[Qgis-psc] User question on vision and goals

Mon Oct 28 00:37:25 PDT 2019

On 28/10/2019 08.22, Paolo Cavallini wrote:
>>     Hi Anita,
>>     thanks for this Richard did some interesting research, and has a list of
>>     possible examples of visions for other similar projects.
>>
>> Do you happen to have a link where I can find this information?
> 
> I don't have it at hand now, but Richard prepared an interesting
> braindump - ,aybe he can find it back?
> In any case, I'd suggest starting from what we have done already:
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G90nbm4EFCuYHT9rkB3GSpn4sB14bfb9DzE9HvS3jZY/edit?ts=5cadf378#heading=h.5ldldf8p4pv4

Attached the braindump I sent to Paolo earlier.

It is some quick googling, and what I personally feel should be a FOSS
project.

I tend to have a clear separation between the community/project and
companies trying to make a living from it. The project should be
leading, and not spend direct money on companies for features, but only
for bugfixing, infra and architectural changes, preferably to
individuals.  In this way the project is hopefully better suited to
steer/foster the project (only).

Companies make money by investing time/money in the project (because
they live (partly) from it), AND they take money from
user-groups/companies to implement things/fix stuff directly, but
ideally in communication with the project (via QEP?).

I think a foss project should try to spread it's money over as much
dev's as possible (actually to attract as much dev's as possible).

But this is personal. I tend to see Debian as a good example, but do not
like all the rules they have in place... In my ideal world everybody
thinks/feels the same about shared goals and values... but not sure if
that is reasonable.. :-)

Regards,

Richard Duivenvoorde

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https://www.debian.org/social_contract

https://www.onecommunityglobal.org/purpose-mission-values/

https://www.ubuntu.com/community/mission

https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/

https://wordpress.org/about/

Andrea's Geoserver responsibility and participation
https://github.com/geoserver/geoserver/wiki/Some-ideas-about-minimum-community-software-responsibility-and-participation

How to handle diversity and growth
==================================

QGIS is growing from a small community based project to a large(r) project being used and handled by a more and more diverse group of people.
My feeling is that sometimes this (diversity) is giving some friction/frustration.
We really like the project, it's community and the overall atmosphere around it.
We think it is worth to step back and try to find what we need to get this thing going.

Maybe we can try to write down some guidance for community members on what we think is important to know.
Not so much to have rules, but more like guides which can give a direction when we or somebody has a hard time.

Not sure where to start:

Positives?
- we are a very healthy FLOSS project used by a lot of users all over the world, on several different OS's
- we are pretty independent
- I still have fun doing QGIS

Negatives (well, as I see it)?
- money flowing in is good, but also changing the playing field
- it's hard to get a conclusion with such a diverse group of values/stakes

Vision?
- make QGIS the best free Desktop/Server gis available for everybody in the world
- make QGIS the preferred tool to make the (GIS) world a better place to be
- serve as an sustainable example of a FLOSS project
- create an community around QGIS where it is safe and friendly

Values?
- QGIS is a world wide Free Open Source community (NOT a (wannebee) international company) creating software
- the project should refrain from commercial activities
- BE responsible, SHARE responsibility, TAKE responsibility
- BE respectfull
(from onecommunityglobal: Care, Share, Play ??)
(from fedora: “Four Foundations”: Freedom, Friends, Features, and First)

Philosophy?
(from wordpress: out of the box, design for majority, decisions not optons, clean lean mean, Striving for Simplicity, Deadlines Are Not Arbitrary, The Vocal Minority, 

Mission or Objectives = how, specific (SMART)?

Risks (what can go wrong)?
- QGIS taken over by commercial interest, loosing the connection with the original community
vs
- QGIS claimed too much by the community, while the commercial interest is great but under-used

Users, Devs, Community, Project lead?
- do these have different rules/guides?

