[Incubator] Pending Incubator Applications

[Frank Warmerdam]

Blammo wrote:
> Anyway, one of my questions has to do with how the threshold for success 
> of a certain project trait is arrived at?  How do smaller operations get 
> compared to larger ones?   Is there a concrete requirement that some 
> minimum number be involved, etc.   I'm not sure I understand how the 
> greater community usage/developement value of a project is arrived at.

Bob,

As you note, there are no concrete rules on this.  Much of this is
a value judgement by incubation committee members.  We have had some
clear cases of projects that were too immature, such as MOSS4G which was
really just a design when it came to us.  Also, GeoFunctions which while
a working code base, hadn't really developed a substantial user
community.

> Another question has to do with what seems to me, to be a fairly hard 
> edged line when dealing with the incubation process acceptance.  There 
> doesn't seem to be a "Project in Training" stage, unless you count the 
> actual vetting, which would in many cases be too short a time span to 
> correct perceived deficiencies.

Other have raised the OSGeo Labs idea, and I'd note that a project can
work towards many of the goals of incubation without being incubation.
For instance, putting in place governance, and provenance mechanisms
that would make eventual incubation smoother.   Doing this doesn't
require being "in incubation".

> A last question deals with how general community feedback is counted, 
> for example, I would have liked to rate some of the past projects myself 
> that I had reviewed for my own purposes, I wasn't really meaning that my 
> vote should count for anything, but just having a chance to comment on 
> things from an end user perspective seems like a good vetting process 
> somewhere in the stream, and could at least identify areas to focus 
> attention on.

You mean that you would like to have commented on whether you thought
past suggested projects were suitable for incubation? Graduation?

Like most committees, the incubation list is open to anyone who is
interested and would like to contribute opinions.  Only official
members can vote, but generally speaking it isn't hard to be
officially on the committee.  :-)  Also, any reasoned opinions
presented on the list are likely to be influential with those
voting.

What we haven't done is go out to osgeo discuss seeking input.  I'm
not sure how constructive that might be.

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