[OSGeo-Discuss] Tales from a Benevolent Dictator

Sat May 14 18:22:21 PDT 2016

Peter,

With regard to Rob's comments: I conclude that the various commentators have repeatedly pointed out that your line of reasoning is either based on a non-representative and even faulty sample of experiences/examples (eg Jeroen and Rob) or on the software's quality and popularity in certain circles (eg Rob) without clarifying that particular correlation to its project management.

In scientific terms that means your thesis/argument does not hold up. By the way, citing sources on quality still does not tell anything about above correlation, so spare yourself the effort. And comparing Rasdaman to other OSGeoprojects still makes it an odd-one-out, which no side-stepping the concerns raised can hide.

Effectively, we seem to be running in circles. But ..... we are not: all commentators have been quite inviting, but you still cannot convince them with true and relevant reasons. You have even resorted to calling at least me and (hopefully not too many) others along the way 'activists'. Wording that fits lesser democratic countries, organisations and political systems. If that gives an insight into the way you look at and treat stakeholders/community members with a different view from yours, then I fear you have shown our community your true 'colors'/face/intention....

That is not running in circles but straight into the abyss, somewhere in-between OSGeo and Eclipse/LocationTech and other natural allies, in an irrational and suicidal attempt ....... to achieve what exactly ????

Vriendelijke groet,
Marc Vloemans

> Op 14 mei 2016 om 15:00 heeft Rob Emanuele <rdemanuele at gmail.com> het volgende geschreven:
> 
> Hi Peter,
> 
> This is the second time I've heard you defend your position by simply saying the greatness of the project justifies whatever model you'd like for project governance, and mention some independent study that claims your software is "way faster" and "wins all benchmarks". These are bold, general and unqualified claims that I would greatly like to understand in a more detailed way. Please site your sources.
> 
> Best,
> Rob
> 
>> On May 14, 2016 5:43 AM, "Peter Baumann" <p.baumann at jacobs-university.de> wrote:
>> OpenHub knows 66 code contributors, and they do not even know (and list) all over time. Hence, cannot see anyone felt discouraged. Typical rasdaman contributors are interested in design by innovation and not design by committee, and that community spirit has made rasdaman a leading tool that wins all benchmarks over GeoServer, SPARK, etc.
>> -Peter
>> 
>> PS: suggesting a fork just because OSGeo follows a narrow principle that does not accommodate rasdaman makes me frown about the ideals behind :)
>> 
>> 
>>> On 05/12/2016 02:57 PM, Ian Turton wrote:
>>> I've been trying to stay out of the arguments about governance models because I prefer to write code than worry about licences or governance. But it may help if I share a some anecdotes (which is almost data) about a couple of FOSS projects that came out of academia when I was in charge. One of these you may well have heard of GeoTools, which forms the base library of GeoServer, UDig, GeoMesa and others, the other you may not know GeoVista Studio. 
>>> 
>>> Both these libraries started out as academic projects that solved a research problem, both were open sourced as a result of the university claiming all the intellectual property of it's staff for ever (so why not give it away?) in both cases I (and James Macgil) were benevolent dictators when the projects launched, it was a simple governance model that left us able to get on with coding and researching and meant that things went the way we wanted. GeoTools started to get some users and people started asking for bug fixes and new features etc while James & I had actual jobs to do and wanted to spend time with our families and go on holiday etc. So we got some more people involved such as TOPP and Refractions and we sort of lucked into a PSC and GeoTools went from strength to strength and now has a PSC that spans the globe (which makes meeting times hard to find but is otherwise awesome). In fact for a while GeoTools and GeoServer managed (or thrived) with no input from me or James at all. However GeoVISTA studio, only went open source grudgingly (the PI's didn't want to give up control really) and never really gained more than a few users because we didn't allow other people to influence the direction of development (after all the university/PI was paying for the development) and thus there were only ever two or three developers. As BD I had no real interest in attracting new users (previous experience had taught me that's hard work). Once James and then I moved on to other jobs development stopped (though apparently someone downloaded a copy last week).
>>> 
>>> I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions but my feeling is that to make the move from an academic to successful FOSS project you need to move from dictatorship to committee run projects. If nothing else it allows you some down time from running the project while never needing to give up having a say in the running.
>>> 
>>> Ian
>>> 
>>> 
>>> PS Some recent emails have tried to suggest that governance doesn't matter if you have forkability but I think that is a flawed view - but if it is true maybe we could just fork RASDAMAN and be done with the discussion? :-)
>>> -- 
>>> Ian Turton
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Discuss mailing list
>>> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>> 
>> -- 
>> Dr. Peter Baumann
>>  - Professor of Computer Science, Jacobs University Bremen
>>    www.faculty.jacobs-university.de/pbaumann
>>    mail: p.baumann at jacobs-university.de
>>    tel: +49-421-200-3178, fax: +49-421-200-493178
>>  - Executive Director, rasdaman GmbH Bremen (HRB 26793)
>>    www.rasdaman.com, mail: baumann at rasdaman.com
>>    tel: 0800-rasdaman, fax: 0800-rasdafax, mobile: +49-173-5837882
>> "Si forte in alienas manus oberraverit hec peregrina epistola incertis ventis dimissa, sed Deo commendata, precamur ut ei reddatur cui soli destinata, nec preripiat quisquam non sibi parata." (mail disclaimer, AD 1083)
>> 
>> 
>> 
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