[geos-devel] Re: [Incubator] Motion: GEOS to Graduate Incubation

[Frank Warmerdam]

On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 2:40 PM, Cameron Shorter
<cameron.shorter at gmail.com> wrote:
> Frank,
> Before we pass Geos through incubation, could you please point us at answers
> to the Incubation checklist:

Good point!

> Current version here:
> http://www.osgeo.org/incubator/process/project_graduation_checklist.html
>
> Although I think it would be better to make use of the new 2.0 version of
> the checklist which I think Jody is about to get approved.
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Draft_Project_Graduation_Checklist_Draft

Let me try to address the draft checklist.

Open:

The code is under an open source license (LGPL).
Communication is done via the open mailing list and Trac.
Decision making is open, on the list, though my concern is that the
project hasn't really had contentious decisions to make so I'm not
fully confident in the maturity of the project in making tough decisions.
But I am not concerned about it being too closed.

Active and healthy community:

The developers and users are cooperative and open.

I am concerned about the size of the developer community, though there
are multiple contributors from different organizations so I think this is ok.


Copyright and License:

1. Again, the code is under an open source license.
2. I believe the API documentation is under LGPL by virtue of being
derived from the source files.  There is relatively little other
documentation.
3. The code is properly vetted as part of the provenence review.
4. I do not believe the project keeps a list of copyright holders
identified in the provenance review, and now that I come on this item
in the checklist I question it's appropriateness.  We do not normally
expect projects to keep a list of copyright holders.
5. The commiters have agreed to the license policy.  I'm not sure
about this agreement being archived.  I see this is archived for Chuck
Thibert, but seemingly not for Steven Wong.

Processes:

1. The code is under svn.
2. The project uses Trac.
3. The project has RFCs covering the PSC and committer guidelines.  A
bit light I must admit.

Release Procedure:

1. The project does not have a codified release procedure.  It does
have established practice which involves beta's and RCs for review,
and a vote before the release is finalized.
2.  The project has a significant regression test ("make check").
3. The processes are not documented though they are part of the
project culture.

Board:

A person has not yet been identified to be the project officer.  I
would suggest the person be Sandro Santilli, and I will discuss this
with the project now.

Marketing:

The project lacks a "quickstart" page or an "application overview" or
a one page flier.  I'm not sure quickstart is applicable since the
project does not have any user facing tools, but at least an overview
is desirable.

The project is included in most binary distributions including OSGeo
Live, UbuntuGIS, and OSGeo4W.

Projects:

The GEOS project has good links to GDAL/OGR, PostGIS, Ingres, and
MapServer projects primarily in the form of common developers.

SAC:

The project is hosted at OSGeo, in the geos.osgeo.org domain and makes
good use of SAC support.


I would note I had imagined the check list being something that the
mentor would review before recommending a project for graduation, and
that incubation committee members would take into account when voting.
 I was not expecting that a detailed report against the items would be
expected from the mentor or project.

> Of note (from the new checklist), I think that Geos should be addressing the
> Marketing criteria from the new checklist, which would include creating a
> Project Overview for Geos:
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Draft_Project_Graduation_Checklist_Draft#Marketing

Agreed, this is a deficiency worth rectifying.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Software Developer