I've tossed together some thoughts on what we might want OSGeo Labs to
be. I'd like to use it to start a discussion about using Labs as a
marketing tool and foundation builder. If people like the ideas I'll be
happy to move it over to a wiki page or series of pages.
http://tinyurl.com/ydzensq
Thanks,
Alex
Alex,
Some good material here.
One comment that I would make is that joining "OSGeo Labs" doesn't directly lead to many benefits of the OSGeo principles (like having processes like a PSC).
Of note, as a general rule, all projects that have gone through the incubation process needed to draw upon their own developers to complete the process.
By joining OSGeo Labs, a project may gain more exposure, which in turn results in getting more developers, who can help with setting up OSGeo related processes.
By joining OSGeo Labs, a project makes a statement about their goals to follow the OSGeo ideals, which will be attractive to OSGeo's target users, and hence make it easier for users and projects to connect.
That said, I have made some more detailed comments below...
Alex Mandel wrote:
I've tossed together some thoughts on what we might want OSGeo Labs to
be. I'd like to use it to start a discussion about using Labs as a
marketing tool and foundation builder. If people like the ideas I'll be
happy to move it over to a wiki page or series of pages.
http://tinyurl.com/ydzensqThanks,
Alex
_______________________________________________
Marketing mailing list
Marketing@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
What is OSGeo Labs?A place to encourage the growth and sustainability of open source geospatial applications.
Why would my project want to join?
*
Encourage your project to adopt sustainable development practices
change to: Adverstise that your project aims to achieve sustainable development practices.
o
To help find additional developers
o
To expand the user community
o
Create a dialog between the users and developers
o
Form some type of Project Steering Committee
A project can do this without joining OSGeo. Ditto for many of the following.
o Define the workflow for patches, translations, documentation
*Get help picking the right license for your project
*
Get help coming up with a long term road map
We also need to be careful about what we offer here. Yes, people on osgeo-discuss are likely to be opinionated about what a project should do, but if a project expects that others will come in and do work for the project, or provide leadership mentoring then the project will likely be disappointed. The valuable work for a project comes from inside the project.
*
Access to OSGeo infrastructure and marketing
Again, we need to be careful about follow through here. Yes, the SAC has sometimes provided svn or trac support for some projects, but they don't have enough volunteers to support every request that comes by, and have turned down some requests.
*
Figure out if applying to be an OSGeo project is right for your
project (Applying for incubation)*
Demonstrate your projects willingness to be part of an open,
collaborative community*
Show you affiliation with OSGeo and it's projects
* Increase your visibility among the Open Source Geospatial Community
* Potential Cross project collaborationWhat type of projects should join?
Good points under this heading.
*
Anything related to open geospatial topics (Need not be a software
project directly)*
That can be licensed under an OSI approved open source license
*
Does not contain any patents subject to license restrictions
* Have a willingness to explore expanding the current community and
increase participation.Why might OSGeo labs be a better place for my project instead of OSGeo Project Incubation?
*
Projects related to Open Data Access (OpenAerialMap), Open
Education(Free GIS Book), OSGeo Live DVD|Virtual Machine etc.
I see "Labs" as a stamp of maturity. Ie, a project which is starting out.
Within a year or two, these projects that you mention will likely be much more established than a "Labs" label, and should move to an OSGeo Established project.
*
Maybe you don't meet all the requirements to be an OSGeo project
.... yet.
I think that "Labs" should be a stepping stone toward maturity.
All "Labs" projects should be following OSGeo guidelines as much as possible, and as much as their current maturity and user base can easily maintain.
*
Not ready to open the gates tor your code yet but still want to
encourage patches/participation from the community
"open code" is exactly what OSGeo principles are about. I'd suggest removing above line.
*
Aren't quite ready to decide the future direction of the project
yes
* Haven't worked out licensing and patents yet
yes
* Project is still in the planning stages with little or no working code
yes
What does OSGeo offer Lab's projects? (These are all opt in services)
I'm not sure OSGeo have the human manpower in the SAC to guarantee the following.
I'm inclined to discourage projects from using OSGeo's infrastructure. It is a drain on OSGeo time, and there are other places to get this infrastructure for free, and with better service than OSGeo can provide. (I'm thinking of sourceforge, google code, codehaus, etc)
*
mailing lists
*
source code hosting
*
wiki space
*
marketing exposure
This is where OSGeo can provide a lot of unique value
o
Inclusion on the OSGeo Live project
o
Awareness at conference booths
o
Web Presence at OSGeo a meeting place of open source geospatial
*
A path towards project incubation – If you're thinking about
applying for incubation take a step towards that goal by joining
OSGeo labs.* Even if your project falls by the wayside from lack of interest,
OSGeo can assure an archive of the code in case others will find
it useful sometimein the future.
