[OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo is becoming irrelevant. Here's why. Let's fix it.

[Jody Garnett]

> From my perspective, having Orfeo ToolBox as an incubating project
> definitively helped us to move in the right direction. I am not saying that
> it would not have occured without OSGeo, but the organization gives the
> momentum and defines the standards to reach. As such, it is useful and
> somehow efficient. The fact that the process is long is mostly on the
> project side in our case.
>

Thanks for the vote of confidence for incubation, I just need a way to
encourage projects "graduate" :)

>
> I think that the Github move is hazardous. Sure, it is easy, free for
> open-source projects, and really really cool. Granted, it helps a lot in
> getting fluid contributions to open-source projects. But ... in two years,
> they may start shipping sponsors links at the end of the Readme files, and
> in a moments notice you have to watch 20 seconds ads before cloning. At
> this point, you will want to bail out, only to find out that in fact you
> can not, because you can not delete the project anymore, or the issue
> tracker database can not be exported ...
>

Not much of a problem here, since git means each developer has a copy of
the whole project. I know we had the same story with SourceForge ...

My point is, OSGeo should care about long-term protection of GIS
> open-source, and if this goal aligns for now with services that Github
> provides, it may no longer be the case in the future .Of course we need to
> be on Github: it is a public place to be, like twitter & co. But completely
> giving up code hosting and developers exchanges to a private company is the
> opposite of what I think the organization should do.
>

I am a bit indifferent here, I would much rather reach out to the
developers where they are. And I expect that to change over time.

I know proper hosting services requires time and money, I do not have the
> solution to that, but for me OSGeo should provide a sustainable
> alternative, up-to-date and tailored for its purpose.
>

Apache and Eclipse offers these kind of services. Still the pull of chasing
developers where they are ensures each project is at least shadowed on
GitHub. Indeed LocationTech has been very responsive in gradually allowing
projects to make use of GitHub first. In this case OSGeo's approach seems
more responsive to projects desires.

Thanks Julien!
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