[OSGeo-Discuss] Abstract, please look at.

[Jeroen Ticheler]

Yes! Very good idea!

I think what is often seen is that very interesting, custom code is  
written to demonstrate/ proof new concepts. The next step, to get  
these to use in the 'real world' is often missing. Its I think much  
related to the fact that the interesting part of the work was  
completed: The research part. But the next step of getting that code  
into real world applications is not considered (a priority) and thus  
code ends up nowhere.

OSGEO can have its role in getting researchers/ research projects to  
make the next step: ensure the results & code end up in the core of  
the appropriate OSGEO software. Maybe these can be in the form of  
guidelines provided to researchers when setting up there research,  
maybe it can be in the form money that allows a researcher to work on  
just that next step.

I have seen great work coming out of research projects that were  
presented to us with the interest of collaboration, but also faced  
the very difficult problem that followed: the lack of a working  
mechanism to get these results into the operational systems we work  
with. Many of these are related to Remote Sensing products that could/ 
should be operational products to be of use in our early warning  
systems. Often the products presented are pieces of 'research art'  
that really need more work to become practical operational products.  
Code to generate these is often unsuitable for operational use while  
it could be of tremendous value if it was!

OK, my 2cts for now.

Jeroen
_______________________
Jeroen Ticheler
FAO-UN
Tel: +39 06 57056041
http://www.fao.org/geonetwork
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On 22 Feb 2006, at 18:17, Frank Warmerdam wrote:

> Chris Holmes wrote:
>
>> Eventually I think I would really like to see an 'academic'  
>> committee, focused more on getting academics and indeed students  
>> to use and contribute to open source.  I see this as different  
>> from the core curriculum stuff, which I also think is vitally  
>> important.  But whereas that's focused on using the OS tools to  
>> teach, this would be more oriented towards getting those working  
>> in academia involved in the whole open source process.  The most  
>> obvious is academics doing bleeding edge work, get them to not  
>> only use OS packages, but lay out the mechanisms for them to roll  
>> back their changes in.  Lots of code just gets thrown away, and  
>> some of it can be very useful in the OS world.  The other is to  
>> encourage 'students' to see themselves as potential contributors.  
>> Many see their work as not 'real' until they get in to a paying  
>> job, when in reality they do some of the best work.  Ideally we  
>> could capture some of that energy for open source.
>>
>
> Chris,
>
> I completely agree!  I think Prof. Ari Jolma was asking about ways of
> better connecting university research work and open source projects
> a number of months ago on one of the mailing lists.  Basically, how to
> setup research projects with open source in a way that the research  
> work
> gets disseminated and put to "real world" use if it goes reasonably  
> well.
>
> /me seaches through over 100 threads in his in-box that mention Ari  
> Jolma.
>
> Aha, here it is:
>
>   http://intevation.de/pipermail/freegis-list/2005-August/002463.html
>
> 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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