[Incubator] gvSIG project graduation

[Alvaro Anguix]

Hi Jody,

El 10/09/15 a las 22:24, Jody Garnett escribió:
> Just going to focus on a couple parts of the email - as I do not want
> to make it longer.
Yes, I suppose we will have to centre the questions, that anyway here we
have to deal with the issue about if gvSIG accomplishes for its
incubation or not. Independently from the way to interpret certain
issues of the organization/production model of a software project.
>
>     And... I hope new persons became part of the project day-to-day,
>     they are welcome. But being sincere, does it happen? I don't think
>     in it, I don't think that a person dedicates the 100% of his time
>     to a project voluntarily. He/she can dedicate partial time
>     depending on their professional needs related to the project. In
>     this case, depending on the case, and as it has been commented,
>     he/she can become part of decisions making.
>
>
> It does happen - and it is what we want to encourage :) Especially for
> longer lived projects such as gvSig - community members may up
> changing organizations (or start up their own company etc...).
Does it happen? It that true? I don't know anyone who dedicates
full-time voluntarily to an open source software project if it doesn't
allow him/her to live off it. If you know anyone... please, introduce me
to him/her. We would be so glad to that he/she joins gvSIG.
:-P
All joking aside, dedication for an open source software project has to
have an economical interest behind. If your organization works on gvSIG
(or another software), it makes business with gvSIG, you will be
interested in investing time on it. And that's what we look for, to
generate a model that allows people to live and dedicate time working on
free geomatics.
I think voluntarism, as an only sustainability media of a software, is a
vision far from the reality.
>
> Still it feels like this discussion may slightly missing what we are
> wanting to talk about which is responsibility for gvSig's long term
> health and happiness.
Only a note, I think healthy and happiness of a project mainly depend on
the capacity to work with it, being capable of generating a business model.
>
>     In any case, the answer to this paragraph is related to the
>     previous one. Existing of a professional structure (to work
>     daily). And here I think we can speak about the gvSIG Association,
>     because you are referring to it as “single organization”.
>     The professional structure is part of the gvSIG Association, that
>     is an association of several companies, members and collaborators,
>     and non-business entities that provide public support to the
>     project. Entities that provide economically to the association to
>     support that professional team. And they support because the gvSIG
>     Association generates a business model around the free geomatics
>     (not only gvSIG) that becomes a mutual profit.
>     Association that any entity that want to join to, and achieve the
>     regulations, can do it.
>
>
> If I understand correctly we have a difference between an associating
> driving the project, and a technical team responsible for one of the
> modules (called "core").
>
> So if the Association is where the action/responsibility are - than
> that is what we want to focus on for incubation.
They are related things. On one side the technical decisions, that are
made as we told. A person who works for an entity that is not at the
gvSIG Association can participate. It's not usual because of the own
dynamics of the organization, but it is possible totally.
The General Assembly (one company, one vote) of the gvSIG Association
makes decisions related to the business model (for example, they decide
how to dedicate the budget of the organization).
>
> We want to make it clear how gvSig is "run" and document how an
> organization (say a university or company) can join the gvSIG association.
>
If I'm not wrong, the regulations of the gvSIG Association are at the
checklist (they are at the gvSIG website too).
In any case, any entity interested in taking part and achieve them can
do it. In a first level it is a collaborator. And after an “incubation”
time it would be able to become a member within full rights.
Non-business entities are invited by the gvSIG Association to take part
of it as Honour Members. They (opposite of companies) don't have
economical obligations because their objective isn't to earn money with
open source software.
All these issues are not related to the technical part that is commented
here, but as you are interested in it, it's good to comment it.

>     It's very different to a “single organization”. In fact, it's the
>     guarantee that the project won't be managed by an only
>     organization, with the risks that it implies (including the
>     extinction), besides being a safeguard against the multinationals
>     that try to approach open source projects with business intentions
>     typical of the proprietary software. 
>     If we study other open source software projects, including
>     geomatics, we can see that other projects became a failure
>     precisely because they only dealt with the technical part, and a
>     sustainability model wasn't started up in order to guarantee its
>     continuity. 
>
>
> We may just have a different language for the same effect. In
> GeoServer we have committers (who do the technical day to day running
> of the project) and the steering committee (made up of developers, biz
> representation, and user group members) responsible for planning and
> decision making.
>
It is possible. We use Geoserver a lot in our projects, but I haven't
investigated the nomenclature and equalisation with gvSIG.
:-)
We also think that the Geoserver case is very interesting, because if
I'm not wrong there're several organizations behind (boundless,
geosolutions,..) where this software is a fundamental part in their
business model, and of course provide resources to it. 
As it was said in “The wired”... follow the money track.
:-P

Alvaro

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