[Live-demo] Next Version - New Name ?!

Tue Dec 8 14:28:03 EST 2009

Judit, Hamish,
This is good feedback, and Judit, I'm not at all offended. In fact I'm 
honoured to have your feedback.

Feedback I've heard:
* The name should be reflective of what the project does, hence the link 
to osgeo or gis.
* In particular, "arramagong" is hard to remember and hence there is 
resistance to using it as a name.

So what does our project do now and what might it do?

* At the core, we have scripts which package GIS software. Hence a link 
to "gis". We package more than just the OSGeo stack, but we still have a 
strong link to "osgeo".
* We will likely also write scripts in future to package educational 
material.
* We currently distribute through a VM, and LiveDVD, click2try, hence 
the name "gisvm" and "live"
* We will likely distribute a "portable" version, and probably something 
else as well.
* We currently build upon Ubuntu/Debian although we do need to 
distinguish ourselves from the DebianGIS/UbuntuGIS projects.

If we are to pick a generic name, which doesn't limit the project, then 
I think that deriving from "live" and "gis" words works best.
But sometimes it is better to just pick a catchy name which is unrelated 
to what you do, especially if the project has the potential to grow into 
something else.

Judit Mays wrote:
> hello all,
>
> as important as it is to start working on the march release early to
> avoid last minute work (which will occur, no matter what), I find it
> also important to take time in solving the issue regarding the future
> name, independent of the development/scripting time line.
>
> Since OSGeo is the umbrella for all of us, this should IMHO somehow be
> incorporated in the name. Especially since the background of this piece
> of work is so diverse, and the use cases are getting more every time you
> turn around. There are currently: LiveDVD + Arramagong + GISVM + Live
> Demo + Click2Try + LiveUSB + ... Probably I have missed one or the other
> already.
>
> Each of these names has its reason, but since we can't name the thing
> "Click2TryArramagongGISVMLiveDVDUSBDemo" and expect people to remember
> or even use it, and since reducing the name to one part and thus
> neglecting all the other parts of the whole thing, I would opt for a new
> name on the basis of OSGeo.
>
> Another pro for "osgeo" in the name would be to strengthen how OSGeo is
> perceived from the outside.
> Since the LiveDVD-Project is a combined effort from many many OSGeo
> projects (much effort from some and less from others), I personally find
> it most reasonable to have OSGeo give its name. The name is the one
> thing for identity. Therefore the name should represent OSGeo the best
> way possible.
>
> apt-get install osgeo-gis (just as an example!)
> would much better inform the potential user about the sources than would
> apt-get install arramagong
>
> Praise to the main involved parties (Lisasoft as company, as well as
> several individuals like RicardoPinho) should of course be clearly
> published in an appropriate manner. Intro-page, about-page,
> documentation-start-page, history-page, ...
> After all, Cameron gave a calculation of man-hours (or rather weeks and
> months) involved in the production of the 2009-conference-DVD, in an
> email somewhere (forgot where exactly). This needs to be recognised and
> appreciated (and it is, I should add).
>
> One personal note at the end: I have experienced that due to
> language/culture differences, people sometimes find my saying offensive.
> I have tried to avoid this, but in case this happened anyway and someone
> feels offended by reading this mail, I truly apologize and assure you,
> no offence meant! I would appreciate an off-list comment though to
> better my writing next time.
>
> Kind regards,
> Judit
>
>
> Hamish schrieb:
>   
>> Cameron wrote:
>>     
>>> * I think we need to consolidate our web pages and brand
>>> them consistently. We have web pages under "livedvd, gisvm,
>>> arramagong, ..."
>>> I think that our project name and mission should not be
>>> tied to the distribution medium, because we can be much more
>>> than that. What we have is a "build process for OSGeo
>>> software  (and documentation)". Currently the build
>>> process is tied to Ubuntu, but in the future we will likely
>>> have spin offs to other platforms. Eg, we might put out a
>>> documentation or tutorial release which is available on
>>> windows.
>>>       
>> While I agree that de-messing is good I respectfully disagree that all
>> of what we do should fall under one name, and that the name should be
>> arramagong. 
>>
>> as far as the VM and DVD (+ future usb) being children on the same
>> arramagong (grand)parent, that seems logical enough to me. but they
>> are not quite siblings either... the DVD is an output, the GISVM is the
>> method. and the main Live* mailing list, wiki page, tracker etc are for
>> use by all osgeo-live projects, not just arramagong (nothing saying that
>> the first link on the page, in bold letters and blinking can't be arr.
>> though...)
>>
>> My point it that the greater live-demo* project is a number of things & we
>> shouldn't force it onto a single track. It just so happens that arramagong
>> is the leader right now. (largely due to the fact that it is the only one
>> with any formal support, which is a good thing and I certainly don't mind
>> encouraging that!)  At this point I find it hard to justify having that
>> branding move beyond the conference distro though.
>>
>>
>> [*] "live-demo" borrowing from the mailing list name, which is not quite
>> right either as we can do more than just demos.. perhaps live-osgeo is a
>> better catch-all name?
>>
>>
>> fwiw the DebianGIS mailing list's email is grass-pkg at ...debian.org due
>> to similar historical reasons & unexpected growth, as the livedvd/ dir
>> in our SVN. No one seems to mind as far as I know and it doesn't seem to
>> hurt adoption by non-grass users. If you're already there you know what
>> it's about, it's just internals.
>>
>>
>> I hope that we can work on the USB-stick version, and that what we learn
>> from adding yet-another medium might provide enough perspective to the
>> overall hierarchy to sort this all out.
>>
>>
>>     
>>> * I'm hopeful that at least one of the projects we have
>>> packaged in the liveDVD can be moved into
>>> DebianGIS/UbuntuGIS projects. So that the LiveDVD project
>>> can be used as a stepping stone toward getting a project
>>> into 
>>>       
>> fwiw, lessons learnt have already helped with official packaging, even if
>> they are not high profile. The road to becoming an official package is
>> long and "getting it to work" is just one small (but rather important)
>> step.
>>
>>
>> Ossim is actively going for it, I hope having them with us can help them
>> to succeed.  (I looked over the new install script, good job!)
>>
>>
>>     
>>> Ubuntu. Ideally, we will document and automate this
>>> process as we go. While the arramagong project has been good
>>> for attracting uses, we would attract significantly more
>>> users if trying osgeo software was as easy as "apt-get
>>> install arramagong".
>>>       
>> Just to let you know, if that is intended to set up desktop backgrounds
>> & icons it would be very unlikely to ever become an official debian
>> package. It is impressively strict. I've no idea about Ubuntu policies,
>> just that they are looser.
>>
>> the arramagong collection of help pages & graphics could be put into
>> a doc dir, with a so named script to load the main page in the webbrowser
>> or something I guess..... ??
>>
>> we could put out something like a "live-osgeo" package which just pulled
>> in packages we like, but DebianGIS and debianEdu-geo already have those
>> packages, so we'd just be making a third duplicate...
>>
>>
>>
>> 2c ramble,
>> Hamish
>>
>>     
>
>   
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-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Systems Architect
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com