[osgeo4w-dev] OSGeo4W Governance

[Jeff McKenna]

> 
> 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).
> 

Frank,

I will take your comments on the gmap, apache (and mapserver ogc 
workshop) package documentation as a complement (as I recently upgraded 
their documentation).  My personal aim is to have this high level user 
documentation for all packages that I know.  I am not saying that every 
package maintainer has to follow this lead, but I am hoping it rubs off 
on some of them a little.

(in the case of the Apache package, it was important for me to document 
well, because its use in the installer is sometimes confusing to a new user)

-jeff


-- 
Jeff McKenna
MapServer Consulting and Training Services
http://www.gatewaygeomatics.com/