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

[Gerald Nelson]

How does linux development get funded?

Gerald C. Nelson
Professor Emeritus, UIUC
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From: gdal-dev <gdal-dev-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> on behalf of Paul Harwood <runette at gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, January 13, 2021 at 4:47 PM
To: Carl Godkin <cgodkin at gmail.com>
Cc: "gdal-dev at lists.osgeo.org" <gdal-dev at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [gdal-dev] Driver maintenance - long-term solution ?

+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<mailto: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<mailto:howard at hobu.co>> wrote:



On Jan 13, 2021, at 4:28 PM, Nyall Dawson <nyall.dawson at gmail.com<mailto:nyall.dawson at gmail.com>> wrote:

On Thu, 14 Jan 2021 at 06:24, David Strip <gdal at stripfamily.net<mailto: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<http://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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