[QGIS-Developer] QGIS Server and the Grants programme
Marco Bernasocchi
marco at opengis.ch
Wed Jun 10 02:48:55 PDT 2020
Hi all,
On 09.06.20 11:23, Régis Haubourg wrote:
> Hi,
> I can't agree more with Andreas.
Same here,
>
>
> Just note that we have major companies betting on QGIS server for
> production use and considering switching from Geoserver to QGIS server
> to get rid of the double administration task burden.
we also see more and more companies moving away from other solutions and
go to QGIS. The Desktop is often the driver, but more and more people
realize the huge advantage of having the same rendering on desktop,
server and specially mobile. At OPENGIS.ch we hope to contribute a
further big piece to the ecosystem with QFieldCloud.
A very very biased observation: in 6 years of running OPENGIS.ch, we
were asked maybe once ot twice to deploy a geoserver instance, we get
monthly requests to do the same for QGIS. Maybe it's Switzerland, Maybe
is us, but most certainly it is not because of the complexity of
installing QGIS...
To me, this integration is a _major_ USP for the QGIS ecosystem. I'd go
as far as saying that it is THE usp.
> They fund progressively what is missing and QGIS.org helps sometimes
> for OGC certification testing and documentation but the majority of
> the fund are not made by QGIS.org
absolutely agreed, in fact if we had more fund I think we could invest
more in the server and make people more aware that QGIS is not only a
desktop tool.
That is also part of the qgis.org website refresh, where we have an
opportunity to really convey better the message of QGIS being all you
need to run your SDI.
>
> So yes, we have open ecosystems, I don't get the point of trying to
> cut (small) funds on a solution that is useful, supported by users and
> funders.
As others said before, I don't see this as a Zero sum game, on the
contrary, I think that QGIS here as a real chance to get at it's real
concurrence which is definetly not MapServer or GeoServer.
It will still take a bit of time, but with amazing pace that we all are
pushing, we'll get there in less than we think.
Cheers
Marco
>
> Best regards
> Régis
>
>
> Le mar. 9 juin 2020 à 11:12, Andreas Neumann <a.neumann at carto.net
> <mailto:a.neumann at carto.net>> a écrit :
>
> Hi Jonathan,
>
> Rest assured - the majority of QGIS funds is already (and has
> always been going) into bug fixing. Again - both Desktop and
> server users benefit from that bug fixing.
>
> We publish our financial reports
> here: https://www.qgis.org/en/site/getinvolved/governance/finance/index.html
>
> If you look into the 2019 report, you can see that around 50% of
> our funds go into bug fixing and quality assurance (in some years
> even more). Only about 10% of our funds went into the grants in
> 2019. And from these grants, server received a small fraction. So,
> the absolute amounts of investments that QGIS.ORG
> <http://QGIS.ORG> invests into QGIS sever is really negligible.
>
> Most investments done in QGIS server go directly from clients to
> QGIS development companies - and that has nothing to do with
> QGIS.ORG <http://QGIS.ORG>
>
> If you talk about the number of users of a server installation - I
> think this is debateable: if you only count the admin of a server
> (regardless of which server), then the numbers are low - no matter
> if we talk about ArcGIS server, Geoserver, UMN, QGIS, etc. But
> every server easily has a hundred or sometimes several thousand
> users who use these services - don't you think. If I look at our
> small province - we have maybe 100 QGIS desktop users, but
> certainly several thousand users who use our Web-GIS and OGC
> services - don't you agree? And our services integrate with a lot
> of other applications that are vital to a province level
> government. So in this perspective, (QGIS)-server installations
> need to be multiplied with some factor to compare it with QGIS
> desktop user numbers.
>
> Andreas
>
> On 2020-06-09 10:38, Jonathan Moules wrote:
>
>> Hi Andreas, (& All),
>> A fair point, but I believe this is an important point and this
>> year I do have data to back up my point; in fact the grant
>> program is what motivated me to finally get around to doing this
>> analysis.
>>
>> It seems from the replies that while there are a few
>> differentiators, the key one is indeed cartography and styling.
>> (There's also an interesting conversation about vectors going on
>> there too). Some thoughts:
>> * The vast majority of WMS/WMTS layers are not cartographically
>> complicated, let alone beautiful. They're "here is a layer with
>> small green points for trees", and "this polygon represents
>> conservation areas". You can easily play around and see what's
>> out there here: http://www.geoseer.net/api-demo/
>> * WFS/WCS can't be styled server side.
