[OSGeo-Discuss] Incubator Sponsor idea.

Fri Sep 12 13:41:03 PDT 2008

For young projects that are not ready for incubation we have previously 
set up:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Labs

For the rest of this topic, I think we should go back to the principles 
of OSGeo and what makes it effective.

OSGeo (like Ubuntu) promotes the "best of breed" GeoFOSS software. It 
helps focus users, and developers behind the best products, rather than 
splitting energy thinly across many products.

And one of the key components for a successful project is to have a 
healthy community behind it so that it will continue when the key 
sponsor moves on. I don't think a meta project of unrelated small 
projects provides such a community because the developers from one small 
project won't necessarily be interested or skilled in the other projects.

The Openlayers/Geotools model of sponsoring smaller project does work 
because there (hopefully) should be the interest and skill sharing 
between the projects.

Stephen Woodbridge wrote:
> An other thought on this might be a some kind of OSGeo "contrib" 
> project that is more focused on collecting projects likes Bob's into a 
> common repository with the hope that making these public might allow 
> some of them to spin-off into full blown OSGeo projects if there is 
> enough interest and community need for it.
>
> This would not give the code OSGeo stamp of approval, but would just 
> be a holding place for potentially interesting code related to other 
> OSGeo projects that people might want to be able access and helps to 
> prevent potential gems from getting lost.
>
> My guess is that it would still need some kind of PSC to decide what 
> is the gate to let things in and to make sure that the basic minimal 
> stuff required for entrance is done and to encourge others to pick and 
> run with ideas and spin-offs of the code being held. Something like 
> this would need to minimally have any code contributed assign its 
> copyright to OSGeo and state that it was infringement free or 
> something like that.
>
> Something to think about.
>
> -Steve W
>
> Bob Basques wrote:
>>
>> Jody,
>>  
>> I was thinking about a bit more separation in functionality than you 
>> describe, but it seems like the same process could work.
>>  
>> I guess I'm trying to figure out a way to let smaller projects in the 
>> door, and let the mainstay project leaders decide if the smaller 
>> projects have enough merit to nurture further or not.
>>  
>> I have  a few different things I've put together that use MapServer 
>> as a service, but they are all seemingly small project.  As an 
>> example, I have a Raster distribution service based on MapServer that 
>> we use to populate our engineering AutoCAD sessions, it's really just 
>> some specialized scripting in the AutoCAD instance, but I'm sure 
>> there are folks out there that would re-use if I put it out as a 
>> project.  I would just barely have the time to put together a basic 
>> how-to for something like this and publish it, but it wouldn't get 
>> much in the way of support focus because of my own time constraints.  
>> I have something similar for Google ion the Works, as well as 
>> Sketchup sessions.  These smaller projects have all had great success 
>> here internally, and are all built as standalone services so they can 
>> be mixed and matched as the business needs require.
>>  
>> Some might argue that they are all one thing, while other might want 
>> them to remain separated.  Anyway, just some more thoughts on the 
>> subject.
>>  
>> bobb
>>  
>>
>>
>>  >>> Jody Garnett <jgarnett at refractions.net> wrote:
>> Hi Bob; you will find that a few of the open source projects nurture new
>> talent this way.
>>
>> The GeoTools library has the facilities in place to allow new developers
>> to come online and start an "unsupported" module with the support of the
>> community. Each module in GeoTools is an entire project (often making
>> use of the same interfaces and so forth).  When a module meets the QA
>> requirements it can be included in the GeoTools download for the general
>> public.
>>
>> Is this what you had in mind?
>>
>> I understand that some something similar to Jakarta is often requested
>> from the OSGeo foundation. Thus far the incubation committee has been
>> really focused on getting existing projects through our incubation
>> process (and defining what the expectations are for such projects).
>>
>> Jody
>>
>> Bob Basques wrote:
>>  > All,
>>  > I have a question about a possible way to get some smaller projects
>>  > into the system without the requirements of going full bore (as I
>>  > perceive it now)  I'm not really targeting any project per se at this
>>  > point, but . . .
>>  >  > What about have a "Super" project that can act as a sponsor for a
>>  > smaller project.  When I say smaller, I mean where there might 
>> only be
>>  > one, two or three developers.  The end result being that the "Super"
>>  > project basically vouches for the smaller project in some fashion for
>>  > it to get some sort of OSGEO stamp applied to it.   This could
>>  > possibly be a criteria where some of the established vetting is
>>  > handled via a voucher system, where other "Super" projects can add
>>  > their credentials to the mix over time.
>>  >  > Just a thought, still a little muddled too, but it seems like 
>> there
>>  > might be something workable in the concept.  Any other thoughts?
>>  >  > bobb
>>  >  >  > 
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