MapServer Sponsorship

[Daniel Morissette]

Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> 
> 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.
> 

Frank,

I'm sure you remember my position on sponsorship. I won't go through 
that again since my opinion has not changed much and can still be found 
in the archives of this list.

If we had a potential maintainer for MapServer (like Mateusz is to GDAL) 
then I might change my opinion since that seems to have worked fairly 
well for GDAL, but at the moment we don't.

Note that I would not want an outsider to be parachuted as maintainer. 
It would have to be an existing skilled and committed contributor who 
has shown some interest in MapServer before money was available. In 
Mateusz case he was involved in GDAL even before sponsorship was 
available. That's what I'd want for MapServer.

This means we should look in the current list of *active* committers:
http://www.ohloh.net/projects/3692/analyses/latest/contributors

If you take out PSC members because of the appearance of conflict of 
interest if they touch that money that doesn't leave much choice.

I saw your other email asking for people interested in being maintainer. 
Let's see what comes out of that.


Then there's the possibility of using sponsorship money to get someone 
to look after the website and docs stuff, perhaps also build some 
tutorials and demo datasets. This is an area that definitely needs some 
attention. There may be more potential candidates in that area and if we 
could find a good candidate (i.e. skilled and committed doc contributor) 
then I'd be supportive.

Daniel
-- 
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/