[Incubator] gvSIG project graduation (Update)
Cameron Shorter
cameron.shorter at gmail.com
Mon Oct 26 13:46:01 PDT 2015
Alvaro, Dimitris,
Thanks for copying this documentation into a more prominent location,
but you have missed the core message from my comments. The quality of
the documentation is not yet of a standard worthy of professional software.
Would you use such documentation in a bid proposal for new work, when
competing against other companies? Because people reviewing the quality
of gvSIG will look at documentation like this to assess the maturity of
gvSIG.
Personally, I find this documentation worthy of a first draft, possibly
written by a developer, which needs review from a technical writer, of
business development manager or similar, who is used to writing concise
technical documentation.
I've copied the documentation into a word document, then used track
changes and comments to give you an indication of what I would expect
from such a review, and the level of quality that I think should be
considered the norm for an OSGeo Graduated project.
I realise I'm being harsh in my comments, but I hope you find it better
to hear such comments from a friend, rather than being judged and
dismissed by your potential customers further down the track.
Warm regards, Cameron
On 26/10/2015 8:23 pm, Alvaro Anguix wrote:
> Hi Cameron, all,
>
> El 20/10/15 a las 22:48, Cameron Shorter escribió:
>> Hi Alvaro
>>
>> You are right, I'm just one voice on the OSGeo Incubation committee.
>> It would be good to hear the opinion of others as well.
> We've waited some days to answer in case somebody wanted to add
> anything. We suppose that the order members of OSGeo Incubation
> Committee agree with you, and that they aren't any other additional
> requirements.
>>
>> You are right, writing style is not a graduation criteria, and I'd
>> vote to pass a project with sub-optimal writing style if the rest of
>> the processes are in order.
>>
>> "Institutionalized Processes which are documented and FOLLOWED" is a
>> requirement. My concern is that the management processes as
>> documented are probably not being followed, as they would be
>> difficult to be found by the development team, and probably not
>> trusted as they don't look to be of the quality of the rest of the
>> gvsig project.
>>
>> Hence my recommendation to incorporate decision making documentation
>> into the rest of gvsig documentation.
>>
>> If time to complete is an issue, there are some work around options
>> which I think would be acceptable.
>> Such as putting a placeholder in your master documentation which
>> references the wiki page where the core content is. (With an intent
>> to move the rest of the docs later).
>>
> We finally have copied the contests directly in the documentation
> section (better than a placeholder):
> http://docs.gvsig.org/plone/projects/gvsig-desktop/docs/about-technical-decisions/
>
> At this way all the contents are in the same site.
>
> In future, we'll migrate all the information to the new gvSIG website
> (I hope it will be in the next months).
>
> We understand that everything is ok to proceed to vote the graduation
> of gvSIG project.
>
> I would like to ask you when it's planned to decide it. I don't know
> the procedure of OSGeo Incubation Committee from this point.
>
> Thanks,
> Alvaro
>
>> I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on whether you think my
>> documentation comments are worth implementing, and if so, see a plan
>> as to how they would be implemented. Ideally also mention a timeframe
>> which would show how it can be done in time for completing incubation
>> before the next gvsig conference.
>>
>> Warm regards, Cameron
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 7:05 AM, Alvaro Anguix <aanguix at gvsig.com
>> <mailto:aanguix at gvsig.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Cameron, all,
>>
>> El 20/10/15 a las 21:07, Cameron Shorter escribió:
>>> Hi Alvaro,
>>> I agree that it would be great to announce gvSIG's graduation
>>> from OSGeo incubation at the gvSIG conference (on 4 Dec?), and I
>>> think it is also achievable, but require a quick turn around.
>>> I'd like to help you with that from the OSGeo Incubation
>>> Committee side of things.
>>>
>>> With regards to the question of quality of documentation of
>>> decision making processes, I do think this is important from an
>>> incubation perspective, and is related to having
>>> "institutionalized processes".
>>>
>>> Refer to:
>>> http://www.osgeo.org/incubator/process/project_graduation_checklist.html
>>>
>>> A project should have institutionalized the processes in this
>>> list or provide justification why the process is not used.
>>> ...
>>>
>>> Institutionalized Process
>>> A documented process which which addresses a need and is
>>> actively in use. It typically takes months before a process
>>> becomes institutionalized.
>>> /A more detailed definition of institutionalization is found
>>> in theCapability Maturity Model (CMMI)
>>> <http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/abstracts/reports/02tr012.cfm>/
>>> Open Source License
>>
>> I agree, but I think the point is made/ok.
>>
>> In your comments of the last email, you gave advice about writing
>> style or the order of documentation publication (referring to
>> language). Honestly, I think they are advices and
>> recommendations, but not a requirement for graduation.
>>
>> Is it necessary to comply with those recommendations? I would
>> like the committee clearly answers this question.
>>
>> Are we not getting into a level of detail that also is subjective?
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> Alvaro
>>
>>> Warm regards, Cameron
>>>
>>> On 19/10/2015 10:17 pm, Alvaro Anguix wrote:
>>>> Hi Cameron,
>>>>
>>>> About the documentation in Spanish/English, we are finishing
>>>> the last translations of the user and developer documentation,
>>>> and we will have the 100% of the gvSIG documentation in Spanish
>>>> and English (and in Portuguese too). We also are finishing the
>>>> migration of the old infrastructure (docs.gvsig.org
>>>> <http://docs.gvsig.org>) to the new one. In any case we take
>>>> all the suggestions and improvements into account, that we will
>>>> tackle as soon as possible.
