[QGIS-Developer] QGIS Server and the Grants programme

Wed Jun 10 06:22:44 PDT 2020

I knew it, but that's explains why QGIS Server is so much better ;-)

On 10/06/20 11:34, Marco Bernasocchi wrote:
> 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>
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J. Gustavo
-- 
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