Difference between revisions of "GRASS Incubation Progress"

Latest revision as of 04:13, 16 August 2024

Document Purpose

The mentor will use this to inform the Incubation Committee of the project status and it will be the initial indication that a project is reaching graduation.

Basics

Has the project been approved for incubation by the OSGeo board?: Yes, GRASS is a board approved "founding project"; the GRASS-PSC was formed

Has an Incubation Mentor been assigned to the project?: Norman Vine and Arnulf Christl are assigned mentors.

Infrastructure Transition

Note, for each of the following it isn't necessary to move to foundation infrastructure, but if you aren't a reason should be provided.

Has the projectname.osgeo.org domain been populated with the projects web presence?: http://grass.osgeo.org is a copy of the main site; http://www.osgeo.org/grass has been populated with content.

Is the OSGeo bug tracker being used for the project?: Yes.

Is the OSGeo mailing list manager being used for the project?: All mailing lists are now running at http://lists.osgeo.org.

Is the OSGeo SVN or CVS system being used for the project?: Yes.

Are binary and source downloads available from the OSGeo download area?: Yes. http://download.osgeo.org/grass/

Community Functioning

Is there a functioning user support mechanisms (ie. mailing list)?: Existing user support mechanisms are numerous mailing lists, IRC and Wiki. Companies are available for commercial support. There are also several national user groups. There is also a GRASS user map(server). The GRASS newsletter has been adopted by OSGeo as OSgeo Journal.

Are source and binary downloads for the package available?: Yes. GRASS is a multi-platform GIS, all major operating systems are supported - see download page

Has a Project Steering Committee been formed, and given control of the project?: Yes. GRASS-PSC was formed in 9/2006

Does the Project Steering Committee have documentation on project procedures for PSC decisions, contributor guidelines, etc.: Yes. See RFC1: Project Steering Committee Guidelines; See also RFC2: Legal aspects of code contributions

How many active developers are there? Are they from multiple organizations?: Currently 42 (worldwide) developers have CVS write access. In 2006, around 16 developers of this group where active. FBK-irst (formerly ITC-irst) Trento, Italy is supporting the project since 2001, many universities, companies and individuals are contributing. For details, see the grass-commit mailing list archives. More than 10000 CVS commits have been done since 1st January 2000 (opening of CVS - now code in SVN). See also SVN statistics which is part of the new GRASS Quality Assessment System and Ohloh statistics and CIA.

Foundation Membership

Have project documents been updated to reflect membership in the foundation, and the relationship of the project to the foundation?: Yes, see also Newsletter.

Has an effort been made to brand the project web site with OSGeo foundation web styling and branding marks?: Yes. http://grass.osgeo.org/ has been populated.

Code Copyright Review

Has a Code Provenance Review document been prepared for the project?: Yes, see also GRASS Provenance Review. We consider this long-term open source project (1982-today) as a large body of prior art which might be interesting in potential OSGeo patent issues.

Have issues raised in the provenance review been adequately addressed?: Yes.

Mentor Notes

Putting together notes for a documentation of the vetting process.

Example of header addition: http://grass.itc.it/pipermail/grass-commit/2007-April/028266.html (Note: archive unavailable online since migration was not accepted by OSGeo-SAC :-( )
more of them here: http://grass.itc.it/pipermail/grass-commit.mbox/grass-commit.mbox

What has been done in past years:

1999: GPL 2 and later addition in the headers
2000: identification of license incompatible code
- https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-dev/2000-September/012134.html etc
- https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-dev/2000-December/011086.html etc
2003: identification of license incompatible code

How is vetting done

In a first step all main.c have been checked for the appearance of the GNU GPL copyright text in several versions (the wording is not always identical but this was an easy way to select the recognizable ones)
The resulting list of main.c were checked manually.
- If the provided information was not sufficient it was added.
- As all source code is documented via CMS way back into last century most information was there and had only be to retrieved and added as a a comment to the header
- Most issues with code or content were resolved immediately (see CVS logs in the past months, watch out for copyright in the comments).
Developers have been made aware of Code_Provenance_Review#FAQ.
Whenever anybody touched any code in the past months the existence and correctness of license and author information was checked and then added, extended or cleaned up.
The PSC chair and mentors started to search the code base for missing information on a random basis and found quite a few additional places that needed attention. The chair explained some ways of how certain issues were addressed:
- Example of Public Domain ./grass6/visualization/xganim/
- Example of "numerical recipies in C" removal http://www.nabble.com/NR-licence-issue-and-replacement-of-G_ludcmp%28%29-tf3682152.html
- As a result from the preliminary searches the mentors have started to check all modules. A painfully large pile that is.
- All issues have been resolved --Seven 15:13, 23 January 2008 (EST)

