamp/c2cgeoportal/graphs/contributors
> [4] https://github.com/camptocamp/ngeo/graphs/contributors
>
>
> On Tue, 19 Nov 2019 at 01:02, Jody Garnett <jody.garnett at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Earlier this year we places several osgeo projects that were not communicating (or no longer meeting osgeo expectations) into the OSGeo community program.
>>
>> One project that asked for some more time was mapfish:
>>
>> * The mapfish.orghttp://www.mapfish.org/ website uses the old logo and documents MapFish 2.2 released in 2016
>> * The osgeo project page was never filled in https://www.osgeo.org/projects/mapfish/ (1)
>>
>> The good news is that the the project is very much alive, has a new GeoMapFish name, website, code base, and a new development team (indeed I am not sure if any current members took part in the incubation process).
>>
>> On the bright side Emmanuel and the MapFisk PSC produced a page for the AGM (slide 59) which is great and really improves communication.
>>
>> My question though is simple - should we remove MapFish as an OSGeo project, and invite GeoMapFish to apply to the OSGeo Community program, or should we ask this PSC to quick march this project through the incubation checklist requirements to preserve continuity?
>>
>> Emmanuel would you be able to attend the board meeting to provide an update on this project? If you need help setting up osgeo project page we are happy to do so on the incubation email list.
>> --
>> Jody Garnett
>>
>> (1) Wishing to recommend mapfish today and finding this page is what promoted this email
>
>
>
> --
> Emmanuel Belo
> Camptocamp
>
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