[Incubator] Application OSGeo - GISCollective

[Bogdan Szabo]

Hi Greg,

As a quick response: our users are not that interested in self-hosting GISCollective, that's why we focus the guide on how to use the platform instead of how to set it up. We just started writing this guide(it does not cover yet all the features) and we are looking forward for feedback to improve it.

If you are interested in how to set it up, you can check  https://guide.giscollective.com/en/develop/installing/ page. It should have all the details you need. If there is something missing I would gladly add it. 


In terms of code, it's spread across multiple repos and on this page https://guide.giscollective.com/en/develop/architecture/ you can check out the architecture, and links to code of each component. Is there anything that is missing to make it more clear for developers?

I will try to address the rest of the questions by the end of the week.

Best,
Bogdan



------- Original Message -------

On Wednesday, March 16th, 2022 at 1:54 PM, Greg Troxel <gdt at lexort.com> wrote:

> Bogdan Szabo contact at szabobogdan.com writes:
> 

> > Dear OSGeo Board members,We updated our repositories to have the
> > 

> > required information and we created a guide at
> > 

> > <span>https://guide.giscollective.com/</span> which contains some
> > 

> > tutorials and other resources for contributors.
> 

> Starting out, I don't see:
> 

> anything about how to self-host this
> 

> any clear statement that the entire system including the server is
> 

> open source
> 

> In my view, open source projects that implement web servers should have
> 

> a primary path that people can self-host it, with hosted offerings
> 

> secondary. This reads like a service more than an open-source project.
> 

> Perhaps I'm misreading, or perhaps the text is aimed at people who are
> 

> not like me :-) That may lead you to have a web page aimed at users
> 

> and a web page aimed at server admins.
> 

> I also couldn't figure out about the overall system architecture. I
> 

> immediately wondered if one needed mobile apps (or desktop for laptops
> 

> in the field) for data collection, or if it is all in-browser. I see
> 

> something about a mobile app, and that raises questions of licensing
> 

> (could you get the android version into f-droid main repo, meaning no
> 

> use of google play services?).
> 

> I also don't see anything about data storage and how one can
> 

> import/export data. I'm guessing this is all ok, but as a description
> 

> of a software project it
> 

> Digging in, I see that one can self-host, but it's buried under
> 

> Develop/Installation. If this is really straightforward Free Software,
> 

> how to build/install for users doesn't really belong under Develop, and
> 

> you should expect and encourage packaging systems to include it. The
> 

> very first intro should talk about running it yourself.
> 

> This isn't really an osgeo issue, but there is talk of docker and helm,
> 

> but I don't see "instructions for just building from source and
> 

> installing normally". That seems like a bug.
> 

> Trying to find the source code, I end up at
> 

> https://guide.giscollective.com/en/develop/CONTRIBUTING/
> 

> and I do not see a link to the sources, or a list of the components.
> 

> Yes, I see links to your company account on gitlab and I could go find
> 

> it, but it should be explained and linked.
> 

> Finally, I am unable to understand governance. On the main page,
> 

> there's no about, and I can't tell if this is a charity (seems clearly
> 

> not though) or a for-profit company based around a service offering of
> 

> the Free Software that's being developed. Normal company websites give
> 

> a legal name, a mailing address, and list the officers.
> 

> Do you have any contributors from outside the company?
> 

> Assuming it's a company, it's really not clear who does and dons't have
> 

> commit rights, and how that's going to be managed. To be a community
> 

> project, there needs to be (at least a path to) community contributors,
> 

> rather than total corporate control over contributions.
> 

> I see in contributing that parts are AGPL3 and parts are MIT. There is
> 

> no mention of signing a CLA, which is good, but the word appears which
> 

> is bad. You should change the text to be clear that no one is expect to
> 

> sign a CLA and that it's just inbound=outbound. That pretty much takes
> 

> the spectre of proprietary relicsnsing off the table.
> 

> (If there is a requirement to sign a CLA that grants more rights than
> 

> the open-source license that part of the code is under, I think that's a
> 

> reason not to accept the project. But I'm just a list member and not on
> 

> the committee.)
> 

> I hope this helps; my guess is that the developer-facing documentation
> 

> needs a bunch of work and that the underlying situation is more ok than
> 

> it seems.
> 

> Greg
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: publickey - contact at szabobogdan.com - 0x09837914.asc
Type: application/pgp-keys
Size: 3271 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/incubator/attachments/20220316/5485085d/attachment-0001.key>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 855 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/incubator/attachments/20220316/5485085d/attachment-0001.sig>