Other Areas of Interest

New sample dataset at http://www.grassbook.org/data_menu3rd.php - published with CC-BY-SA license.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-== Project Evaluation Criteria ==
+== Document Purpose ==
-=== Requirements ===
+The mentor will use this to inform the Incubation Committee of the project status and it will be the initial indication that a project is reaching graduation.
-; Project description
-: Commonly referred to as [http://grass.itc.it GRASS] GIS, this is a Geographic Information System (GIS) used for geospatial data management and analysis, image processing, graphics/maps production, spatial modeling, and visualization. GRASS is currently used in academic and commercial settings around the world, as well as by many governmental agencies and environmental consulting companies.
-; Language and code size?
+== Basics ==
-: Written in C; code size: 510.000 lines in around 3000 files.
-; Origin of project (commercial, experimental, thesis or other higher education, government)?
+; Has the project been approved for incubation by the OSGeo board?
-:GRASS was developed from 1982-1995 by the US CERL (government). From 1997 it is developed in academic/research environment with worldwide contributors
+: Yes, GRASS is a board approved "founding project"; the [http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/wiki/PSC GRASS-PSC] was formed
-; The project is "geospatial", or directly in support of geospatial applications?
+; Has an Incubation Mentor been assigned to the project?
-: The software is a GIS, so, yes. Screenshots at http://grass.itc.it/grass60/screenshots/
+: [[User:Nhv|Norman Vine]] and [[User:Arnulf Christl|Arnulf Christl]] are assigned mentors.
-; Type of application (client, server, standalone, library, etc.)?
+== Infrastructure Transition ==
-: standalone with library (SWIG interface under development)
-; Hosted code in subversion?
+''Note, for each of the following it isn't necessary to move to foundation infrastructure, but if you aren't a reason should be provided.''
-: No. Code is hosted in CVS at intevation.de and will be migrated to SVN on wald.intevation.de soon
-; Downloadable binaries?
+; Has the projectname.osgeo.org domain been populated with the projects web presence?
-: Yes, visit http://grass.itc.it/download/
+: http://grass.osgeo.org is a copy of the main site; http://www.osgeo.org/grass has been populated with content.
-; Documentation online?
+; Is the OSGeo bug tracker being used for the project?
-: Yes, visit http://grass.itc.it/gdp/
+: [http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/wiki Yes].
-; The code is under an OSI approved license (data & doc projects need to specify their choice for a type of license)?
+; Is the OSGeo mailing list manager being used for the project?
-: GRASS is licensed under the [http://grass.itc.it/index.php/GNU_GPL GNU GPL]
+: All mailing lists are now running at http://lists.osgeo.org.
-; Project willing to keep code clear of encumbrances (committer agreements, etc)?
+; Is the OSGeo SVN or CVS system being used for the project?
-: Strong opposition of several members of the GRASS Development Team against the currently suggested committer agreement which would theoretically permit to relicense GRASS under MIT/X11. Clearly high interest to keep code clear of encumbrances. The GRASS Development Team made code provenance review for the GPL clearance in 1999 (some parts of the code had to be removed). Also the Debian clearance was done. More verifications were done for the [http://mpa.itc.it/radim/g50history/ indended relicensing of GRASS vector lib under LGPL].
+: [http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/browser Yes].
-; Approved for Incubation?
+; Are binary and source downloads available from the OSGeo download area?
-: Yes, selected for "founding project" incubation by the OSGeo board.
+: Yes. http://download.osgeo.org/grass/
-; Project Steering Committee (PSC) established?
+== Community Functioning ==
-: Partially. There are sufficient people nominated but not yet approved. This is blocked due to the proposed Committers Agreement which will not be accepted by various team members.
-; If you are not hosting at OSGeo, why should you be considered a member project of the OSGeo Foundation?
+; Is there a functioning user support mechanisms (ie. mailing list)?
-: At least partial hosting make sense, if desired tools are available, also full hosting may be possible. In the meantime, by use of similar style sheets, logo etc. branding issues can be resolved.
+: Existing user support mechanisms are [http://grass.osgeo.org/community/support.php numerous mailing lists], [irc://freenode/grass IRC] and [http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/wiki/Main_Page Wiki]. Companies are available for [http://grass.osgeo.org/community/commercial.php commercial support]. There are also several [http://grass.osgeo.org/community/usergroups.php national user groups].  There is also a [http://grass.osgeo.org/community/index.php GRASS user map(server)]. The [http://grass.osgeo.org/newsletter/index.php GRASS newsletter] has been adopted by OSGeo as ''OSgeo Journal''.
