[Qgis-developer] Project quality discussion

[Alessandro Pasotti]

2015-11-09 11:52 GMT+01:00 Nyall Dawson <nyall.dawson at gmail.com>:

> On 9 November 2015 at 21:42, Vincent Picavet (ml)
> <vincent.ml at oslandia.com> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > On 07/11/2015 00:08, Nyall Dawson wrote:
> >> On 7 Nov 2015 12:22 AM, "Hugo Mercier" <hugo.mercier at oslandia.com
> >> <mailto:hugo.mercier at oslandia.com>> wrote:
> >>> - if a company with no core developer wants to ensure a new feature is
> >>> accepted, it should pay another core developer for the reviewing part.
> >>> Ideally the money should go to the project and the project would decide
> >>> what core developer(s) to pay.
> > [..Snip.]
> >
> >> It also means the entire project becomes 100% dependant on financing. At
> >> the moment a huge chunk (probably the majority) of QGIS work is
> >> volunteer or via non-funded contributions.
> >
> > As far as I know this statement is totally wrong. The vast majority of
> > QGIS work is done via paid people during work hours. This is definitly
> > not volunteering, neither non-funded.
> > Some work may not be _directly_ funded, but it it still paid work :
> > researchers, consultant, people who develop plugins to help their jobs
> > may not be paid directly to do specific QGIS improvement. But all the
> > work they do on it is part of their global job.
> >
> > They are indeed students, week-end programmers and other fully
> > benevolent volunteers who do a great job in QGIS, but it is IMHO very
> > far from being a majority.
> > And paying them to work on QGIS also is a way to value their work and
> > improve quality, not make the project $$$-dependant.
> >
>
> Who would be paying them?
>
> >>> - if a company with no core developer wants to ensure a new feature is
> >>> accepted, it should pay another core developer for the reviewing part.
>
> The way I read this is that THEY would have to pay for their
> contribution to be reviewed.
>
> Nyall
>


Only if nobody volunteers to review that for free.

The problems we are addressing are two:

1. I'm a not-core-dev and I get a contract for a new feature, I want to be
sure that it will be accepted and included in the core in a certain time
2. I'm a core-dev and there is a 70-core-files-changed PR waiting for me to
review it for free, I cannot simply afford to work on it because my partner
will divorce, my boss will fire me and my children will starve

So, to address 1, we will ask for a QEP before the PR is even submitted, If
the QEP is approved, the not-core-dev will be reasonably sure that the
feature will be included in the core(when ready and if properly coded) and
can sign the contract with his customer. He also know that a certain amount
of money will be required to pay for the code review and that the code
review will be done in a certain time.

To address 2, the QGIS.ORG will ask if somebody is volunteering to review
the code in a certain time (and keep the money for the project in that
case) an hire a core dev to do the code review in case no one is available
(still keeping part of the money for the internal expenses).

This is not killing voluntary work, provides some additional funds for
QGIS.ORG, reward core devs (and feeds their children) and moreover
guarantee certain times and a clear and transparent path for new features
approval process to not-core devs.


-- 
Alessandro Pasotti
w3:   www.itopen.it
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