<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
As Frank wrote, this is a slippery issue. Personally I could be
comfortable with anything from self-registration to the highly
selective approach described by Frank. To me, the important issue is
making clear to a reader of the list what exactly the list means and
how to use that to interpret the skills of those on the list. <br>
<br>
One way to use this list is as a reward to significant contributors
to project. This would tend to point to those most familiar with the
internals of the project, as well as having a broad commitment to
the project and the notion of an open source community. Of course
this requires a voting process, presumably by the PSC, which can be
burdensome and stressful, as Frank notes. While I have found this
project community to be generally welcoming, open source projects
somewhat deservedly have a reputation for being insular and hard to
crack. (For a great read, check out <a
href="http://www.infoworld.com/t/open-source-software/how-crack-open-source-community-248352?source=IFWNLE_nlt_stradev_2014-08-19">this
article.</a> Worth reading just for a remarkably intolerant
response from Linus Torvalds on the merits of C++). A vetted list of
names carries an implied endorsement, which is valuable to the
reader, but carries a risk for the committee that chooses the list.
(I'm not talking risk in the legal sense, though that could occur, I
suppose. More the reflection on how the community chooses who to
include or exclude.)<br>
<br>
As the other extreme, we allow anyone to register and hopefully
provide some guidance in how to choose amongst them. For example,
suggest that people search the archives of this mailing list to see
how often the consultant participates. Put a star next to names who
have commit privileges, perhaps the date the achieved this status,
so you can tell how long they've been active. There are many ways to
objectively identify the stronger contributors while remaining open.
I am tempted to suggest even allowing endorsements, but policing
that against spam, abuse, fraud is probably more work than it's
worth.<br>
<br>
My choice leans to an open list of self-registrants with some <i>objective</i>
measures of their participation, but I'll probably be content with
whatever the community decides.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 8/21/2014 11:02 AM, Frank Warmerdam wrote:
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Folks,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>This is a somewhat sticky area, which is why I started just
with just the self-registration mechanism on the OSGeo site in
the past.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>A scenario that I could support would be a section somewhat
like the <a href="http://postgis.net">postgis.net</a> support
list where being added to it needs to be voted on by the PSC.
My criteria as a PSC member would be:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div> - The organization has made significant contributions to
the project (in code, docs, etc)</div>
<div> - The organization has staff that I personally know to be
competent GDAL/OGR developers. </div>
<div>
<br>
</div>
<div>It is a slippery sort of thing of course. Subjective, and
I would hate to be in the situation where I'm having to vote
against an addition. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>If we were to pursue this I actually think an RFC with an
initial list of entries, and some general principles would be
appropriate (though additions wouldn't need an RFC - just a
up/down vote).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>My perspective when consulting was that being active on the
mailing list, and noting in my email signature that I was
available for consulting was enough to give me some profile
with those looking for someone.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>PS. as happy customer of Even's (at Planet Labs) I can
strongly endorse him as a consultant!</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best regards,</div>
<div>Frank</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>