[gdal-dev] Driver maintenance - long-term solution ?

[Paul Harwood]

+1 and more to Carl and Howard

That said, having been inside a FAANG I can understand that the contortions
that you have to go through just to get a "charity" payment approved in
terms of proving probity especially post SOX are enormous. I tried to get a
G-normous company to provide network support after the earthquake in Nepal.
It took a 5 minute call to VP to get a 6-figure budget and 6 months to find
a route to get the money or goods delivered! I was told at the time that
the lead time for getting a new not-for-profit organisation approved was 2
- 5 years! And don't even think of trying to get a payment for services
without a service description, PO and invoice from an approved supplier. It
is just physically impossible. They have huge resources in developer time
that they throw around at a moment's notices but exporting cash is
impossible.

I don't know the solution. The usual solution is an existing large,
US-based foundation that has existing dealings with the FAANGS that could
act as a conduit (perfectly legally).

On Wed, 13 Jan 2021 at 23:08, Carl Godkin <cgodkin at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> Regarding funding, I thought the barn raising that Howard mentioned from a
> few years ago was a good thing.  My little company made a donation and I
> think we'd do it again were another "barn" proposed.  Tools like GDAL &
> PROJ and related projects are worth supporting and periodic donations seem
> to be an easy way to pay our part.
>
> Thanks,
> carl
>
> On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 2:58 PM Howard Butler <howard at hobu.co> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Jan 13, 2021, at 4:28 PM, Nyall Dawson <nyall.dawson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, 14 Jan 2021 at 06:24, David Strip <gdal at stripfamily.net> wrote:
>>
>> What is the path forward?  One path Howard suggests is establishing a
>> foundation similar to that behind Qgis. Another alternative, probably far
>> more controversial, is a license change.
>>
>>
>> I'm pretty clueless regarding licenses -- but this is an interesting
>> thought. I wonder if any new drivers added to GDAL could be done with
>> a dual-licensing under both GPL + some other license which requires
>> ongoing sponsorship of the GDAL project?
>>
>>
>> License monkey business isn't viable in any way with GDAL. It would just
>> create confusion and erode trust, which we can't get back if broken.
>>
>> The big organizations running 100,000,000s of CPU hours extracting
>> information from imagery they're reading in COGs with GDAL need to be
>> donating substantial resources into an organization that provides
>> coordination. The last time I did a fund raise with gdalbarn.com I was
>> called out for naming some of these organizations and expressing my
>> disappointment they couldn't find a way to participate or simply ignored
>> the request.  Maybe they will step forward this time around.
>>
>> Whether it is in a new foundation or an existing one like NumFocus,
>> substantial resources need to be dumped in a pot that are earmarked for
>> supporting work that generates value for the project. Chasing new
>> feature work to subsidize project maintenance activities is not sustainable
>> in two directions – burn out for the maintainer and creeping feature-itis
>> for the project.
>>
>> It's clear what's happened in the past is a combination of luck and
>> graciousness by both Frank and Even.
>>
>> Howard
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