Future?
- have a commercial offspring (or not)

Some (please read/scan) food for thought:
- https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43zak3/the-internet-was-built-on-the-free-labor-of-open-source-developers-is-that-sustainable  pointing for example to:
- https://www.fordfoundation.org/about/library/reports-and-studies/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure
- https://github.com/geoserver/geoserver/wiki/Some-ideas-about-minimum-community-software-responsibility-and-participation
- https://www.debian.org/social_contract
- https://www.onecommunityglobal.org/purpose-mission-values/
- https://wordpress.org/about/
- https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/

https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/what-linux-journals-resurrection-taught-me-about-foss-community "
"While the FOSS community still had the original nerdy members and new nerdy
members continued to join, most of the growth in the community was from
professionals. Many different professional Linux and FOSS conferences existed that
were priced to attract people who could get their company to pay for them. These
new community members were more focused on the practical benefits of Linux
and FOSS (low cost, compatibility and the ability to modify code from a FOSS
project for company use). Unlike the original community, these members were less
focused on FOSS ideals."

I've thought a lot about how to write this down, but I keep getting around and having questions/unclearities.

I hope people find this interesting enough to think about it too, so we can put together some kind of 'guide' on how to handle the future.

QGIS will be free as much as possible
- QGIS should be as independent as possible: financially, technically etc
- we will always favour free and FOSS tools and technologies. Only if free (as in beer) services are easily available and preferred by the majority we will use those.
- when connecting QGIS to external tools (like libraries, services and plugins) we try to favour FOSS on all platforms
- for all Operating systems that the communtity finds time to package for (though there is no guarantee that your OS is actually being packaged: if nobody stands up to do the work (for free or for a fixed amount of money 10%?), there can be no packaging. We WILL try to get things done though, but within the financial boundaries set below)

We will be transparent
- how much money comes in, from who (though companies who accept tainted money is a loop hole)
- how much money goes out (to services, individuals and companies)

Community is important
- we will not try to act as a company: we do not want to make a profit, we will refrain from actions which would negatively affect the community
- we will try to be inclusive, and share the 'power' and 'finances': no individual or company (or project) will get more then 10% of that years budget (I think this point is important: I hope it will force companies or individual who want to "live from QGIS" to go into the QGIS market theirselves: it should be possible to live from QGIS-work but is is not done to live "upon the QGIS-community".)
- we will accept money from companies, founding members etc etc, but the community should stay independent from that, and companies doing work for QGIS should be transparent where they get the money from (so we are not squashed between big governmental agencies of huge commercial companies)
- the community profit from companies and should be gratefull for that
- the companies profit from the community and shoule be gratefull for that

QGIS should be as stable as possible
- we will try to setup machinery which will make it more stable: CI, automatic test, manual tests
- stability is more important then features

https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/what-linux-journals-resurrection-taught-me-about-foss-community

"
While the FOSS community still had the original nerdy members and new nerdy
members continued to join, most of the growth in the community was from
professionals. Many different professional Linux and FOSS conferences existed that
were priced to attract people who could get their company to pay for them. These
new community members were more focused on the practical benefits of Linux
and FOSS (low cost, compatibility and the ability to modify code from a FOSS
project for company use). Unlike the original community, these members were less
focused on FOSS ideals.
"
"
The FOSS community of
today was different and more diverse. We needed to serve the whole community
"

Should there be a distinction between?
- the project / the money
- the community / the people and companies
(  maybe an commercial entity ??   )

SUPER READ: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43zak3/the-internet-was-built-on-the-free-labor-of-open-source-developers-is-that-sustainable
Pointing for example to:
https://www.fordfoundation.org/about/library/reports-and-studies/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure
https://www.fordfoundation.org/media/2976/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure.pdf#ford_roadsandbridges_WORKING_DRAFT.indd%3A.41267%3A83

and
https://dhh.dk/2013/the-perils-of-mixing-open-source-and-money.html who says:
"It's against this fantastic success of social norms that we should be extraordinary careful before we let market norms corrupt the ecosystem. Like a coral reef, it's more sensitive than you think, and it's how to underestimate the beauty that's unwittingly at stake. Please tread with care."