[Gvsig_english] Query on why gvSIG CE came about

[Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas]

El 27/06/11 10:47, Simon Cropper escribió:
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> I have recently joined the CE Maillist and posted the following 
> question. As it pertains to both this list and that list I am also 
> posting it here...
> 
> *** POST ***
> 
> Why is gvSIG CE here? To me the reason for its creation is unclear.If 
> you intend to encourage adoption then the distinction between these 
> gvSIG and gvSIG CE needs to be clarified.
> 
> The OADE version and the original code was finally remerged creating a 
> single code base in 2010 and next thing I see is that the code is split 
> into two projects again.
> 
> Personally I find it hard to decide where to place my attention / 
> allegiances. I have spent over a year getting data and building my 
> website to house my tutorials (most of which will be on gvSIG) and now I 
> have two separate projects, GUI and communities. Do I stick with the 
> original program/community or the new CE one? The same dilemma I had 
> when considering creating tutorials for the OADE versus the original 
> program.
> 
> The same indecision will, no doubt, be in the minds of any new comer 
> looking at adopting the software.
> 
> As a general observation -- the gvSIG community appears to be 
> splintering as various groups try and drag the project in different 
> directions.
> 
> This is in contrast to say the QGIS community that over the last year 
> appears to be growing in strength and pooling resources.
> 

Hi Simon,

gvSIG is a place where everyone can contribute as you can state by your
own history. Not just patches but also documentation, translations, case
studies, artwork and so on. That's happening everyday, no matter what
others say.

On the development side where are continuously improving our workflows,
the balance between being agile or quick and being very conscious about
stability, GUI consistency and so on is not easy. Our Technical Steering
Committee (which mailing list is open to everyone) are finishing a
document about code contributions workflows and roles.

So my first point is about to confirm that the whole gvSIG team is
focused on the community, all the time, since the beginning of the
project. Of course everything can be improved, but stating elsewhere
that gvSIG team doesn't collaborate is a non-sense.

If a group of users or developers want to follow another path we cannot
do anything against that, apart to try to understand the real reasons of
their fork. I personally did that on the CE list asking openly what the
gvSIG team can do to reorient the CE group to other kind of activity
instead a fork and I didn't get any answer. On the same way that group
didn't discussed here about their intentions or concerns before starting
their initiative. They just decided by themselves that the idea was ok
and now they say they are more open oriented than the gvSIG team. Cool.

Even the name, in my opinion is perverse. They are the Community Edition
and we are... what?? They insist on the "CIT gvSIG" name that is also
wrong. gvSIG is a project born at CIT, and everyone should be proud of
CIT encouraging gvSIG but gvSIG is a community project, supported by the
gvSIG Association and thousands of users, developers, companies,
universities and public administrations all around the world.

Best

-- 
Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas
gvSIG Team at Prodevelop
Technical Collaborations Manager
http://www.gvsig.org
http://www.gvsig.com