[OSGeo-Discuss] Open Location Services

[P Kishor]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 3:47 AM, Cameron Shorter
<cameron.shorter at gmail.com> wrote:
> P Kishor wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 1:26 PM, Cameron Shorter
>> <cameron.shorter at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> David,
>>> LISAsoft has a java implementation of OpenLS which we would like to Open
>>> Source if we can find a sponsor to cover our packaging costs.
>>>
>>
>> What kind of costs are "packaging costs," and what do they amount to
>> generally, and for OpenLS, more specifically?
>>
>
> P Kishor,
> As you are probably aware, just dumping code into sourceforge is not an
> effective way to start a successful Open Source project.
> There needs to be suitable  technical documentation, development processes
> documentation, web pages set up, issue trackers put in place, access writes
> granted to developers, and then have at least one champion sit on email
> lists supporting new users.
> That is what I consider "packaging costs".

The above makes sense, but honestly, I had never heard of this until
now, and I have been tinkering with open source for almost a decade
now. Most open source projects seemed organic to me. Someone had an
itch, they scratched it, they put it out, and the project either
gathered traction, or it died. Seems like my scholarship of open
source has been lacking in this aspect hugely.

I wonder if I can find out the "packaging costs" of other projects,
for example, what was the packaging cost for MapServer, or GeoServer,
or OpenLayers, or Perl/Python, etc.

Is this routine practice, or is this a consideration only when a
private company wants to put its code into open source? If the
packaging costs are a consideration in the latter case, does anyone
know if there were packaging costs involved when Autodesk converted
MapGuide to open source? If yes, how much were they? If Autodesk
didn't get paid for it, but instead, did a writedown of some sort on
their balance sheet, I wonder if I could be privy to that information?

Another question -- if you don't put the code into open source, are
you somehow recouping this cost? In other words, does putting the code
into open source have any opportunity costs? Asked another way, if you
did just "dump the code into sourceforge," besides the potentially
legitimate worry that the project might just die, would you incur any
other cost?


>
> If there is a serious desire, and potential sponsor for this functionality,
> then I can talk with the team and work out the costs of Open Sourcing. (I'll
> also need to put together a business case to our management for the value we
> gain from Open Sourcing over Closed Source for this product), but I'll take
> that on separately.
>
> If you have a potential sponsor for this activity, please let me know, and
> we can look into it further.
>

No, I don't have any sponsor. I am a rather indigent
academic/developer/activist with barely funds to keep myself afloat. I
am, however, still very curious about the magnitude of these
"packaging" costs. What are we talking about here? A few hundred, a
few thousand, a few tens of thousands, say, Euros (considering even
Kanye West doesn't want greenbacks anymore). You say above, "we can
look into it further." Does that imply that you haven't yet calculated
these packaging costs, but have a sense that they might be
substantial?

At the very least, because of this thread, I have now been made aware
of a potential aspect of open source about which I had absolutely no
idea until now.


> --
> Cameron Shorter
> Geospatial Systems Architect
> Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
> Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
>
> Think Globally, Fix Locally
> Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
> http://www.lisasoft.com
>
>



-- 
Puneet Kishor http://www.punkish.org
Carbon Model http://carbonmodel.org
Charter Member, Open Source Geospatial Foundation http://www.osgeo.org
Science Commons Fellow, http://sciencecommons.org/about/whoweare/kishor
Nelson Institute, UW-Madison http://www.nelson.wisc.edu
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