[Qgis-psc] QGIS for Mac OS packaging and infrastructure

[Peter Petrik]

Dear PSC,

I have never had an idea to sell QGIS Mac Packages commercially, since I
believe the QGIS should be easy and free to install on every platform. The
packages Lutra created are based on many hours of work on QGIS, homebrew,
homebrew-osgeo, etc. We took the effort to improve Mac packages because we
felt it is a request from the user community. Smaller part of the work was
funded by crowdfunding and by our client, but I have contributed weeks of
work outside the scope of funded work. I will definitely continue to
contribute to QGIS project and/or packaging  in unpaid time, but clearly we
would probably not have a full free month to do packaging and I wanted to
put it clear that without any decision from PSC our small Mac packaging
exercise may be left unmaintained in ½ year time.

I have also started this thread to clearly state where we are now, what we
have and what work should be taken to have community-driver packaging
process. I believe that packaging should be open and community driven, so
everyone can contribute. This is clearly not the case for many platforms.
It does not mean we need to do it in one massive project or that it has to
be fully paid. I understand that QGIS.org is not willing to fund such huge
project directly, but we asked for decisions.. So please, would it be
possible to clearly state the opinion of PSC about the topic, so the
community know what is the resolution?

I see multiple options and there are definitely many others:

   1.

   Keep the current approach with volunteers to drive the packaging
   process. No funding from QGIS.org.
   2.

   Budget for X$/year for packaging for each platform. This way we can
   slowly over the years improve packaging and implement proposed QEP. The
   question is how the money will be allocated to developers. Maybe have voted
   maintainer for the package+platform for a year?
   3.

   Try to do QGIS driven crowd/business funding of this motion to get some
   initial funds for kick-off of the project
   4.

   Encourage developers to apply for QGIS grants for such infrastructure
   tasks.


If you feel that it may help, I am happy to participate in the meeting and
answer the questions. But from my point of view, we need a clear vision
from the PSC.

Kind regards,

Peter


On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 7:05 AM Saber Razmjooei <
saber.razmjooei at lutraconsulting.co.uk> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Many thanks for your suggestions and feedback.
>
> To make a couple of things clear:
>
> 1- Packaging is not an exciting feature, so crowd-funding will not result
> in many responses.
> 2- Neither Peter nor Denis are short of fee-earning work. So, the aim of
> the QEP is to help with bringing macOS packaging in par with other OSes
> from developers and users point of view.
> 3- @Richard 🌍 Duivenvoorde <richard at duif.net>  I don't want to disclose
> the name of the organisation who funded the initial work. But the idea was
> that they would consider supporting QGIS directly, once they have better
> signed packages for their. There was a discussion in Zanzibar with Andreas
> about possible funding as well.
>
> Kind regards
> Saber
>
> On Wed, 27 Mar 2019 at 05:46, Richard 🌍 Duivenvoorde <richard at duif.net>
> wrote:
>
>> On 27/03/2019 00.45, Nyall Dawson wrote:
>> > The trick is balancing being a professional, finance driven project
>> > whilst still encouraging donations of code and new community members.
>> > If we discourage commercial investment and the sponsored work of
>> > Lutra, North Road, OpenGIS, Oslandia, 3liz, camptocamp, Sourcepole,
>> > iMhere Asia, etc then we won't have anywhere near the activity we see
>> > today. For many of us it's no longer a "partly to get a living"
>> > matter, it's a "my livelihood DEPENDS on being paid for the work I do"
>> > matter. We've taken the risk to drop stable work as employees for
>> > commercial firms and instead dedicate our time to making QGIS better.
>> >
>> > So let's be cautious in these discussions. Please don't disparage or
>> > put down commercially backed work. Embrace the changing nature of the
>> > project and the benefits it's given to all, and help to guide the
>> > project to ensure that both commercial backed work AND community can
>> > co-exist together.
>>
>> Ok, I'll try to be more cautious, I'm not putting down commercial work!
>>
>> I've no problem with commercial interest, I do have myself too partly. I
>> hoped that pointing to the Crowdfunding efforts that I'm ok if companies
>> keep up their own pants. But I do have problems if certain commercial
>> interests eat 20% of community interest. Then there is an imbalance.
>> If I look at both the dev and the user 'market', giving/asking 20% of a
>> yearly budget to a maybe 5 percent market share is not proportional.
>> Before starting to point to the other OS with a small user market share:
>> at least they offer (looking at the dev meetings or commumity
>> discussions on the list) a large part of dev's AND community discussions.
>>
>> We have to manage this balance carefully, I do not have a good plan for
>> it. But looking at other projects: Postgres? Debian? Apache? Kernel?
>> should help. But it is HARD: I've seen OSM point to us after Anita's talk.
>>
>> @saber: who paid for the effort till oct 2019? Apparently if was more
>> expensive then they thought? Can they be asked to sponsor the rest?
>>
>> As a personal note about passing this point 3 years ago: I'm aware of
>> that and it affects my 'fun' in the project. It's hard to give back to a
>> project for free if others try to get a living from the same.
>> So I hereby give up my PSC position to somebody who can handle this
>> tension better.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> R
>>
>
>
> --
> Saber Razmjooei
> www.lutraconsulting.co.uk
> +44 (0)7568 129733
> _______________________________________________
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> Qgis-psc at lists.osgeo.org
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