[Incubator] Suggest QGIS For Graduation

[Robert Bray]

Time for Bob the absentee mentor to chime in. I've been monitoring the QGIS 
mailing lists for quite a long time (since I signed on as mentor) and I can 
say from watching interactions on those lists that the QGIS project is 
healthy, active, and it has a great community. I've also reviewed portions 
of the code and examined everything called out in the provinence review. 
Everything looks pretty clean to me. The software itself is stable and the 
user documentation is quite good.

All the necessary governance processes are in place and working, but they 
are not really documented. It would be good to see these documented 
especially the process for adding/removing developers, but I would not hold 
up graduation due to lack of documentation.

Cameron's issue below is a valid one, the current QGIS Social Contract is 
not really a binding agreement. I guess the question I have is how binding 
does this have to be? I know some of the projects have a more or less legal 
agreement, e.g. MapGuide, FDO, GeoTools, etc. What's the incubation 
comitties take on this?

If the incubation committee is ok with a non-binding agreement then I am 
happy to recommend QGIS for graduation.

Regards,
Bob

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gary Sherman" <sherman at mrcc.com>
To: "Cameron Shorter" <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
Cc: "OSGeo-incubator" <Incubator at lists.osgeo.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 9:28 PM
Subject: Re: [Incubator] Suggest QGIS For Graduation


> On Mar 5, 2008, at 5:47 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
>
>> Frank or Bob, can you please ensure this email is forwarded  appropriate 
>> members of QGIS team.
>>
>> Congratulations to the QGIS folks, this project looks to be very  healthy 
>> and will be an excellent addition to the stable of OSGeo  software.
>>
>> I've only picked up on one issue.
>> I don't think the existing processes are strong enough to ensure  that 
>> proprietary code is kept out of the codebase in future.
>>
>> I'd like to see either:
>> 1. All developers sign a Contributors Agreement noting they agree to 
>> developer guidelines, or
>> 2. Email a public list with the same type of information as the CA.
>>
>
> We vet all new devlopers very closely and the Social Contract contains  a 
> statement about the appropriate license for code. We can certainly 
> require a response to a "requirements/responsibilities" email on the  QGIS 
> developer list to make sure there is a public record.
>
>> The key element of the developer guidelines is "Thou shall only  commit 
>> clean code to the codebase".
>>
>> I'd like to see a documented process for adding new coders which 
>> includes asking the new coder to sign up to their responsibilities.
>>
>> I believe all OSGeo projects have such processes. You can see an  example 
>> from Mapbuilder's processes under the title of "Committer"  and 
>> "Committer Responsiblities" at 
>> http://docs.codehaus.org/display/MAP/Contributers+Guide
>>
>>
>> Frank Warmerdam wrote:
>>> Folks,
>>>
>>> Ideally Bob Bray as QGIS mentor ought to be doing this, but Gary  and I 
>>> have
>>> been having trouble getting a response from him about QGIS  incubation, 
>>> so...
>>>
>>> I think QGIS is pretty much ready for graduation.  The documents  are 
>>> at:
>>>
>>> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/QGIS_Incubation_Status
>>> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/QGIS_Provenance_Review
>>>
>>> As a QGIS developer now, I'm not exactly disinterested, but I think 
>>> QGIS
>>> is an open community with a governance structure in place.  The code
>>> provenance review found no problems, and in a variety of spot  checks 
>>> myself
>>> I don't see any issues.
>>>
>>> So, consider this a "call for questions and concerns" which will 
>>> hopefully
>>> lead to a motion to graduate within a week or two from either  myself or 
>>> Bob.
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Cameron Shorter
>> Geospatial Systems Architect
>> Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
>> Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
>>
>> Think Globally, Fix Locally
>> Commercial Support for Geospatial Open Source Solutions
>> http://www.lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts.html
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Incubator mailing list
>> Incubator at lists.osgeo.org
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/incubator
>
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