[Gvsig_english] gvSIG and gvSIG-CE, when will someone clarify the situation?

[Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas]

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El 30/07/12 02:26, Simon Cropper escribió:
>
> Hello All,
>
> I know I will not be popular for bringing this up *again* but I am
> confused. gvSIG-CE was created a while back now and despite retaining
> the name of its parent is a fork of the gvSIG project.
>
> Yes, a fork! Lead by a distinct group of developers based on an earlier
> version of gvSIG, on a distinct development path.
>
> Yet no one seems to want to mention this. The main gvSIG project team
> appear to be happy to let a distinct group of people push a product
> under the same banner as their own despite the confusion that this causes.

Hi Simon, let me answer you as a board member of the gvSIG Technical
Steering Committee.

Just to be clear, the gvSIG project is *not* endorsing this initiative
at all and is not happy at all with the use of the gvSIG name. Normal
forks change the name (there are so many examples, you know,
Geotools/Geotoolkit, OpenOffice/LibreOffice, MySQL/MariaDB,
Sodipodi/Inkscape etc.). It was stated on this list and in last Girona
FOSS4G that this project was aimed to boost the international community
of gvSIG but as you say in fact is a whole new project evolving an old
version of gvSIG. BTW the international community of gvSIG is very
healthy as you can see at the last gvSIG Conf report[1]). Of course it's
rightful to do a fork of a free software project, but maintaining the
brand of the parent project is not.

That's why a "fork" on GitHub has nothing to do with this beast, the
first is a technical way of collaboration and the later is a whole new
project aiming to evolve technically and organizationally in a different
way.

As I've said to José Antonio several times, I would prefer to see a
change of name of this project for the sake of avoiding more confusion.
It seems you agree with me on this point. On the other hand the gvSIG
Association retains the "gvSIG" trademark but AFAIK it haven't started
any legal action just because we have more important things to put
energy on right now.

Finally, having a different name doesn't avoid any future collaboration
between those communities, it's just normalization of what's this all
about. In fact that collaboration is happening right now when the
developers use the right procedures.


>
> The gvSIG-CE developers also appear to be reluctant to stand on their
> own feet. Hey, they have their own homepage page, wiki, mail list,
> etcetera. Why not just come out and announce their departure from the
> parent and name their new product something else.
>
> Why do I care?
>
> First, in countries starting to adopt open source GIS technology it is
> unclear what gvSIG-CE is? Is gvSIG-CE an endorsed project? The
> developers hang out on the gvSIG mail list... it has the same name...
> They propose assimilation of their training material and links to their
> website into the gvSIG projects LiveDVD material.

Yes you are so right that's a problem, this mail will produce a link to
point to on future discussions,  but probably it's not enough.

As gvSIG packager at OSGeo Live I won't accept any gvSIG CE reference on
gvSIG materials at project sections on Live DVD or OSGeo resources. That
said, and being (also) administrator of the OSGeo planet, I haven't
complained about the entrance of the CE blog. I accept gvSIG CE is part
of the FOSS4G ecosystem even I don't like the name of the project and I
will apply the same rules than in any other blog of the planet and
always in consensus with my other colleagues on that task.

>
> This leads to the second reason I care. I like gvSIG and I also like
> what Benjamin, Victor, Luca, José, Fernando and others have done. The
> resulting progeny is stable and very useful.
>
> But, either gvSIG-CE is part of the gvSIG project and is recognized as
> an official project (an English derivation or something) or it is not.
> At present, the latter appears to be true... so, it is inappropriate and
> confusing to push training material under the gvSIG banner that actually
> is leading people to a fork of the project.
>

Just to be clear again: IT IS NOT so any training material produced
under the gvSIG CE brand is not backed in any way by the gvSIG Project.

OK, I've spent enough time on this mail (and I've just returned from my
summer vacations) so I hope the matter it's clear. Everything said here
is on my behalf but I think the rest of the team will agree with me on
the basic points.

Best regards

[1]
http://gvsig.gva.es/download/events/gvSIG-Conference/7th-gvSIG-Conference/magazine/Magazine-7th_gvSIG_Conference.pdf

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