[Incubator] OSSIM Incubation Graduation

[Frank Warmerdam]

Richard Gould wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I believe the time has come for OSSIM to graduate from incubation.
> Since they first joined the incubator, the project's infrastructure
> and accessibility has evolved considerably.
> 
> The incubation status page is here:
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/OSSIM_incubation_status
> 
> The provenance review is very brief, but the code has been reviewed.
> The only remaining issue is that not all of the files had proper
> headers. This is being resolved at the moment.
> 
> The review is here:
> http://trac.osgeo.org/ossim/wiki/ossimprovenance
> 
> The other relevant documents for incubation can be found here:
> http://trac.osgeo.org/ossim/wiki/GovernanceAndCommunity

Richard / Mark,

I appologize for not reviewing the documents and commenting sooner.

I have looked over the provenance documents and have a few questions:

Have all the files been manually reviewed?

The document just says "No unusual origins noted." and "Most c/cpp files
in the SVN repository have a header. Most java files and some .h files
do not. Have requested that Scott Bortman start adding those files to
the OMAR/Java section."  This brevity in response doesn't really give
me any sense of how thorough the review was.

Skimming through SVN a bit, a sampling of files shows some without any
copyright, author or license information such as:

http://svn.osgeo.org/ossim/trunk/ossimPlanetQt/src/gui/ossimPlanetQtMainWindow.cpp
http://svn.osgeo.org/ossim/trunk/ossim/src/ossim/support_data/ossimRpfAttributeOffsetRecord.cpp
http://svn.osgeo.org/ossim/trunk/ossim/src/ossim/elevation/ossimElevationShapeIdx.cpp

For modules like:

http://svn.osgeo.org/ossim/trunk/ossim/src/ossim/projection/ossimEckert6Projection.cpp

which contain substantial outside code (geotrans in this case) I think
it would be prudent for file headers to have some discussion of the
source, and licensing that applies.  I gather geotrans is in the public
domain, so I don't believe there is a problem - but I do think clear
documentation is in order for such outside derivations.  This should
also be mentioned in the provenance review.

Another outside code example is:

   http://svn.osgeo.org/ossim/trunk/ossim/src/ossim/matrix/fft.cpp

This properly (I assume) attributes the copyright, but does not
provide any clarity on origin, license or other terms.

Another is:
   http://svn.osgeo.org/ossim/trunk/ossim/src/ossim/vec/shpopen.c

Once again, there is no problem with include shapelib, but it is not
listed in the provenance review in any way.

Well, I won't belabor the point any more, but I'm not currently
getting the warm and comfortable feeling I hope for with regard
to the provenance review.

The other point I'd like to raise is where does the PSC discuss
decisions that need to be made?  I'm on the ossim-developer list
and I don't recall ever seeing anything that looked like a PSC
discussion though I only lightly skim the list.  The governance
document is ... brief ... which is ok I suppose, but I am still
looking for a sense that the governance structure is operating
rather than just notional.

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    | President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org