[Gvsig_english] QUESTION gvSIG 1.9 (BN 1253) -- Future of gvSIG and Sextante

Fri Mar 26 20:42:52 CET 2010

> 
> It's great thing that the OA team solves bugs on gvSIG!! Hopefully
> most of your work will revert on the gvSIG, as soon as possible.
> 
> On the other hand, the link to the modifications you made to gvSIG is
> not working
> 
> http://88.208.250.116/gvsig-oade-mods-1.0.0.tar.gz
> 
> One example: the nice en_GB and en_US strings improvements are being
> included on the new i18n web app. So the will be available to all
> users on the next release of gvSIG.
>

Great! I will use that web page in the future then for updates of
the English strings. That HTTP link should be an FTP link, but anyhow,
the change file is out-of-date. We'll fix that for the next release.

> I want to note here that you say you are on beta phase. So, witch
> changes or bugs are you planning to resolve on your final, stable
> version? Why not to resolve them on the main gvSIG code base?
> 

There are basically two critical issues left:

1. After creating a new Shapefile, the CAD editor converts all
fields of type integer to type double.

2. Most of the Remote Sensing tools are not capable of producing
any output files. They just crash. I realize that this extension
is in development, but it is already useful -- except for what I
just said.

I was unable to do the other bug fixes on the SVN sources because
I had no write access. I do have that now, so I will try and apply
future fixes directly to SVN. For 2.0, I will try and
completely merge all changes directly with SVN.

But I have posted all my fixes to the bug tracker, including details
about how (and why) to apply each one of them.

> The development of gvSIG 2.0 is pretty transparent in my opinion. All
> the sources are on the SVN repo, and any question asked here is
> answered by the developers and architects. You can just do in your
> console
> 
> svn log http://subversion.gvsig.org/gvSIG/branches/v2_0_0_prep/
> 
> and see in real time the changes on gvSIG 2.0 code base.
> 

I wasn't thinking so much about myself, but other interested people,
who:
(a) do not know there way around the large gvSIG code base
(b) do not know Java (or aren't programmers at all)
(c) prefer to know about things on a higher (feature) level

> 
> Yes, from gvSIG project side we are going to do all our best to
> collaborate with anyone willing to, it would be a pity if you finally
> fork gvSIG.
> 

Exactly. We really want to avoid that! It's OK to stay branched for
the 1.9 code base (as that is a dead end, anyhow), but it needs to
be reverted for 2.0.

> 
> > So we really, REALLY hope that the 2.0 code line will allow us to
> > re-integrate all the work that has been done here at OA and not
> > force us to maintain our own branch any longer.
> > 
> 
> Why to wait to 2.0? Why not just try to integrate that changes now.

Because we really need to get the final version of OADE 2010 out now.
I have already sent all my changes to the developers, have written
tickets on the Trac system for all bug fixes and documented all I did.
I only recently got write access to SVN but I simply do not have
the time to feed all modifications into it again. That would be a
huge investment, given that 1.9 is "doomed to die", anyway.
For 2.0, the situation looks entirely different (see above).

> 
> Well the development of new features is managed depending on the
> funds
> or contributions the gvSIG project receive (as any other free
> software
> project). This is not democratic, it depends on the funding entity
> strategy. At this time, the main funding organization to gvSIG is CIT
> so the new features of gvSIG are driven by this organization like the
> new developments on sensors and topography. Of course these mailing
> lists are a way to promote new features and recommendations, they are
> not a black hole as someone said once.
> 

I understand your point about the funding of new features.
But there are decisions on GUI and feature design that
could be discussed more openly on a Wiki or this mailing list.

> On the other hand, the gvSIG project has a technical steering
> committee where technical decisions are made, you can read more about
> it at at OSGeo wiki[1]. This info will be on the gvSIG portal site,
> but it's being refactored and we placed this info on the OSGeo wiki
> on
> the meantime. I'm the "chair" or "manager" of this committee so don't
> hesitate to ask any question you have and I'll do my best to try to
> answer.
> 

OK (for now ;-) ).

> We also lack a more openness on working teams that the project have,
> like the one for usability, but it's a trend on the project to open
> more and more its procedures, committees and policies. This is also a
> huge time consuming task, but in my opinion a major duty with you,
> the
> community. I hope over this year a lot of this info will be public.
> 

I completely agree. And I think any extra time spent on this will be
worth it in the end.

> Well gvSIG is a +5 years old project, we're not on an start-up phase.
> Maybe we're on a phase where we are talking more about government and
> policies but gvSIG is not a newcomer to nothing.
> 

Yes. But most of the publicly visible development is very young.
Much of the community-related work has been done in the last two
years or so and the user and developer base is just starting to
get a lot more international and diversified. I understand that
there are many Spanish-speaking people in the world, but the potential
community for gvSIG (that can be reached via English) is much, much
bigger.

And besides: 5 years is nothing for a project of this complexity!
GRASS GIS has taken > 20 years to get the loyal community it enjoys
now.

Face it: gvSIG is a junior in its league ;-)

Cheers,

Ben

> 
> > 
> > I suggest, that BEFORE the 2.0 release, we have an open discussion
> on
> > this mailing list to rectify things. The 2.0 release is the big
> chance
> > to get it all right. Let's not blow it.
> > 
> 
> Well this is happening right now, thank you very mutch to open up
> this
> thread, really.
> 
> Cheers
> Jorge
> 
> 
> 
> [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/GvSIG_Technical_Steering_Committee
> - -- 
> Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas
> gvSIG Team
> Tehcnical Steering Committe Manager
> http://www.gvsig.org
> http://www.gvsig.com
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