[OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting new projects

[Dave Patton]

Paul Spencer wrote:
> I'd like to open a discussion on how OSGeo is (or is not) supporting 
> brand new projects.

> While at the FOSS4G 2007 conference (awesome job Paul R. and gang), a 
> number of new people (new to the conference and/or to me) approached me 
> to demonstrate their particular projects and ask how to make them Open 
> Source.

> Our current incubation process favours established projects,

> For folks already established in OS and OSGeo, we have established 
> communities around ourselves that can be used to attract people to new 
> projects that we are spawning - Fusion, for instance.  For others, 
> though, there is no such place to launch a new project and to try to 
> build the community of users and developers required to build a 
> project.  They have no clue where to start.

> What do others think about this?  Should OSGeo be in the business of 
> helping new OSGeo projects get off the ground?

I was away after FOSS4G2007 ended, and have just now
read through all the responses in this thread.

If you read Paul's original email, or the above condensed
version, I think many of the responses make sense, including
the creation of the Labs wiki page.

However, I'm not sure the issue has been properly addressed.

"They have no clue where to start".
That's in the same paragraph where 'community' is mentioned
more than once.

In a reply to Howard's email, Paul said:
"What I am concerned with is people who have a great idea but
don't know what to do with it, or how one goes about establishing
a viable community. The people that I spoke with last week didn't
know how to get started".

I think the answer to someone who "doesn't know where to start"
should be "Join the OSGeo community - here's how to do that...".

Maybe there should be a new wiki page that such people can be
pointed to. That page, and the existing Labs wiki page, should
both be in the same wiki Category. The new page could certainly
reference the Labs page, as some people may be part of a project
community that wants to move towards incubation, but I didn't get
the sense from Paul's original email that is necessarily where
some of the people he spoke to should be starting. They maybe
just need to join OSGeo, and this mailing list, introduce
themselves and their idea/project, and ask the existing community
what their next step(s) should be.

-- 
Dave Patton

Degree Confluence Project:
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http://www.confluence.org/

FOSS4G2007:
Workshop Committee
Conference Committee
http://www.foss4g2007.org/

Personal website:
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http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/