Call for volunteers!

[Marc Jacquin]

Hi folks,

This is a very interesting problem in terms of Software Engineering. How to
maintain a software shared by a lot of people ? From what I know, only the
documentation is not up to date. But, when you have to adapt MapServer to
your own environment, how to keep tracks of your own changes and integrate
them into the original source code ? How to follow the version evolutions ?

>From my point of view I had to make some changes in the 3.something code to
make it re-entrant and I have not found time since I talk to Steve a couple
of weeks ago to identify and give him the updates. Promised, I will.

But can most of MapServer users spend more time than they do on debugging,
updating and give Steve the feedback ? How to organize, validate and keep
track of the changes ?

I guess that Frank Warmerdam could help us. He is now leading the
remotesensing.org projects and OSIM is a good example. They surely faced the
same problems.

And let's give Steve the rest he deserves, we should create a Board
Committee deciding and validating (and managing) the updates
(software,version,documentation).

In the meantime, do we have a 'Powered by MapServer' logo ?

Finally, most of the people around the Geoweb are starting to compare their
product to MapServer, or trying to compete with ...

Marc

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
[mailto:owner-mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu]On Behalf Of Stephen
Lime
Sent: Friday, October 20, 2000 2:42 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.