[Incubator] Oskari Incubation status

Fri Aug 24 18:57:17 PDT 2018

With respect to chat, we have a similar thing with GeoServer first using
IRC and now Gitter. The main goal here is not an archive, or to insist on
email, but to ensure that any potential contributors can join the
conversation and are not excluded.

I would also like to thank you for this discussion, it is setting a great
example :)

On Fri, Jul 6, 2018 at 5:10 AM Aarnio Timo (MML) <
timo.aarnio at maanmittauslaitos.fi> wrote:

> Dear list members!
>
>
>
> Thank you so much for you assesment Arnulf and thank you for your valuable
> comments Cameron and Bruce!
>
>
>
> I’ll try to answer some of the questions and concerns raised here.
>
>
>
> The mailing list has been so far more as Arnulf described, an announcement
> channel. However there have been multiple questions and answers regarding
> the software as well. You’ve gotta start somewhere right? Also some people
> seem to dislike email lists and say that they are old fashioned. Personally
> I don’t completely agree but I see where these comments are coming from.
>
>
>
> In our day to day work we use Slack (and nowadays also Rocket.Chat) for
> communication. I agree that having logs from our chats might be beneficial
> for others, but there are at least two things to note here:
>
> - We use the free version of Slack which supports only 10k messages of
> history, so we’d have to develop some method of fetching the chat archive
> (+attached media) and then store&publish it somewhere. Not sure what the
> terms of use for Slack say about this - we could check.
>
> - A lot of the discussion (chat) is in Finnish. Also a lot of it happens
> via private messages between two developers and even though we’ve tried to
> encourage people to chat on the public channels sometimes it just does not
> happen.
>
>
>
> Anyone that has questions and/or is developing something to Oskari is
> welcomed to our Slack. We even planned to automate the invitations, so that
> one wouldn’t have to ask one from us.
>
>
>
> For now I guess the best source for discussions and decisions is GitHub
> and the PSC meeting notes. We also planned to make the PSC meetings happen
> regularly (e.g. once a month) in the sake of sharing information &
> knowledge exchange.
>
>
>
> We’ve discussed the OSGeo Live issue early last year and decided that at
> this point it’s not something we will focus on. Like Arnulf noted Oskari is
> a “platform” product and relies heavily on external data sets so it’s not
> that well suited for OSGeo Live.
>
>
>
> About the question about Roadmap items and external contributors: Oskari
> has had external contributors for quite some time, but obviously here more
> is better. The most recent “external” contribution is this
> https://github.com/oskariorg/oskari-docs/issues/61 - as an example of
> something that “went through the process”. I put the word external in
> quotes because I don’t know what qualifies as being external? The
> free-to-join Oskari Community has now more than 30 organizations and many
> of them are using or developing Oskari actively. Last year the first
> company (then Dimenteq Ltd now Sitowise Ltd) started selling Oskari as a
> service and also Oskari development and maintenance. This year another
> company (Gispo Ltd) started offering crowd-funding facilitating services
> for developing Oskari collaboratively - tbh they are piloting it for now. I
> really see both of these examples as very positive development and I think
> they also secure the future of Oskari to some extent.
>
>
>
> Obviously a more broader adoption is something we still strive for. For a
> software like Oskari it’s challenging but little by little we’ve already
> managed to do it so it’s possible :)
>
>
>
> I don’t think we’re in any rush for the graduation and this discussion
> will be very helpful for us to develop our process even further. So please
> do comment back so we know what kind of steps to take next and how to
> proceed. My holidays start today so don’t wonder if I’m not replying for a
> while, I’ll get back to work in August.
>
>
>
> Thanks again for your support!
>
>
>
> BR,
>
> Timo
>
>
>
> *From:* Incubator [mailto:incubator-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] *On Behalf
> Of *Bruce Bannerman
> *Sent:* 6. heinäkuuta 2018 0:17
> *To:* Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
> *Cc:* Oskari-user at lists.osgeo.org; Sanna Jokela (Gispo) <sanna at gispo.fi>;
> incubator at lists.osgeo.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Incubator] Oskari Incubation status
>
>
>
> Hi Arnulf,
>
>
>
> Thanks for your detailed assessment. ...and yes, I did read to the bottom
> ;-)
>
>
>
> I would like to see a response to your questions from Timo, or another
> representative of the Oskari community. In particular a response to the
> issues of open communities and decision making.
>
>
>
> From what I’ve viewed on the project website, Oskari has considerable
> potential. However, good software is only part of the picture.
>
>
>
> Having a good, strong, healthy and active community that is diverse and
> uses open processes will help the project to survive when funding from the
> major sponsor ceases.
>
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
>
>
> Bruce
>
>
>
>
> On 6 Jul 2018, at 03:02, Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Arnulf, to answer your question at the bottom, yes I read to the bottom,
> and really appreciate your detailed assessment.
>
> Based on Arnulf's assessment, it sounds like Sskari probably has a good
> codebase, with good work from within one organisation, but is yet to
> attract engaged external developers. This is a great milestone, and worth
> acknowledging. But the "unicorn" projects that we look for in OSGeo
> incubation are those with a healthy community from multiple organisations.
>
> The "extent of collaboration" criteria provides validation of the quality
> of the project, and is a very good indicator of long term sustainability.
>
> To the Oskari folks, you might want to read this presentation I gave a
> while back on business justifications for backing collaboration:
>
> http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com/2017/11/open-source-pitch-for-your-boss.html
>
> Without digging into the details any further, I suspect Oskari would need
