[gdal-dev] Adding a "Commercial support" section on gdal.org ?

[Even Rouault]

Hi,

I'm wondering if there would be a concensus and interest to add a "Commercial 
support" section on gdal.org. A number of OSGeo projects have such page (see 
[1]), so that wouldn't be completely awkward to have one for GDAL as well.

The OSGeo Service provider database reference 137 companies/individuals that 
have registered themselves as providing GDAL support ([2]) ! Pretty cool, but 
I'm wondering how a user not familiar with the project could effectively use 
that list to identify core contributors from casual advanced users.

If we agree for adding a "Commercial support" section, the question is : on 
which criteria do we accept an organization/individual to be listed in the 
section ? We would want them to be as most objective and non debatable as 
possible.
A simple criterion could be anyone who has commit rights (in trunk, not just 
in a sandbox or customer branch). There are currently 56 SVN committers. That 
could be strengthened with a minimum number of commits/lines changed during a 
period, but we perhaps don't need that level of complexity. 
We could possibly also extend that to entities that provide public support to 
users through gdal-dev or other public forums (gis.stackexchange, others?).
Other suggestions ?

Should we distinguish several categories of actors ?
- QGIS makes a division between "Core contributors" vs "Contributors". 
GeoServer has "Core contributors", "Experienced providers" and "Additional 
services" (the last one is populated on service provider request).
- On the other side, deegree, Geomoose or Geotools simply list them in a 
single section.
The answer likely depends on the number of organizations that would be listed 
(I guess below 10 we don't need much structure). The difficulty here would be to 
establish the categories and criteria.

So, could entities interested in being listed reply to this email so we can 
have a better idea of how many would be listed, and if we need more stricter 
criteria or several categories ?
As far as I'm concerned, Spatialys would be interested.

Best regards,

Even

[1] Non exhaustive list of OSGeo projects with a commercial support section :
http://geoserver.org/support/
http://www.geomoose.org/info/commercial_support.html
http://docs.geotools.org/latest/userguide/welcome/support.html
http://wiki.deegree.org/deegreeWiki/GettingSupport
http://qgis.org/en/site/forusers/commercial_support.html

[2] OSGeo Service Provider catalog with entities declaring GDAL expertise :
http://www.osgeo.org/search_profile?SET=1&MUL_TECH[]=00013

-- 
Spatialys - Geospatial professional services
http://www.spatialys.com