[Incubator] Incubator Application: deegree

[Cameron Shorter]

Thanks Markus,
Great write up. Any chance that you could copy this onto the web 
somewhere? Probably your graduation application would be the best place.


Dr. Markus Lupp wrote:
> Hi Cameron,
>
> basically there is cooperation potential with all Java-based OSGeo 
> projects. As I see it these are at the moment:
> 1. GeoTools
> 2. gvSIG
> 3. Geonetwork OpenSource
> 4. Community MapBuilder
>
> I will discuss those four projects in the following. Please forgive me 
> if statements about the four projects are not correct at all times, I 
> do not know them in much detail so far.
>
> 1. GeoTools
> ------------
> deegree and GeoTools share many similarities, they are at the core, 
> Java libraries for geospatial applications with a focus on OGC 
> standards. There are many opportunities for collaboration and there 
> were several attempts to do so but I also have to say that so far all 
> of these attempts were not successfull. At the first look the projects 
> are so similar that someone wonders why collaboration here is so hard. 
> IMHO there are three main reasons:
> a) Some requirements are different. A good example is the need of 
> deegree for a complex feature model, a requirement that GeoTools 
> developed much later and with much less priority.
> b) The development process seems to be different: deegree is developed 
> for projects with tight deadlines and is in this way a very 
> "commercial" FOSS project. Quite often, decisions have to be made fast 
> and this leads sometime to less discussion via the list as there is on 
> GeoTools lists.
> c) The "not invented here" effect and other usual problems in 
> cooperation. ;-)
> Nonetheless I do not want to give up on this. Perhaps the fact that 
> deegree wants to join OSGeo opens new opportunities for cooperation 
> between the projects again. Perhaps some kind of "liasaon officer" 
> between the to projects would help here.
>
> 2. gvSIG
> Although deegree is a library, there also is by now a desktop GIS 
> (with similarities to gvSIG) under development. On a technical level 
> there is collaboration potential, the main problem here is that gvSIG 
> is published under GPL, while deegree under LGPL. This is the main 
> reason, why in the first place deegree started development of a 
> desktop component (the companies developing deegree have customers who 
> do not want to use a GPL-based desktop GIS program). Otherwise we 
> would have used OpenJUMP or gvSIG. On a technical level, here again 
> the problem is the complex feature model. There already were meetings 
> between people from gvSIG and deegree and support for complex features 
> seemed to be not on the top list of priority for gvSIG.
> In regard to the license problem, the cooperation here could be 
> "one-way", of GOS uses source code from deegree we would not run into 
> license problems.
>
> 3. Geonetwork Open Source (GOS)
> deeegre encompasses a metadata/catalogue component similar to GOS. On 
> a technical level there is good potential for cooperation, the problem 
> here is that GOS uses GPL while deegree LGPL.
> Here again, "one-way cooperation" (GOS uses deegree) could work.
>
> 4. Community MapBuilder (CMB)
> From the impression that I by now have, CMB shares a number of 
> similarities with deegree iGeoPortal, they are both web-based clients 
> for OGC web services. As CMB is published under LGPL there would also 
> be no licensing problems. It might turn out, that the respective 
> software architectures are too different for close cooperation, but 
> this will only be know if there is a more thorough analysis from bothe 
> sides.
>
>
> So, regarding the OSGeo Java tribe, I would say the most cooperation 
> potential exists with GeoTools and CMB as they share the same license 
> with deegree.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Markus
>
>
> Cameron Shorter schrieb:
>> Sorry for the slow response, usual excuses.
>>
>> Markus,
>> It is great to hear that a well established project like deegree is 
>> engaging OSGeo. I think deegree has a lot to offer the community and 
>> in particular I think it will benefit all if we see further 
>> collaboration between deegree and other OSGeo projects - something 
>> which I think has been one of the under-reported benefits of OSGeo.
>>
>> One of my standard questions for new projects is to discuss similar 
>> (OSGeo) projects and what opportunities there are for collaboration, 
>> or if not what are the barriers.
>>
>> The more collaboration, the more attractive the project is as a 
>> graduation candidate.
>>
>> -- 
>>
>> As I seem to bring up this question fairly regularly, maybe it should 
>> be included in the OSGeo Application page.
>>
>> Frank Warmerdam wrote:
>>> Folks,
>>>
>>> I'm pleased to announce that the deegree project has applied for
>>> OSGeo incubation.  The application form can be downloaded (in pdf) 
>>> from:
>>>
>>> http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/attachment/ticket/185/deegree_osgeo_questionnaire.pdf?format=raw 
>>>
>>>
>>> deegree is a Java framework including implementations of many OGC 
>>> and ISO
>>> standard geo interfaces.  The application was submitted by Dr. 
>>> Markus Lupp
>>> and I will ask him to join the incubation list if he hasn't already.
>>>
>>> Currently we have ten projects in incubation, so assuming we don't 
>>> want to
>>> raise our self imposed limit I don't anticipate bringing another 
>>> project
>>> into incubation immediately.  However, I am hopeful that at as many 
>>> as two
>>> of our current projects will be completing incubation soon at which 
>>> point we
>>> will be in a position to select new projects.
>>>
>>> The current application pending are:
>>>
>>> http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/query?status=new&status=assigned&status=reopened&component=Incubator&keywords=%7Eapplication&order=priority 
>>>
>>>
>>> GeoMOOSE
>>> JVNMobileGIS
>>> ORCHESTRA
>>> degree
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>
>>
>
>


-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Systems Architect
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

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