[Qgis-psc] Thoughts

[Andreas Neumann]

On Wed, 27 Mar 2019 at 21:01, Anita Graser <anitagraser at gmx.at> wrote:

> Thank you for the thoughtful email, Paolo!
>
> On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 7:44 AM Paolo Cavallini <cavallini at faunalia.it>
> wrote:
>
>> Among these, I see two lines that are to me particularly evident:
>> * the increasing number and importance of proprietary tools ...
>
> * the shift from a volunteer-only association ...
>
> To be very clear, as Chair I do not judge these as problems ...
>
> We are steadily growing stronger and bigger, and some of these changes
>> might genuinely be unavoidable ...
>>
>
> I don't think we're the only ones in this situation but I'm having a hard
> time identifying projects with a comparable community structure.
>
>

It is probably not comparable - but the PostgreSQL community manages to
thrive in a shared commercial, but sticking to open source values,
community. Most of the work done in PostgreSQL is paid work (probably close
to 99%). But the companies involved share their responsibility for the
project and work in a friendly environment where they respect each other
and collaborate.

EnterpriseDB and 2ndQuadrant, and other smaller companies have offices
around the globe, hundreds or thousands of employees and customers (top
customers like you can see f.e. at https://www.enterprisedb.com/about-us or
https://www.2ndquadrant.com/en/postgresql/who-uses-postgresql/ and
https://www.2ndquadrant.com/en/case-studies/ )

Note that I don't talk about Postgis, which is unfortunately, often
notoriously underfunded.

I think that the PostgreSQL community could serve as  a future role model
for QGIS. Not that I think that we will ever be as big or relevant as
PostgreSQL - but perhaps we can learn a bit from them how they manage to
balance commercial interests vs. a shared vision of an open project and
community.

I talked to Bruce Momjian last year (a PostgreSQL evangelist and
EnterpriseDB employee). I think he would have some interesting ideas and
experiences to share from his decade-long involvement with the PostgreSQL
community.

Should we try to reach out to other successful Open Source projects and
perhaps find out how they deal with such problems that arise within our
community?

Greetings,
Andreas

-- 

--
Andreas Neumann
QGIS.ORG board member (treasurer)
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