>>>>
>>>> Anyway, the doubt that we have is if these suggestions are
>>>> requirements for the incubation. We understand that they aren't
>>>> requirements for the graduation, but we would like to confirm
>>>> it. Mainly because the 11th International gvSIG Conference will
>>>> be held soon, and we would like to announce the graduation
>>>> previously.
>>>>
>>>> Thank you very much!
>>>>
>>>> Best regards,
>>>> Alvaro
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> El 16/10/15 a las 22:10, Cameron Shorter escribió:
>>>>> Hi Alvaro,
>>>>> Sorry for the slow response.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for your updated principles. I've just reviewed and
>>>>> here is my feedback:
>>>>>
>>>>> I think that you have captured the process of making technical
>>>>> decisions, which is good. However:
>>>>>
>>>>> * The documentation is in a wiki [1], and not presented in the
>>>>> same prominence as the rest of the gvsig documentation [2].
>>>>> I'd suggest that your processes should be moved out of the
>>>>> wiki, and into the same doc system as the rest of the docs,
>>>>> probably at:
>>>>> http://docs.gvsig.org/web/projects/gvsig-desktop/docs/<something>
>>>>> You might want to include the processes as another chapter in
>>>>> the existing Developers Guide.
>>>>> A good example you could follow is the GeoServer docs page [3]
>>>>> which includes "Policies and Procedures".
>>>>>
>>>>> * The current text reads a bit like a news article, written
>>>>> from an outsider's point of view, describing how you have
>>>>> noticed that decisions are made. What would be better is
>>>>> writing an authoritative process which gvSig team members
>>>>> sometimes quote and refer to when making decisions. A news
>>>>> article becomes dated, a documented process should be useful
>>>>> for the community, and will get updated over time.
>>>>>
>>>>> * The text looks like it has been written by one person, and
>>>>> hasn't yet been reviewed by other core gvSig members. I'd
>>>>> suggest that you'd likely get good feedback from your internal
>>>>> gvSig community if you were to ask:
>>>>> "Does this text accurately represent how we should make
>>>>> decisions in the future? Are we as a community prepared to use
>>>>> this documented process as a guide for our future decisions?"
>>>>>
>>>>> * I notice that much of the gvSig documentation is written in
>>>>> Spanish. I'm not sure, but it is possible you would get better
>>>>> feedback from your community if this document was written
>>>>> first in Spanish, and if desired, later translated to English.
>>>>>
>>>>> Sorry again for the delayed response, and also for giving you
>>>>> more homework. I do encourage you to keep going because I
>>>>> think it would be valuable for the gvsig community.
>>>>>
>>>>> Warm regards, Cameron
>>>>>
>>>>> [1]
>>>>> https://redmine.gvsig.net/redmine/projects/gvsig-desktop/wiki/Wiki
>>>>> [2] http://docs.gvsig.org/web/projects/gvsig-desktop/docs/
>>>>> [3] http://docs.geoserver.org/
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 8/10/2015 7:19 am, Jody Garnett wrote:
>>>>>> Thanks Alvaro! Recovering from foss4g on this end, thanks for
>>>>>> updating the wiki. I believe we are getting down to the end
>>>>>> here, thanks for the clarifications.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Jody Garnett
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 1 October 2015 at 05:37, Alvaro Anguix <aanguix at gvsig.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hello,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Apologies for the delay, but I've been in 2nd gvSIG
>>>>>> Conference in Peru
>>>>>> and I couldn't update the checklist information before.
>>>>>> Now it's updated:
>>>>>> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/GvSIG_Incubation_Checklist
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The principal link about technical decisions and gvSIG
>>>>>> organization is this:
>>>>>> https://redmine.gvsig.net/redmine/projects/gvsig-desktop/wiki/Wiki
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Best Regards,
>>>>>> Alvaro
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Incubator mailing list
>>>>>> Incubator at lists.osgeo.org <mailto:Incubator at lists.osgeo.org>
>>>>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/incubator
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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>>>>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/incubator
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Cameron Shorter,
>>>>> Software and Data Solutions Manager
>>>>> LISAsoft
>>>>> Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
>>>>> 26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
>>>>>
>>>>> P+61 2 9009 5000 <tel:%2B61%202%209009%205000>, Wwww.lisasoft.com <http://www.lisasoft.com>, F+61 2 9009 5099 <tel:%2B61%202%209009%205099>
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Cameron Shorter,
>>> Software and Data Solutions Manager
>>> LISAsoft
>>> Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
>>> 26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
>>>
>>> P+61 2 9009 5000 <tel:%2B61%202%209009%205000>, Wwww.lisasoft.com <http://www.lisasoft.com>, F+61 2 9009 5099 <tel:%2B61%202%209009%205099>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> --
>> Cameron Shorter,
>> Software and Data Solutions Manager
>> LISAsoft
>> Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
>> 26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
>>
>> P +61 2 9009 5000, W www.lisasoft.com <http://www.lisasoft.com>, F
>> +61 2 9009 5099
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Incubator at lists.osgeo.org
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--
Cameron Shorter,
Software and Data Solutions Manager
LISAsoft
Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
P +61 2 9009 5000, W www.lisasoft.com, F +61 2 9009 5099
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