[QGIS-Developer] QGIS Server and the Grants programme

Wed Jun 10 03:34:41 PDT 2020

Heck yes, Thanks Ray for the idea of a lighthearted historical deep dive

QGIS server [0], [1]
- 2011 -> Born, (QGIS 1.6 - 27.11.2010)

Geoserver [2]
- 2002 -> Born? (0.9)
- 2003 -> 1.0
- 2011 -> 2.1.3

Mapserver [3]
- 1994 -> Born
- 1997 -> 1.0
- 2011 -> 6.0

So we can be 9y behind Geoserver and 17y behind mapserver ;)

Cheers all and keep up the amazing work, and thanks Jonathan for
triggering the interesting discussion

Marco

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20101130113806/http://blog.qgis.org/node/146
[1]
https://web.archive.org/web/20111010211800/http://linfiniti.com/2010/08/qgis-mapserver-a-wms-server-for-the-masses/
[2] https://sourceforge.net/projects/geoserver/files/GeoServer/
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MapServer

On 09.06.20 08:38, Raymond Nijssen wrote:
> And imagine that
>
> Mapserver 1.0,
> GeoServer 1.0 and
> QGIS Server 1.0
>
> had all been released at the same date. What would these deployment
> numbers have been like now?
>
> Regards,
> Raymond
>
>
> On 09-06-2020 01:18, Nyall Dawson wrote:
>> On Tue, 9 Jun 2020 at 09:12, Tim Sutton <tim at kartoza.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi
>>>
>>>
>>> Nice, thoughtful message below, thanks Jonathon. I wonder what it
>>> will take to move the needle above 1%? And whether we should try to
>>> use our funds to make that happen. QGIS is surely the most
>>> expressive way to do cartography of any GIS out there (acknowledging
>>> total bias on my part) and seeing that cartography on the web would
>>> surely please many people. Clients like QWC, QWC2 or anything that
>>> requires you to hand edit a config file or log into a unix shell to
>>> publish map services are probably the main limitation (no offence to
>>> those tools). Also the lack of an built in tiling server (with
>>> proper metalling and meta buffering) must surely be the other. 
>>> Maybe a more useful approach to your discussion below would be to
>>> promote funding the elements that add resistance to deploying QGIS
>>> server……but then we would be in new feature space and circling back
>>> to the idea of not funding QGIS Server with grants…..
>>
>> Something else to consider is whether technologies like WMS are
>> ultimately just "dead end" technologies now, and possibly we'd be
>> better off focusing on client side rendering of vector features from a
>> server (QGIS or other), and providing a library which can do
>> client-side rendering of vector tiles from QGIS symbology in as close
>> to 1:1 as possible...
>>
>> Nyall
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Regards
>>>
>>> Tim
>>>
>>> On 8 Jun 2020, at 21:42, 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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>>>
>>>
>>> —
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Tim Sutton
>>>
>>> Co-founder: Kartoza
>>> Ex Project chair: QGIS.org
>>>
>>> Visit http://kartoza.com to find out about open source:
>>>
>>> Desktop GIS programming services
>>> Geospatial web development
>>> GIS Training
>>> Consulting Services
>>>
>>> Skype: timlinux
>>> IRC: timlinux on #qgis at freenode.net
>>>
>>> I'd love to connect. Here's my calendar link to make finding time easy.
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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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>

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