[QGIS-Developer] QGIS Server and the Grants programme

[Jonathan Moules]

Hi List,
Some of you may have seen my blog post on the OSGeo-Discuss list about 
which mapping servers are the most deployed. For those who haven't seen 
it, QGIS Server has about 60 public deployments (1% of all of them), and 
it serves 11,924 datasets (0.5% of all public geospatial 
WMS/WFS/WCS/WMTS datasets).

Potentially controversial here and I appreciate it's not a competition, 
but given the low uptake of QGIS Server compared to other Open Source 
offerings (GeoServer: 964 deployments, 963,603 datasets; MapServer: 544 
deployments, 389,709 datasets), is QGIS Server something the grant 
program should be funding? There are three Server proposals totalling 
€10,000, 22% of the fund.

Now, before you get the pitchforks out(!), please consider the following:

* Zero sum game - Any money spent on QGIS Server cannot be spent on QGIS 
Desktop. (The grants mostly aren't things that will improve the shared 
QGIS Core). (This reasoning also follows through to OSGeo funds).

* Multiple solutions - Open Source (and OSGeo) already has a very 
healthy ecosystem of mapping servers - does it need another one?

* Limited number of users benefited - I don't have stats for it, but 
QGIS Desktop is probably the most popular Open Source Desktop GIS, and 
is certainly going to have many orders of magnitude more users than QGIS 
Server.

* Playing to your strengths - QGIS' strength is it's Desktop and it's 
generally good practice to play to your strengths.


So given the above, and that QGIS is already "winning" as an Open Source 
Desktop (great job!), I'd like to suggest it's not a good idea to dilute 
the limited resources by spending them on QGIS Server. Instead it seems 
that far more people would benefit if that money was spent on Desktop, 
especially the bug fixing programme.

Or alternatively, given the "Unique Selling Point" of QGIS Server is its 
integration with QGIS Desktop, those resources could be used to further 
improve interoperability with GeoServer/MapServer/deegree/etc. Those are 
all successful mature OSGeo projects that excel at serving maps, have an 
architecture designed for it, and already have huge install bases.

TLDR: QGIS excels at being a Desktop, and I'd like to suggest it should 
play to its strengths and focus its limited funds there to benefit the 
most users.

I shall now retreat to my bunker. :-)

Cheers,
Jonathan

Note: The above only applies to the Grant program and funding; how 
developers wish to spend their time, and on which projects is of course 
their own prerogative.

(Disclosure: I have no horse in this race; I don't run or administer any 
mapping servers, but I have done GeoServer in the past.)