* an OSGeo labs logo you can put on your website and marketing materials
* Participation in Google Summer of Code under OSGeoWhat do I have to do to join?
* List your project on the OSGeo Labs project page
o Include contact information
o Links to current code
o Licensing status
* Occasionally OSGeo will go through and verify compliance with the
basic rules of OSGeo Labs and notify your project if you're out of
compliance (and then remove if it's not fixable or you won't fix it)New Project Questionnaire:
Rather than a Questionnaire, I suggest providing a template for projects to fill in, and a location for the project to put the template (probably on its own osgeo wiki page)
This serves multiple purposes: Introduces the project to prospective participants and users, helps you asses the state of your project and compare against full Project and Projects in Incubation
1. Whats the name?
2. What does it do?
1. Programming Languages
2. Desktop, Web, Database, Library, etc?
3. What makes it different from other similar stuff?
4. Do you have a roadmap? URL?
3. Community
1. How many people have commit access
2. How many people other than committers submit patches,
documentation, webpages, on a regular basis?
3. If you have mailing list(s), how many unique subscribers,
how many email/week?
4. Contact/Governance
1. If you have a website, URL?
2. Who owns the Copyrights? Patents?
3. Do you have a governance model (Steering Committee, etc)?
4. Who is the main contact(s) for the project?
5. Other
1. Are you looking for more ideas to get started?
2. Do you want more coders?
3. Need help with anything in particular pertaining to
Governance, Licensing, etc.?-----
A note on a gentle way to push projects to join: Or call it a Rewards system:
Google Summer of Code - OSGeo Project, Incubation, Labs will always be ranked higher than non registered applications (ie MapWindow)
OSGeo Live - We're reaching disc capacity so will have to start turning down applications and prioritizing; OSGeo Project, Incubation, Labs take priority over all other applications no matter how good the other stuff is (ie mapnik, kosmo, spatialite, geopublisher <- we should be inviting all of these)Website should be labs.osgeo.org or osgeo.org/labs with main page possibly having a status update showing recent activity in labs or a way to find stuff in labs.
This should push projects that really ought to be part of OSGeo in some way to start down the path, without us having to be very harsh, considering how easy it is to join.
Projects to invite/encourage:
* mapnik
* kosmo
* openjump
* geopublisher
* marble
* osgearth
* Mapwindow
* ILWIS
* SAGA
* Opticks
* liblas (propose merge with GDAL/OGR?)
* Various R Spatial View packages
* GeoJQuery (Maybe it can merge with GeoExt to be GeoJS with
multiple downloads for Ext only/Jquery only, Both - you know some
will do both)
* GeoKettle
* OpenCPN
* Octave Mapping Toolbox
* MapTiler
* A bunch of things that applied for incubation that clearly are not
ready for incubation. (In my mind there needs to be clear
community interest and involvement in a project to consider it)I'm well aware there are more floating around that people have mentioned recently.
Benefits to OSGeo:
* Demonstrate our role in the Open Source Geospatial Community
Yes
* Have projects acknowledge their affiliation (Plenty of projects
come to FOSS4G and have people on our lists but don't necessarily
link to us on their pages or tell people about us in local context)
Yes
* Give us a way to encourage merging, collaboration, new project
initiation.
Yes
* Provide a map to applying for Incubation.
Yes
* By instilling good community principles it helps to highlight what
makes OSGeo stuff different from a random OSS project on the internet.
Yes
* More projects in the Labs is a bigger pool of people for FOSS4G,
local chapters, etc.
Yes
--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com
I missed out on a chance to comment on the “retirement” thread on the incubation list; I passed along what the eclipse.org foundation does with a a progression of project stages from “labs” to “incubation” to “core” to “archived” - I feel we should look at the spectrum here rather then set up our categories one at a time.
Indeed their cartoon breakdown for IP process is amusing:
Jody
On 25/03/2010, at 12:41 PM, Alex Mandel wrote:
I’ve tossed together some thoughts on what we might want OSGeo Labs to
be. I’d like to use it to start a discussion about using Labs as a
marketing tool and foundation builder. If people like the ideas I’ll be
happy to move it over to a wiki page or series of pages.
http://tinyurl.com/ydzensqThanks,
Alex
Marketing mailing list
Marketing@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing