[osgeo4w-dev] OSGeo4W Governance

[Frank Warmerdam]

Jeff McKenna wrote:
> Since we're talking about packages...
> 
> We've been going through the wiki pages for our translation efforts, and 
> I'm sorry, but the OSGeo4W package information is very slim (or, 
> "pathetic" is a better word)[1].  Part of the packaging role, that we 
> define as a PSC, must include documenting your own package in the wiki 
> (user help, specific osgeo4w notes, version notes, anything) otherwise 
> having all these packages are useless to a new user.
> 
> [1] http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/wiki/PackageListing

Jeff,

I have generally focused on providing OSGeo4W specific notes, information
on who the maintainer is, and in some cases "notes to myself" as packager
so I find my build tree.  I had not been particularly considering these
pages as the first point of contact the user would have with the package
but we could aim for that.

/me skims a few packages, and discovers amazing examples like:

   http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/wiki/pkg-gmap
   http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/wiki/pkg-apache
   http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/wiki/pkg-grass

contrasted with the quite minimalist approach I've used;

   http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/wiki/pkg-mapserver
   http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/wiki/pkg-libjpeg
   http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/wiki/pkg-gdal

I am concerned that the amazing examples are setting rather a high bar.
And what's with the gmap package, for instance, including a mini-tutorial
on how to select the package in the installer?  Surely it is silly to do
this in every single package!  Why not just have some general OSGeo4W
"how to install a package" tutorials?

Clearly we have a great disparity of opinion on the appropriate level of
detail to go into between yourself, myself and Jurgen.  I do think it
is reasonable to ask for quite a bit higher level of detail for the
major packages (ie. the ones that appear in the express install).

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    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent