[Incubator] status of rasdaman OSGeo incubation?

[christopher.schmidt at nokia.com]

On Sep 16, 2010, at 4:39 AM, ext Peter Baumann wrote:

> Hi list,
> 
> like with Geomajas (see recent mail) we experienced FOSS4G as an 
> exciting exchange of ideas. As a consequence, let me raise again the 
> issue of rasdaman incubation.
> 
> Our application was confirmed in May 2009, the resp. ticket is 
> http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/553. We like to think that we have 
> everything ready for checking, in particular all licence stuff is well 
> documented.
> Bruce Bannerman has agreed to be our mentor.
> 
> Hence, what is missing from your perspective for entering incubation?
> 
> INTERGEO fair is ante portas (3 weeks) where we will present rasdaman, 
> and it would be great to be able to mention at least that we are in 
> incubation.

OSGeo incubation is a process that is time consuming, and largely limited
by volunteer time in the form of incubation mentors. At this time, the 
OSGeo incubation process depends on someone who is confident to spend
possibly dozens of hours reviewing a project to take that project on and
make that offer. 

Incubation mentors are self-selecting; they will tend to gravitate towards
projects that they are personally interested in. Often, these are larger
projects, or projects that are seen as more strategically valuable in the
mind of the volunteer.

At this time, I do not believe it is intended that the incubation committee
is looking to change this tactic for selecting projects, which means that 
projects are not allowed into incubation based on when they applied, but 
instead based on some combination of volunteer interest and expressed 
community interest. 

As a result, there is likely no estimated timeline for when the project
will enter incubation, and I do not think that anyone would be able to give
you a reasonable estimate of such a timeline -- though I will say that 
the faster other projects finish, the more incubation volunteer time
there is available.

Best Regards,
Christopher Schmidt