[Incubator] seang on "How Rigorous is OSGeo Software Incubation?"

[Chris Holmes]

I was under the impression that mapbender has quite a few outside 
contributors?  Is that wrong?  Looking here: 
http://www.mapbender.org/index.php/Mapbender_PSC I see developers from 
terrestris, kartago, and at least one or two freelancers.

As for Bug Tracking, I was -1 on graduating mb because of that, but was 
assured that it was in the works.  And indeed went to -0 or maybe +0 
only because I didn't have the time to set up a nice JIRA install for 
them to start pounding on, as I only like to vote -1 when I can help out 
with the solution.  But I suppose incubation may be a bit different, 
that we should feel a bit more comfortable putting the onus on the 
projects wanting to graduate.

I actually think GeoTools is probably going to stay in incubation for 
awhile, since we want to feel a concrete improvement, mostly with regard 
to docs and new users, before we get more people looking at it.

Chris

Paul Spencer wrote:
> As usual, Sean has clearly and concisely stated his case.  From my 
> reading, there are three specific things that he is suggesting that we 
> address:
> 
> 1) it is implied that all 8 original projects will graduate
> 
> I agree that it is assumed that all the projects will graduate.  I think 
> this is actually built into the process of accepting any project into 
> incubation.  By design, we only accept projects that we think have a 
> reasonable chance of graduating.  Should it be otherwise?  Is this 
> actually a critical flaw?
> 
> 2) bug tracking
> 
> agreed and this probably should have stopped graduation.  I like 
> Cameron's input on the 6 month timeframe ... so if a project has to 
> implement a new process to adhere to the "OSGeo Way", we should allow 
> that process a minimum of 6 months to mature.
> 
> For this item specifically, I think it would be useful to expand some of 
> the official documentation with some of the text in Sean's blog to 
> justify a more rigid requirement on bug tracking.
> 
> 3) social health
> 
> In the specific case of GDAL, we should probably apply the above rule 
> and wait about 6 months to see if the new PSC actually starts to work.  
> One of my comments in the status report was that I had not really had a 
> chance to see the PSC in action, and this 'rule of thumb' would 
> certainly address that.
> 
> I don't have a specific proposal to put forward to the IncCom yet, but 
> it seems that we should tighten up the incubation process to include
> 
> - more rigourous requirements for bug tracking (update documentation 
> accordingly)
> - a minimum maturation time of X months for new processes implemented as 
> part of meeting the OSGeo way (i.e. implementing a PSC or bug tracking)
> 
> I'd like to see some feedback from other IncCom folks too.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Paul
> 
> On 20-Jul-06, at 4:19 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
> 
>> Sean does make some good points.
>> 1. That we have graduated a project without having a track record of 
>> using an issue tracker.  I work with Process Improvement using CMMI 
>> where it is specified that a process is not "institutionised" until it 
>> has been in use for 6 months.
>>
>> 2. We graduated Mapbender despite it seeming to have the significant 
>> majority of it's developers being funded by one organisation (which I 
>> believe is a contributing factor to 1.).
>>
>> I voted for graduating Mapbender and probably did so prematurely. I 
>> don't think we should be reversing our decisions but I think Sean's 
>> points are valid and should be considered for future projects.
>>
>> Jo Walsh wrote:
>>> dear incubators,
>>> Sean Gillies' blog is one of the very few that I regularly read.
>>> http://zcologia.com/news/218 is a pretty thought provoking essay
>>> covering his concerns about the rigour of the incubation process,
>>> urging OSGeo to "raise the bar" before too many of the founding
>>> projects are graduated. Sean asks for feedback on his blog:
>>> "How about it, incubator committee?" (cage fight, anyone? ;) )
>>> best wishes!
>>> jo ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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>>
>>
>> --Cameron Shorter
>> http://cameron.shorter.net
>>
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> 
> +-----------------------------------------------------------------+
> |Paul Spencer                           pspencer at dmsolutions.ca   |
> +-----------------------------------------------------------------+
> |Applications & Software Development                              |
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-- 
Chris Holmes
The Open Planning Project
http://topp.openplans.org
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