Call for volunteers!

[Doyon, Jean-Francois]

Dan, Stephen, and the list,

I'm all for it, and would gladly contribute whatever little time I can find
to helping with such a project.

Putting in a place a seperate documentation project for the app would be
VERY usefull, as would
a proper demo project. This would undoubtedly contribute to the growth of
the usage of Mapserver and
be a generally great way to further opensource. Not to mention it would
obviously make for better
documentation and demo's.

I'm getting a pretty well rounded experience these days with Mapserver, from
the CGI version to the
mapscript implementations, so I guess I'd qualify myself as a "power user"
:)

J.F.

> ----------
> From: 	Stephen Lime[SMTP:steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us]
> Sent: 	Friday, October 20, 2000 3:42 PM
> To: 	morissette at dmsolutions.on.ca
> Cc: 	mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
> Subject: 	Call for volunteers!
> 
> Go ahead and blame the U. Eductation is a role I think they can fill
> better than anyone. It's even hard for me to write ample documentation
> because I'm too close to the code and often gloss over important details.
> I think your suggestions are an excellent idea.
> 
> I've certainly got enough demo stuff to work from with the "main" demo and
> more importantly the test suite. So is there anyone out there willin to
> take this on? Other projects have successfully implemented this so I see
> no reason the MapServer can't given it's install base is more than 200
> sites now. I think a demo and doc CVS site that parallels the dev site
> would be great and I'll certainly get that going.
> 
> If your interested, please let me know! Thanks!
> 
> Steve
> 
> >>> Daniel Morissette <morissette at dmsolutions.on.ca> 10/20/00 00:24 AM >>>
> Steve,
> 
> The attached message shows a problem that is unfortunately too common
> with new MapServer users: lots of people that try using MapServer for
> the first time run into problems with obsolete demo files (or lack of
> troubleshooting help, or FAQ, or ???).  A few of them send a question to
> the list, but too many probably go away just because they can't get the
> demo running.
> 
> The same happened to me when I first tried MapServer... I had to fix up
> the demo that I downloaded before I could get a map... took me only a
> few minutes because I'm used to reverse-engineering... but the average
> GIS person will just give up and download/try another package.
> 
> This message is not to blame you or UMN... I am in the same situation
> with the PHP stuff (the GMap PHP demo on our FTP site is not in sync
> with the software: it dates from May!).  I would like to suggest
> something, but before sending a message out on the list I wanted to get
> youropinion.
> 
> Since we (as developers) are already too busy with implementing stuff
> and fixing bugs, and writing demos and tutorials is not a very good use
> of our time, I would like to suggest that we build a team of 2 or 3
> power users to be responsible for the maintenance/testing of demos and
> tutorials on various platforms.
> 
> We would inform these individuals of new features as we implement them
> and they would regularily update their copy of MapServer from the CVS
> source (every week or so), test the new features by updating the
> "official" demos and write new demos/tutorials/documentation showing the
> new features if necessary.
> 
> When a MapServer release happens, they would be responsible of releasing
> a new set of demos in sync with the software.  
> 
> The biggest problem is probably to find someone to take the lead of that
> team since we've all got enough on our plate already.  Hopefully if we
> send a note to the list someone will volounteer.
> 
> What do you think?
> -- 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>  Daniel Morissette             morissette at dmsolutions.on.ca
>                http://www.dmsolutions.on.ca/
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>   Don't put for tomorrow what you can do today, because if 
>       you enjoy it today you can do it again tomorrow.
>