I'm collating a recent discussion about Australian/New Zealand investment in Geonetwork which will lead into recommendations for what we should focus on next in our future investments.
With this in mind, I'm interested to hear what infrastructure investments would be valuable and how feasible they would be, and what is already in place.
For instance:
* Design documentation. (This will help new developers get up to speed faster).
* Automated build and test suites. (This will make it easier for multiple developers to work on the same codebase.)
* A sponsored mentor to monitor email lists and IRC. Projects like Openlayers and recently Geoserver have such a role, and it greatly increases the productivity of new developers.
* A sponsored role to review incoming code contributions and maintain quality control on code.
* Sponsorship of marketing. Marketing increases the project uptake, which in turn increases sponsorship and product quality.
* Requirements tracibility. On larger projects this helps ensure that the design stays focused, but it does come at a management cost.
What else?
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Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Systems Architect
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
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