[GRASS5] Project Steering Committee voting

[Hamish]

> One approach that GeoTools uses is they have an area in source control
> they call "the spike" (I think).  Which is basically an experimental
> area that folks can freely work on new and radical stuff without
> affecting the baseline source tree.  For GRASS it is easy to imagine
> such an area for new experimental contributed programs.

I think the idea of a semi-public (low barrier to entry) sandbox outside
the main CVS is a good one. The wiki addons are nice, but not really
collaborative. e.g. this would be useful for the final development of
v.in.gpsbabel and probably r.li (I'm not familiar with the r.li module,
but it seems like a good candidate from what I've heard). The unready
modules don't clutter the main .tar.gz package and lower the overall
"finish" of the main distribution while they are still maturing.

I think this will have to wait until we have moved the CVS to SVN:

1) fine-grain access to the semi-public repository is needed
2) There will probably lots of directories coming and going through
time. CVS is just too messy leaving old removed directories behind.

Another problem is someone will have to do the merge work once the
module is ready (but we already have to do that..). The PSC sounds like
a good channel for giving a new module the thumbs-up for inclusion in
the main release. The sponsors take on the responsibility to check that
it is merged correctly (if they don't just do it themselves).

Call it the experimental or contrib area, doesn't matter to me.

Coordination with the G.E.M.: Recommend that GEM integration be the
prefered checkin structure for the experimental section. This could
be finished while the module was already uploaded to the experimental
section.

> How to use such a thing for library changes is less obvious.

Agreed.


Hamish