[Live-demo] OSGEO Live GIS , ideas to share - Poseidon

Wed Dec 16 13:08:19 EST 2009

Christian,
Yes, you are right, big projects do have a lot of inertia required to get
them moving, and we faced and conquered it with our GeoSpatial LiveDVD
project, having built 3 distributions in 2 years, although the last
distribution we built is our highlight, because we moved from just 3 or 4
people involved in packaging to ~ 20 people who collectively built a
distribution in 6 weeks.

I believe we were successful because:
* We reduced the barrier of entry and offered high value for projects
wanting to join. "Write a simple install script, and we will guarantee your
application will be distributed on a DVD handed out at our international
conference to all delegates".
* The people we were targeting to do the packaging for us were all highly
motived and competent people, who already were leaders of Open Source
projects.

On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 8:39 PM, Christian - Poseidon Linux <
christian at poseidonlinux.org> wrote:

> Hello Cameron,
>
>
> First, thanks for all your explanations.
>
> I will be very happy to participate and join OSGeo too. Actually I tried a
> few years before, but I didn't succeeded.
>
> Honestly... just talking in general... I got a bit frustrated with big
> projects, since the inertia is so big sometimes... in Poseidon is a small
> group, we vote what should be included and that's it. No flame wars.
>
> Actually, I saw many efforts coming to build scientific distros, but as far
> as I saw, many of them are still just at the Wiki, while we in 5 years of
> existence had 5 official releases.
>
> And frankly, looking for the scientific users, in general they are not
> interested about a meta-package that turns a normal distro into a
> Poseidon-like... partially because in many causes they are new to Linux
> and/or they don't have the time to learn how to customize their a standard
> Linux distro.
>
> Well, that's my personal opinion... all fell free to disagree.
>
> ... going back...
>
> So, I will read the wiki and return to this discussion in the next days.
>
> Here where I am (at Marum, a marine research institute in Germany), they
> are really looking forward to work with Linux (and maybe Windows and MacOSX
> too) using OS GIS and webmapping tools.
>
>  ... and me too!
>
> Let's stay in touch... I will do my "homework" reading all your stuff.
>
> See you in a few days.
>
> Regards,
> Christian
>
> Christian Ferreira
> Oceanographer, Marum, Bremen, Germany
> Coordinator of Poseidon Linux <http://www.poseidonlinux.org>
> christian at poseidonlinux.org
>
> On Dec 15, 2009, at 8:48 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
>
> Hello Christian,
>
> Nice to meet you and hear about your work with Poseidon.
> I understand the amount of work involved in creating an Ubuntu distribution
> on your own. I've been involved in building a Geospatial distribution for a
> couple of years and ~ 4 major distributions now.
>
> Initially we did this through hero work of primarily one developer, who
> installed everything, but that became unsustainable. So instead we asked all
> geopspatial projects to write us a bash install script, then we built a
> process to install and build the live DVD.
>
> See a summary at:
>
> http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com/2009/10/arramgong-gis-live-dvd-off-to-printers.html
>
> our wiki here:
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc
>
> and our build process here:
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/GISVM_Build
>
> Using this same formula, we could help you build Poseidon Linux  - and in
> particular, some of your packages already have install scripts within our
> distribution.
>
> Does this interest you?
>
> Also of note, within a couple of days, we plan to put out a press release,
> encouraging projects to get involved in building our next distribution.
>
> It would be great to also mention how Poseidon and Arramagong projects are
> working together toward the next release.
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc_Press_Release_1
> We could include
>
> Christian Ferreira wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
>
>
> Poseidon is going to be updated to Ubuntu 9.10. The work is on the way.
>
>
> Actually, I have two versions nearly 100% ready based on Ubuntu 9.04. But
> took me so much time, that now this Ubuntu has just less than 1 year of
> security updates, so I decided for giving up. So, these Poseidon will never
> be released.
>
>
> The problem, is that Poseidon since from the beginning, Poseidon is a
> distro of a man alone. The team help with the website and sometimes writing
> documentation... but, the distro related work is done just by me.
>
>
> So, sometimes with the cruises, work and family is hard to find tons of
> time to produce real polished and good Poseidon release.
>
>
> Anyway... I new version is under construction... Actually, I am preparing
> first a minimal version of Poseidon Linux just with the GIS and MB System.
> This will be ready until end of December (I will work during Xmas hollidays
> on it).
>
>
> Well, I'm always glad to have help or ideas...
>
>
> Unfortunately, Poseidon Linux doesn't has the infrastructure necessary to
> be a internet shared project. And I never could find the resources to do so.
>
>
> PS: Please, Hamish and others... in the future (if possible), write me just
> to this email... the "chris for lists" email gets dozens of emails (and I
> use filter that sort them), so any personal mail is not filtered and may get
> lost among them.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Christian
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 12:57 PM, Hamish <hamish_b at yahoo.com <mailto:
> hamish_b at yahoo.com>> wrote:
>
>
>    Hamish:
>
>    > >> you might mave a look at the Poseidon live dvd project.
>
>
>    Massimo:
>
>    > > I know it, it's a great project!
>
>    > > from poseido i see some sw title i don't know first.
>
>    > > But seems the last release is dated 2008.
>
>    > > Maybe for educational purpose is not needed
>
>    > > to have the last sw version installed?
>
>    > > btw, just to know if it was a topic of interests.
>
>
>    Cameron Shorter wrote:
>
>    > http://www.en.poseidonlinux.org/
>
>    > This project looks very similar to what we are doing and
>
>    > there is great potential for us to collaborate. Does anyone
>
>    > know the developers there yet and want to invite them to
>
>    > work together with us?
>
>
>    any thoughts Christian?
>
>
>
>
>    regards,
>
>    Hamish
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Christian Ferreira
>
> Oceanographer
>
> Marum - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences
>
> Bremen - Germany
>
>
> Poseidon Linux team
>
> http://www.poseidonlinux.org
>
>
> Poseidon Linux team
>
> http://www.poseidonlinux.org
>
>
>
> --
> Cameron Shorter
> Geospatial Solutions Manager
> 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
>
>
>

-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Systems Architect
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Commercial Support for Geospatial Open Source Solutions
http://www.lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts.html
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