MapServer Sponsorship

[Frank Warmerdam]

Folks,

Last year in Lausanne (and to some extent before that) we discussed the
possibility of instituting a sponsorship program for MapServer.  There
were some mixed feelings on the matter last summer and we shelved the
issue for a while to see how it works out for GDAL.

I'd like to re-raise the issue with an eye towards launching such a program
at FOSS4G - a good opporutunity to hit up some potential sponsors.

The rough idea is that the project would seek sponsors for the project.  The
funds collected would be administered by OSGeo under it's project sponsorship
program.  The funds (less a 25% portion kept for general OSGeo use) would be
used as directed by the MapServer PSC.  It could be to fund maintenance, new
development, t-shirts, documentation, or whatever though I would suggest we
focus on using it for maintenance and documentation.

The OSGeo project sponsorship program is described at:

   http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Project_Sponsorship

GDAL has put into place such a sponsorship program and collected (gross)
$21500 in sponsorship which has been used to fund Mateusz Loskot as a part
time maintainer.  The "sponsorship advertisement page" for GDAL looks like
this:

   http://www.gdal.org/sponsorship.html

The GDAL project also passed an RFC describing how the paid maintenance
position would operate, available at:

   http://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/wiki/rfc9_maintainer

My suggestion is that we take a roughly similar course for MapServer, though
the kinds of work we fund and how we administer it may differ somewhat.  I
think one approach is like that of GDAL where a relatively inexpensive but
passionate developer works fixing bugs with some guidance from someone
(perhaps Steve).  Another approach would be contract for blocks of maintenance
with some degree of self direction from experienced developers/organizations
like MapGears, DMSG, Steve, Howard, etc.

My ultimate dream when we launched OSGeo is that a program like this might
be enough to fund a project lead (ie. Steve) or senior developer to work
full time on the project but of course that takes quite a bit of funding.
So that might be a direction we aim, but is likely impractical for some
time.

If we are to launch such a program, there will need to be some effort to
line up sponsors.  I've done this single handed for GDAL but hopefully a
few of us could follow up with contacts for MapServer.  I can think of a
couple of my clients that would be likely candidates.

So, are folks interested?  Some pro's and con's?  Thoughts on how to use
sponsorship money effectively without screwing up our community dynamics?

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org