[FGS] Re: [Gdal-dev] (no subject)

[Bernhard Reiter]

[Thanks for copying me.  I am not on the list, but take the liberty 
to add a bit to the discussion. ]

On Thu, Jul 08, 2004 at 12:08:42PM -0400, Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> Silke Reimer wrote:
> >Yes, I already had several looks on this page and I am subscribed to
> >the list almost from the very beginning. I just didn't have the time
> >by now to have a closer look. I think the project is very promising
> >but Bernhards comments on the freegis-list (see [1]) are really
> >worth to think about. 

> I reviewed Bernhards comments (which I also read at the time).  Picking
> out a bit of what he said:
> 
> Bernhard said:
> > There is not much market to put a lot of effort into the integration
> > because GIS is still an expert topic which people tend to spend
> > money differently on.
> 
> I would tend to agree that producing binary distributions of foss software
> is not yet very commercially viable activity.  However, I think a
> non-commercial (aka for fun and advocacy) effort can make a valuable
> contribution.

Do not get me wrong here, it would be great if get such an effort rolling.
The more easy packaging, the better and it is worth a try.
Bing concerned about the long term viabily of the effort
I like to add that the above tendency also means that interest of
the people will be not that high overall. 
Given that packaging is quite a boring effort, 
you need to find something that makes it fun to attack people without money. :)
OpenPKG certainly would not work without a companies behind it
and they are in an area where packaging is commercially viable.

> > Building of binaries should better be handled by the distributions
> > and the individual project.
> 
> I don't necessarily agree with this for two main reasons:
>  o Software developers (such as me) don't necessarily have much expertise
>    with different operating systems and packaging systems.   Despite being
>    a Red Hat and Debian user for instance, I still haven't mastered 
>    producing
>    RPMs and .debs.  Much less properly preparing packages for OSes like
>    windows, MacOS X, Solaris and so on.

Getting this skills into the project or having FGS add this to the
project would of course help.
My statement is made because each package and distribution 
will have its own considerations and problems which you can only
solve with in depth knowledge.

>  o A significant part of the value in a distribution like FGS or the
>    Freegis RPM CDs is in putting together the packages with appropriate
>    interlinkages properly.  For instance, ensuring that all packages that
>    can utilize GDAL or PROJ are built with them, and having one central copy
>    of these base packages that are as functional as possible.  This is not 
>    so
>    easy for someone who is primarily just a GRASS or MapServer developer
>    for instance.

Very true, though many people do not see this.

> >  There is a competition going fueling
> > the motivation. It helps to support both to do this properly
> > and it seem to be a lot of fine tuning.
> 
> I'm not sure I follow this.  

Competition between the distributions.
And of course friendly competition between the projects.
If they make it fun to get their application used widely
they going to put in more effort.

> Certainly Intevation and the FreeGIS team provide a very important role
> in terms of maintaining the freegis.org (the focused freshmeat.net of
> the geospatial world), freegis mailing list (a central place the whole
> community can discuss projects), a variety of advocacy efforts and the
> freegis CDs.

Intevation actually considers discontinuing the FreeGIS CD 
in the current format, because demand has been falling and the
distributions have multiplied.  It was never meant to be 
a profitable business, we did it to progress the art.
Unfortuately the distribution variety makes it hard to maintain
a reasonable quality and handing out bad quality would damage our
reputation. :)


	Bernhard
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