[Qgis-psc] Thoughts

[Jeff McKenna]

Thank you for these open thoughts Paolo.  I have personally just printed 
out your words here, and will review them thoroughly.  Thank you for 
taking the time to share your thoughts here.  -jeff



On 2019-03-27 3:44 AM, Paolo Cavallini wrote:
> Hi all,
> I'm approaching my first year as Chair, I feel it's the time for me to
> raise the head from everyday tasks, and try to draw a more general
> picture of where the project is heading.
> One of the greatest strengths of our project is, in my view, the
> diversity of interests and approaches among us. Choices and trends come
> from the composition of all different priorities, without anyone taking
> the lead at thee disadvantage of others, and this give us much strength.
> As such, it is often difficult to understand where are we heading to,
> because of the lack of strong central decisions. As PSC member, I see we
> are usually busy dealing with day to day activities, and seldom we talk
> and thing in a bigger perspective.
> Nevertheless, changes do occur, and trends emerge. To me it is very
> interesting to put these into perspective, and I hope the same will be
> for you.
> Among these, I see two lines that are to me particularly evident:
> * the increasing number and importance of proprietary tools and
> services; in the good old days I think we used 100% free software; today
> this would be very difficult
> * the shift from a volunteer-only association, in which who is
> interested in something just does it, to a company-style group, where
> people are paid for providing services.
> To be very clear, as Chair I do not judge these as problems, and I'm
> happy whatever direction the community will take for the good of our
> project (of course, as everybody knows, I have my personal preferences
> and priorities).
> We are steadily growing stronger and bigger, and some of these changes
> might genuinely be unavoidable in the process, or it is just a shift in
> overall mentality and expectations. Whichever way, this may be good for
> the project, and I certainly do not oppose it a priori.
> What makes me uncomfortable though, and prompted me to write this note,
> is seeing these changes to creep in, probably unnoticed by many in the
> community, through a myriad of small, apparently minor, day to day
> decisions. I can't tell how many of us are really happy of these trends,
> how many are unhappy, and whether some important contributor is put away
> by the changes, or rather by the too slow pace of it.
> We have to be especially careful because companies, smaller and larger,
> are a powerful engine driving us towards a better code, a faster
> development rate, and better overall quality. On the other hand, we are
> dependent on the volunteer work by countless individuals and
> organizations; our budget does not allow us, and will not allow us in
> the foreseeable future, to replace all the volunteer work with paid
> personnel, so it is in our best interest to balance the needs of these
> two components.
> I have two aims writing this:
> * raise an open discussion on these points, to better cooperatively
> understand what are the priorities, the feelings and the aspirations of
> the community
> * reach a consensus on our mission, drawing guidelines or a social
> contract à la Debian, or some other tool that could make everybody more
> happy at least in average.
> I'm fully aware this is a potentially disruptive topic, but a thoughtful
> discussion could lead us towards a stronger, more united community.
> Sorry for being long.
> All best wishes.
> 


-- 
Jeff McKenna
MapServer Consulting and Training Services
https://gatewaygeomatics.com/