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

[Stephen Woodbridge]

So reading through this thread, my cynical side agrees with the "this 
project is dying from lack of funding, ..." approach, but I'm not sure 
that works for the long run as people get tired of hear the "sky is 
falling" and ignore it over time.

A different approach could be something along the lines of what AARP 
does, to get it members to email congress representative to lobby for 
support. OK, this might sound crazy and it would require some 
coordination but might work like this:

1) we get government agencies that use GDAL and more broadly OSGeo push 
up the chain of command the need to support opensource projects and the 
current issues in doing so
2) we put a support web page the allows community members and public to 
email a form letter to their congress people explaining that a large 
number of government agencies (probably need a list of them) need and 
use opensource software but are not able to support the development or 
maintenance of. This is a critical issue around the US being a leader in 
opensource development. If this software becomes unavailable or 
unsupported that it puts these agencies at risk, blah, blah, blah

Apologies to reads in other countries that disagree with the statements 
above, this is an appeal to US congress, so its slanted in their 
direction. No offense is meant here.

Likewise, this could be done in other regions/countries that rely on 
this software.

Commercial companies spend money on lobbying and sales calls so maybe we 
need to find a strategy that works for opensource.

Anyway, it's an idea, maybe it's not workable because we don't have 
funding to put something like this in place or people don't think it is 
of value. I don't think this should be done at the GDAL level, but maybe 
at OSGeo and maybe in coordination with other opensource organizations. 
So just putting another idea out there.

-Steve W