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

Sat Mar 27 03:48:42 CET 2010

Fran & others,

Thank you for your response.

I think it important that you understand where I am coming from. 

My contention is that gvSIG lacks certain basic functionality that
Sextante provides. Together these products form a program that rivals
ArcView.

I am on record stating this and have spent time preparing an article for
publishing in OSGeo Journal. 

Despite this beneficial marriage, in the time I have been involved in
the community, the two projects have only been in sync for a short
period of time. Over the last few months users have to go through quite
a bit of effort to get Sextante and gvSIG to talk happily together. As
you would know I have tried to help others by putting out short
tutorials for others to use. despite this it is quite frustrating for me
and I a sure others.

My frustration stems from the desire to contribute more to the community
effort but finding it's is a bit like shooting at a moving target. It is
very difficult to establish how to address development of documentation
when the current version is considered 'dead' and to be replaced
sometime in the immediate future..

Apart from a roadmap is it possible to have list of functions that are
considered stable and unlikely to change, and those that are under
active development, unstable or likely to change? This will allow
documentation for 'stable' functions to be flagged as reausable in new
versions and help authors to focus their attention on areas that have
been modified.

Cheers Simon

        Simon Cropper
        Botanicus Australia Pty Ltd
        P.O. Box 160 Sunshine VIC 3020
        P: 03 9311 5822. M: 041 830 3437.
        E: scropper at botanicusaustralia.com.au
        W: http://www.botanicusaustralia.com.au

On Fri, 2010-03-26 at 14:04 +0100, Francisco José Peñarrubia wrote:

> Hi Simon.
> 
> I will answer some of this questions from my personal point of view, as 
> one of the developers of gvsig, (and friend of Victor, BTW :-) ).
> 
> About Sextante as a library, I think is a good idea. This way, many 
> project can use the library and it leverages Víctor to do all the 
> bindings by himself. In fact, gvSIG bindings were developed by him in 
> earlier versions, and in latest version Nacho (the one who developed de 
> big part of raster in gvSIG has evolved them).
> 
> About not being "goaded" by pointing everyone to one or another version, 
> firstable, I need to search "goaded" in google, because my English is 
> not as good as it should be.... ;-). After that, no, I don't think is 
> something strange. Sextante has a new release, and if you need Sextante 
> 0.5 you can install by yourself or use OA digital edition, that comes 
> with it installed. Is more easy for many people. And you will have also 
> some other plugins, in order to help us testing them (they are not 
> finished and are "unstable").
> 
> About Sextante + gvSIG in the future... My opinion is that we will be 
> togheter, and there will be always a gvSIG+Sextante distribution. In 
> fact, we are planning a new 1.9.1 release to fix some of the more 
> anoying bugs, and we will try to put the latest Sextante release (if it 
> is possible. There are some problems, for example, latest release will 
> need java 1.6, and CIT (the public administration that pays the bill) 
> still have a lot of computers with 1.5, so we need compatibility with 
> 1.5. Maybe the solution will be to make 2 distributions, one with 1.5 
> and other with 1.6, I don't know).
> 
> These are only my personal thoughts. The decision process is driving by 
> a commitee, but there is always a possibility to make an "unofficial" 
> distribution, like OADE [1] or the latest gvSIG portable (also with 
> Sextante, and with Vista and 7 compatibility (thanks to AI2, the people 
> who is developing the 3D plugin), and with the collaboration of Víctor 
> to put Sextante, CSGIS, and some others (Jorge Gaspar, and my self, for 
> example)).
> BTW, there is another "flavor" in gvSIG for Mac, thanks to Agustin Díez 
> and the people of AI2 (again) [3].... ;-)
> 
> Best regards, and keep going with your how-to manuals, and remember that 
> the code behind all these releases is very, very simillar. Thanks a lot 
> for your hard work.
> 
> 
> Fran Peñarrubia
> gvSIG Team.
> 
> 
> [1] http://oadigital.net/software/gvsigoade/gvsigoade2010beta
> [2] http://www.gvsig.org/web/plugins/downloads/gvsig-1-9-portable
> [3] http://gvsigmac.blogspot.com/2010/03/big-news-gvsig19-working.html
> 
> 
> Simon Cropper escribió:
> > Hi,
> >
> > A recent post by Victor outlined the roadmap for Sextante.
> >
> > In it he indicated he intended to make Sextante into a library and 
> > allow various developers to assimilate this library into their 
> > projects, rather than maintain a plug-in system which requires 
> > constant rejigging to ensure the bindings work.
> >
> > Surprisingly, despite Victor pointing everyone to OADE 2010, the 
> > developers of gvSIG (core project) were not goaded into a response.
> >
> > So I am asking... What is the position of the gvSIG Developers 
> > regarding Sextante (you have had enough time to talk about this)? Are 
> > you planning to incorporate the upcoming library into gvSIG or will 
> > you let this plug-in languish? I suppose the question is also relevant 
> > for the next version of OADE.
> >
> > I think this is an important question as Sextante elevates gvSIG into 
> > a product that can be used in a production environment; without it 
> > gvSIG lacks important basic functionality.
> >
> > And at a personal level, I am in the final stages of preparing my 
> > templates for my how-to manuals -- should I be writing my 
> > documentation for OADE 2010 (which incorporates Sextante) or 
> > gvSIG+Sextante or if the use of Sextante is uncertain, other upcoming 
> > packages? I am also on record stating that gvSIG+Sextante is the first 
> > FOSS GIS that I could use in a production environment. There is also 
> > an upcoming paper in OSGeo Journal to that elk. So, will these 
> > statements hold true in the future or will the gvSIG product fall back 
> > to just the core modules?
> >
> > -- 
> >
> >
> > Cheers Simon
> >
> > Simon Cropper
> > Botanicus Australia Pty Ltd
> > PO Box 160, Sunshine, Victoria 3020.
> > P: 9311 5822. M: 041 830 3437.
> > mailto: scropper at botanicusaustralia.com.au 
> > <mailto:scropper at botanicusaustralia.com.au>
> > web: www.botanicusaustralia.com.au <http://www.botanicusaustralia.com.au>
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
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