[QGIS-Developer] SAGA GIS plugin maintenance

[Alexander Bruy]

Hi Stefano,

I would be a -1 to the proposed idea. We need to be careful not to
fuse the QGIS PSC and "the community". The PSC manages a project with
lots of needs and pain points (infrastructure, bugfixing,
documentation, packaging, just to name a few). I think that your
proposal that the PSC should allocate funds to maintain a specific,
third-party plugin sets a potentially problematic precedent. There are
thousands of QGIS plugins and many of them are incredibly useful but
not maintained anymore. What makes the SAGA plugin uniquely qualified
to receive QGIS funding over any other unmaintained plugin? If
QGIS.org starts funding the maintenance of external plugins from its
budget, where do we draw the line?

If the community truly feels this plugin is very valuable, the
solution should come from the ground up, not from the top down. The
users and organizations who rely heavily on SAGA should be the ones to
find funds and find developer(s) willing to step up, take ownership
and the maintenance burden.

I haven't followed the development of the SAGA NextGen plugin closely,
but from what I have seen, it was mainly only one person taking care
of it and only a few very occasional contributors. This suggests that
there is very low interest among users in actively supporting a tool
which may be crucial for at least some of them.

Also, as someone who was previously involved in the core SAGA plugin
maintenance and developed an alternative SAGA Processing provider for
my own needs, I can only confirm all previously raised points
regarding the overhead related to keeping up with SAGA's changes.
Command structures and names change frequently, things tend to break
here and there without a notice, and the only source of truth is the
source code. It is indeed a heavy burden and that's exactly why it was
removed from QGIS core in the first place.

Just to reiterate my main point: users who want to have a SAGA plugin
should organize a dedicated fundraising campaign or find development
volunteers themselves. That would be a fair and truly community-driven
solution, rather than asking QGIS.org to stretch its budget for a
third-party dependency.

чт, 21 трав. 2026 р. о 10:53 Stefano Campus via QGIS-Developer
<qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org> пише:
>
> Good morning everyone,
>
> I’m writing to the dev list because I think this issue is of interest.
>
> For the past few days, the SAGA Next plugin—which allows you to use SAGA GIS modules within QGIS Processing—has been unavailable.
>
> According to reports in the QGIS community’s Telegram group, maintaining this plugin is becoming increasingly difficult due to developments in the SAGA project, which can cause the plugin to stop working.
>
> I recall that until a couple of years ago, SAGA was, like GRASS, a resource installed directly within QGIS, but then, precisely because of the difficulty in keeping up with SAGA’s developments, it was decided to treat SAGA as a third-party resource accessible via plugins.
>
> I believe it is right that this important resource should not be maintained on a voluntary basis by a single developer/user, but that it should be taken on by the community.
>
> Do you think it would be a good idea to propose to the Steering Group that its maintenance be taken on directly by the QGIS.org Foundation and that a certain sum (1000–2000 euros?) be set aside in the annual budget for its maintenance?
>
> Thank you
>
> stefano campus
>
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-- 
Alexander Bruy