>> * It seems like overkill to create and maintain an entire server
>> distribution that fundamentally only solves one (relatively
>> simple compared to what QGIS Desktop can do) problem.
>> * Rendering is only one part the QGIS package (Analysis,
>> digitisation, management, etc.).
>>
>> If I'm honest, the "competition" on this point isn't really
>> between QGIS and MapServer/GeoServer. It's really between QGIS
>> and ArcGIS. Because ArcGIS does exactly what QGIS Server seeks to
>> do: offer a single integrated solution for Desktop-> Server. And
>> certainly ArcGIS Server does have a huge number of deployments
>> (53%), however again, there really aren't many cartographically
>> complicated outputs on there. And despite the huge number of
>> deployments, most services and datasets are actually served by
>> MapServer/GeoServer (about 60% of datasets between them!).
>> Basically ArcGIS is deployed by local government and used for
>> bitty-stuff ("here are our fire stations"), but if you want a
>> real data-service then you go with GeoServer/MapServer/etc.
>>
>> Most importantly though, I think I haven't conveyed my core point
>> well: this really is a zero sum game!
>> Even allowing for the above, any funds spent on QGIS Server are
>> not spent on QGIS Desktop. There are 60 public facing QGIS Server
>> deployments. Even assuming that there's a ratio of 10:1 for
>> private/public servers (made up ratio, feels too high), any
>> funding on QGIS Server benefits only hundreds, or being very
>> generous, maybe low-thousands number of users. Funding on QGIS
>> Desktop however benefits as a *minimum* tens of thousands,
>> potentially millions of users (no idea how many QGIS installs
>> there are, I can't find the download-stats I remember seeing in
>> the past).
>> Heck, even pretending for a second QGIS Server had 100% of the
>> deployments (a 100 fold increase!), there would /still/ be orders
>> of magnitude more people using the not-Server parts of QGIS
>> Desktop by its very nature.
>>
>> There are 3,102 open issues on the QGIS issue tracker. 95 are
>> labelled regressions, 137 are "high priority", and 92 are
>> "crash/data corruption". Just 49 are "Server". I'm not seeking to
>> denigrate the project here; QGIS is a extremely complex tool that
>> is an amazing accomplishment and by its nature it will have bugs.
>> I raise these numbers to highlight that any money spent on Grants
>> to Server (and yes new Desktop features) is money that isn't
>> spent fixing these (I'm aware of the bug-fixing fund). Something
>> I think the grant voters should be cognizant of.
>>
>> Hope that clarifies,
>> I'll step back now. :-)
>> Cheers,
>> Jonathan
>>
>>
>> On 09/06/2020 08:09, Andreas Neumann wrote:
>>> Hi Jonathan,
>>> You keep repeating yourself. You started the exact same
>>> discussion a
>>> year ago.
>>> You have a valid point, of course, I don't argue that. But if
>>> you think
>>> about small organizations that do not have a lot of personal (or
>>> financial) resources, it would be a lot of burden to invest
>>> twice the
>>> time in styling: once for QGIS desktop and another time again
>>> for UMN
>>> mapserver and Geoserver. Even if SLD output from QGIS improved
>>> (also
>>> thanks to efforts of Andrea Aime and others), it still can't
>>> transport
>>> everything. If it would, then I would better agree with your
>>> argument.
>>> For such smaller organization, speed (and I know that UMN and
>>> Geoserver
>>> are a bit faster than QGIS server) is not the only important
>>> thing - it
>>> is also their personal and financial resources and complexity of
>>> their
>>> software landscape.
>>> And QGIS server has some other unique selling points: the
>>> proprietary
>>> GetPrint command that doesn't have a match in Geoserver or UMN, the
>>> ability to create Atlases from server, and who knows, in the future
>>> perhaps QGIS server can run processing models.
>>> Greetings,
>>> Andreas
>>> On 2020-06-08 22:42, Jonathan Moules 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 EUR10,000,
>>>> 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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--
Marco Bernasocchi
OPENGIS.ch CEO
QGIS.org Chair
marco at opengis.ch <mailto:marco at opengis.ch>
+41 (0)79 467 24 70 <tel:+41794672470>
OPENGIS.ch Logo <https://www.opengis.ch>
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