> to work on attracting co-contributors, from multiple organisations, and we
> would likely see evidence of this happening by seeing archive logs of
> collaborative email lists, or slack or IRC or similar.
>
> Warm regards, Cameron
>
> On 6/7/18 2:11 am, Arnulf Christl (Metaspatial) wrote:
>
> Hi Folks,
>
> this is an update on the Incubation process of Oskari.
>
> https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Oskari_Incubation_Status
>
> As mentor I am still somewhat hesitant to recommend Oskari for OSGeo
> Incubation because I cannot find a good indicator supporting that there is
> an open community and communication. Personally I know some of the current
> core team and totally trust them to work in the Open Source way of doing
> things. But this may not be quite apparent to anybody not into the project.
>
> Oskari is doing a good job posting news and updates to the OSGeo user list
> (https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/oskari-user/) but the list is not
> really used by users for any kind of discussion, help or future
> development. It feels more like a low volume announce list (which is
> totally OK, so please keep it up).
>
> How and where is the development being discussed? Who can join the Oskari
> Slack channel - or whatever else is used to have technical and strategic
> discussions? Are there archives of discussions and decisions? Do you manage
> to do this in English or is it still everything communicated in Finnish?
>
> In a PSC presentation from December 2016 one bullet-point says that Oskari
> may become a project on OSGeo live: https://oskariorg.github.io/files/20161220-Oskari_OSGEO_PSC.pdf.
>
> <https://oskariorg.github.io/files/20161220-Oskari_OSGEO_PSC.pdf>
>
> Actually, Incubation is not a requirement, so please feel free to approach
> the OSGeo Live team to find out more.
>
> In the Roadmap document (which in my opinion is actually ery good) at:
> https://github.com/oskariorg/oskari-docs/wiki/Roadmap-process you say
> that:
>
> *"After communicating with Oskari community the roadmap items enter Active
> stage [...]". *
>
> Can you give us an example of where and how this has happened?
>
> There are some updates on GitHub issues but it appears to be mostly
> internal team members (which is totally OK, is this where the collaborative
> aspect of the future development takes place?
>
> https://github.com/oskariorg/oskari-docs/labels/roadmap
>
> Regarding Code Copyright Review you state that:
>
> *All code has been developed by the registered developers listed on github
> who have signed the CLA. All external libraries have project compatible
> licenses. The project has been started as a regular Open Source project
> following the guidelines as set out by OSGeo. A file-per-file code review
> was therefore deemed superfluous. *
>
> As mentor I can confirm that this is correct and satisfies OSGeo's
> requirements (and yes, I did some quick checks on random code files but due
> to the well organized origin of the project did not go through all code
> like we had to in the GRASS project... :-).
>
> In the last PSC meeting in December 2017 a decision was taken to schedule
> the next meeting "as needed".
> *Meetings/activity*
>
>    - *[...]*
>    - *future meetings schedule: continue with “as needed” (no need for a
>    fixed schedule)*
>
> Summarizing the current status: We discussed some of the above topics
> before and it is not a requirement for OSGeo Incubation to have active
> mailing lists and so on. But it is a requirement to have an open process
> and ideally also a somewhat growing user community. Obviously due its
> character as a complex portal platform Oskari is not a software that will
> have millions of downloads but a little broader adoption would be nice to
> see.
>
> You also say:
>
>    - *Slack/Mailinglist can be used more actively to discuss any
>    issues/voting*
>
> If you are not using the Slack channel (which unfortunately is not open),
> where is the communication taking place?
>
> The PSC meeting notes from December 2017 has a list of current
> installations / users / contributions. This is good to see. Has there been
> any additions, changes over the past half year?
>
>
> Even if you can not produce evidence for any or all of the above issues I
> will be happy to recommend Oskari for Incubation if you believe that this
> will help the project. Then it will be up to the Incubation committee to
> decide whether we can recommend graduation to the OSGeo Board of Directors.
>
> We will have to expect some discussion on the Incubation list on the above
> topics and this is not bad but a sign of a healthy process.
>
>
> Internal note to the Incubation committee
>
> IF you ever made it down to this line and maybe even checked some of the
> referenced documents, please be so kind as to acknowledge this on the
> mailing list so that we can help Oskari move on.
>
> It may also be a good idea to go back to the Incubation process and check
> whether it should be revised for certain aspects (especially requirement on
> mailing lists / alternatives like Slack).
>
>
>
> Anything else you need, let me know.
>
>
>
> Thank you,
>
> Arnulf
>
>
>
> Am 2018-06-25 um 17:05 schrieb Aarnio Timo (MML):
>
> Hi Incubator-list!
>
>
>
> We’d like to inquire about the incubation status of Oskari. What are the
> next steps should be in the incubation process? In our end we’ve done
> everything we’ve realized that we have to do. But is there something still
> wanted from us? Or is the process in the OSGeo end now? If so, what are the
> steps there and is there possibly any estimate when we can think about
> graduating?
>
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Timo Aarnio
>
>
>
>
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>
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>
>
> --
>
> Spatially enabling your business
>
> http://metaspatial.net
>
>
>
>
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>
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>
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>
>
> --
>
> Cameron Shorter
>
> Technology Demystifier
>
> Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant
>
>
>
> M +61 (0) 419 142 254
>
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Jody Garnett
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