[Qgis-developer] [Qgis-user] Discussion on the QGIS grant proposals

Thu Sep 22 02:39:34 PDT 2016

Thank you for raising this Andreas,

What I wonder is to which degree the people/companies behind a proposal
should be considered. In particular about:

 * Their history within the project *

how much they did before for the project. I think that a grant can not
only have a direct impact by making a particular project happen but also
an indirect multiplier effect by keeping people motivated to stay on the
project.

 * Volunteer time *

Grant money could compensate for volunteer time spent by
some people. And foster the multiplier effect again.

 * Their suitability for a particular job *
How much they did in this area before and therefore can be expected to
successfully accomplish the job.

In particular I think we should pay attention to not attract individuals
that only pop up when there's money to be spent from the project and
then disappear again.

Regards
Matthias

On 09/22/2016 08:14 AM, Neumann, Andreas wrote:
> Dear QGIS users, developers, voting members and user group representatives,
> 
> As you may have noticed, there is a first round of a QGIS grant program,
> fueled by the donations and sponsorship money we received in the past
> months. Tim Sutton, chair of the QGIS project, has publicized this
> program repeatedly on several channels.
> 
> The good thing is that we got some very good proposals. In total 18
> proposals, adding up to a total grant sum of 101 k €. You can see all
> proposals
> at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B__vDnQXCKiwYTIyWmRSbi1hMWM/view?usp%3Dsharing&sa=D&ust=1474526025402000&usg=AFQjCNFhp43Lkxw3aBCed9-9luJpnR0oWg
> 
> Please note that we can only spend 20k € in this first round. So there
> are tough decisions to make. Note that proposals that can't make it in
> the first round, can be kept in a waiting list and may apply again in
> the next round of a grants program. If a proposal can't be accepted in
> the first round, this doesn't mean it isn't valuable and useful to the
> QGIS.ORG project.
> 
> The QGIS PSC will honor the opinion of the voting members, the OSGEO
> representative and the user group representatives on how to spend this
> limited money wisely. Alltogether a group of currently 27 people (13
> qgis user group represenatives, 13 community voting members, 1 OSGEO
> representative). This is kind of the "parliament" of the QGIS project
> when it comes to such decisions.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Now comes my personal position/opinion - note that this is not the
> official opinion of the QGIS.ORG board.
> 
> I would personally welcome, if this round of the QGIS grants program
> could focus on the QGIS 3.0 release.
> 
> I personally also think that the QGIS grants program, at least at the
> current time, should not pay for development of new features (at least
> not features visible in the GUI for the users). These features can
> be "relatively easy" funded by companies and government organizations
> out there. So our limited QGIS.ORG funds should be rather spent a) to
> community work or b) infrastructure work or c) development work in the
> core of QGIS, such as API modifications, code redesign - stuff that
> isn't really visible to the users, but essential for the success of the
> project. 
> 
>  
> 
> Documentation and PyQT documentation work is already budgeted in our
> annual budget. The money for 2016 hasn't even been spent for both items.
> So I think we should first use the budgeted money for such work. I think
> that user and developer documentation should be an ongoing effort and
> should be supported every year, und budgeted every year as such. We can
> increase the documentation budget positions next year, should it be
> necessary. In reality, it was more a lack of people willing to do the
> work, rather than a lack of funding. So, I am happy to see some
> proposals around documentation and developer documentation - so it seems
> that we have some volunteers. I just suggest that we consider
> documentation work separately and do it anyway - regardless of the
> outcome of the voting on these items.
> 
> Several proposals have a very limited local focus, only useful to one
> single country, or a very limited subset of our users. I suggest that
> such proposals could best be financed by local user groups or interest
> groups. It can't be the purpose of the QGIS grants program to finance
> such projects.
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Here is my own personal list of priorities:
> 
> 18) QGIS 3 ticket handling and API refactoring
> 
> This is really time critical, and past discussions around QGIS 3.0 has
> shown that there is a lack of project management work and coordination.
> I regard this proposal as very useful for the QGIS 3.0 release.
> 
> 11) Introduce everything necessary for QGIS3 to OSGeo4W
> 
> The majority of our users are on Windows (like it or not). This is the
> platform that matters most in our user base. The introduction of QGIS
> 3.0 means porting everything to newer libraries and means a lot of work.
> This should be one of our main priorities. Jürgen does it works silently
> in the background many days of work each year that go unnoticed. Jürgen
> usually only hears complaints if something fails - maybe not so much
> praise. Having Windows nightly builds and releases early on in the life
> cycle of QGIS 3.x means that it can be well tested. So - also really
> important to our project.
> 
> 2) Implement a flexible properties framework in QGIS
> 
> This is the kind of under-the-hood API changes and improvements I
> mentioned above. Stuff that brings our project forward, but under the
> hood - not visible for the user. This is the basis that later follow-up
> work can than build upon and benefit from. Stuff that later can also be
> funded by organizations/companies. Also time critical, to be done as
> soon as possible. Early in the 3.x life cycle when API changes are still
> possible.
> 
> 14) Project / Map layer registry refactoring
> 
> Similar reasoning like item 2) above. Under the hood, necessary API
> improvements. Also time critical, to be done as soon as possible. Early
> in the 3.x life cycle when API changes are still possible.
> 
> --------------------------------
> 
> Now, the documentation items:
> 
> 1) 2.16 Documentation
> 
> 16) PyQGIS Developer Cookbook update and maintenance
> 
> 15) PyQGIS Cookbook Review
> 
> They add up in total to € 14k. I believe that all of the three  deserve
> to be supported financially. We have budgeted 10k € in 2016 for
> documentation and PyQT documentation. 1.5k € have been spent so far. So
> still 8.5k remaining. Together with the new 2017 budget I believe that
> all of the three above items can be easily handled outside of the QGIS
> grants program. Documentation should be an ongoing, continuous and
> budgeted accordingly, outside of the grants program.
> 
> -------------------------------
> 
> What are your opinions?
> 
> Greetings,
> 
> Andreas
> 
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