[QGIS-Developer] QGIS Server and the Grants programme

[Luigi Pirelli]

I'm not a backend guy nor a qgis server expert, but because years ago
involved in finding solution to grow style incompatibility among geoserver
and qgis via sld (before in Boundless end to nothing because there were any
tech solution... or I'm too tech limiteated to imagine a solution) later
adding support for sld/raster in qgis, I could say:

1) qgis server is mainly used to respect styling and avoid headaches in
converting to other style languages... and secondarily as wps engine.
2) geoserver side never considered seriously to think at qgis server as
renderer delegate... or at least was my impression with geoserver guys in
Boundless
3) There is no way to represent rich map style in a interoperability way...
sadly I agree with you, qgis is creating (yet) another de facto
style language and I'm not proud of this, but far from me to judge, I'm not
a cartographer too!
3) Style rendering is heavily moving to client side

so having this open point, I can't say what would be better or not
financing a qgis server grant... For sure would be better facilitate qgis
project style rendering in other server platforms, but the solution does
not pass using SLD!

Luigi Pirelli

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On Mon, 8 Jun 2020 at 22:43, Jonathan Moules <jonathan-lists at lightpear.com>
wrote:

> 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.)
>
>
>
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