[Qgis-psc] Thoughts

[Paolo Cavallini]

Hi all,
first of all, thanks a lot for your thoughtful contributions. I think
this discussion is marking a significant improvement in our community,
and invite others to contribute to the discussion - I'm sure e will
appreciate and profit from even more thoughts.
I also apologize deeply if my words sounded insulting to anybody, and in
particular to developers - this is not what I meant, so let me try to
clarify. I as not opposing volunteer *individuals* to paid *individuals*
or companies: we all mix the two to some degree; I took this for granted
(sorry, probably I did not state it clearly enough).
My view: we need both paid work *and* volunteer work. We just cannot
afford, from a mere practical point of view, missing all the countless
hours of volunteer work. Even if and when this will be possible, I'm not
sure that missing this component will be a good thing for the project,
as Richard has nicely pointed out.
The importance of the huge and growing amount of paid work is so obvious
that I'm sure everybody is happy increasing it.
I'm pretty sure nobody is uncomfortable with people being paid for the
work in QGIS. What may cause discontent is seeing what can be perceived
as unfair treatment, with people getting different rewards for
essentially the same contribution. I think it is also our duty to
guarantee a fair treatment to all, or at least to smooth out differences
whenever possible.
My point is therefore not about control, but on positive actions to
increase personal satisfaction and rewards of all the various components
of the community. Our past actions towards enhancing neglected areas
were IMHO quite successful (think e.g. our Grant programme), and I'd
like to pursue them further.
Of course any positive action towards expanding our budget to be able to
cover more and more chores is of crucial importance in any case.
I think writing down our social contract, or vision/values/whatever as
Richard calls it, is the next step to transform this discussion into
something usable.
A few more specific replies:
* [Nyall]:
* [Anita]: yes, we are in a privileged situation - let's make the most
out of it
* [Andreas, Régis]: agreed, discussion with other projects will help; of
course every project has its own specific community and priorities (e.g.
PostgreSQL community is made mostly of IT professionals rather than end
users, and its BSD licence is much more liberal towards companies), but
we can get good advice from all of them; I agree PostgreSQL is a good
candidate, and I'll approach some key actor there; others may be suggested.
* [Anita, others]: glad you like the Debian social contract
(https://www.debian.org/social_contract); I believe it can be a good
starting point, obviously with lots of adaptations.
Let's keep on this interesting discussion.
All the best.

>> On Wed, 27 Mar 2019 at 16:44, Paolo Cavallini <cavallini at faunalia.it>
>> 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.

-- 
Paolo Cavallini - www.faunalia.eu
QGIS.ORG Chair:
http://planet.qgis.org/planet/user/28/tag/qgis%20board/