-=== Desirable ===
+; Are source and binary downloads for the package available?
-; Already reasonably mature (working quality code)?
+: Yes. GRASS is a multi-platform GIS, all major operating systems are supported - see [http://grass.osgeo.org/download/index.php download page]
-: GRASS has been in productive use for more than 15 years (developed for > 20 years). There are thousands of users worldwide.  The roots go back to the year 1982 when the software was first implemented (see [http://grass.itc.it/devel/grasshist.html History]). Since 31. Dec. 1999 its hosted in a CVS.
-; Already has a substantial user community?
+; Has a Project Steering Committee been formed, and given control of the project?
-: The GRASS-user mailing list counts 628 subscribers (March 2006), the GRASS-dev counts 425 subscribers, there are more that 10 other [http://grass.itc.it/community/support.php mailing lists]. The GRASS main site (1 million hits per month) is mirrored on more than 25 Web sites worldwide
+: Yes. [http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/wiki/PSC GRASS-PSC] was formed in 9/2006
-; Already has a substantial developer community?
+; Does the Project Steering Committee have documentation on project procedures for PSC decisions, contributor guidelines, etc.
-: since 1/2000 31 contributors in CVS with 10180 commits
+: Yes. See [http://download.osgeo.org/grass/grass6_progman/rfc/rfc1_psc.html RFC1: Project Steering Committee Guidelines]
-: 10 contributors with more than 100 commits
+: See also [http://download.osgeo.org/grass/grass6_progman/rfc/rfc2_psc.html RFC2: Legal aspects of code contributions]
-: looking at 2006: 16 contributors (we are observing growing interest)
-: Commits per week, averaged over 5 years: 37; in 2006: 53 commits per week
-: GRASS implements core GIS functionality for 2D/3D raster/voxel and 2D/3D vector along with vector network analysis and DBMS integration
-; Has linkages with existing foundation projects?
+; How many active developers are there?  Are they from multiple organizations?
-* [http://gdal.osgeo.org GDAL/OGR] (adopted OSGeo project) - for interoperability
+: Currently 42 (worldwide) developers have CVS write access. In 2006, around 16 developers of this group where active. FBK-irst (formerly ITC-irst) Trento, Italy is supporting the project since 2001, many universities, companies and individuals are contributing. For details, see the [http://grass.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-commit/ grass-commit] mailing list archives. More than 10000 CVS commits have been done since 1st January 2000 (opening of CVS - now code in SVN). See also [http://web.soccerlab.polymtl.ca/grass-evolution/grass-browsers/stat-browser.html SVN statistics] which is part of the new [http://web.soccerlab.polymtl.ca/grass-evolution/grass-browsers/grass-index-en.html GRASS Quality Assessment System] and [http://www.ohloh.net/projects/3666 Ohloh statistics] and [http://cia.vc/stats/project/GRASS CIA].
-* [http://mapserver.osgeo.org Mapserver] (adopted OSGeo project) - as Web rendering engine
-* [http://proj.maptools.org PROJ] (external OSGeo friend project) - projection support
-* [http://postgis.refractions.net PostGIS] (external OSGeo friend project) - data storage
-; Fills a gap in the foundation software stack?
+== Foundation Membership ==
-: GRASS is probably the only complete FOSS GIS. It fills the gap of being the software for geospatial data creation and analysis.
-; Prepared to develop in an open and collaborative fashion?
+; Have project documents been updated to reflect membership in the foundation, and the relationship of the project to the foundation?
-: GRASS was ever developed in an open fashion. Contributors are always welcome.
+: Yes, see also [[Newsletter]].
-; Has contributions and interest from more than just one company/organization?
+; Has an effort been made to brand the project web site with OSGeo foundation web styling and branding marks?
-: GRASS is used in public administration, private companies, by individuals and in academia ([http://grass.itc.it/intro/index.php Who is using GRASS?])
+: Yes. http://grass.osgeo.org/ has been populated.
-; Willing to migrate to foundation support infrastructure, and adopt website style consistent with the foundation?
+== Code Copyright Review ==
-: The idea of OSGeo branding is generally supported. A complete migration, however, depends on the flexibility of provided tool. Currently functional infrastructure is available. The GRASS project seeks to use CMS for the Web pages (to migrate away from hand written HTML/PHP).
-; Estimated bandwidth usage
+; Has a [[Code Provenance Review]] document been prepared for the project?
-: GRASS main site generates around [http://grass.itc.it/webalizer/ 40-50GB monthly]; there are > 25 mirror sites running, sync'ed via rsync
+: Yes, see also [[GRASS Provenance Review]]. We consider this long-term open source project (1982-today) as a '''large body of prior art''' which might be interesting in potential OSGeo patent issues.
+; Have issues raised in the provenance review been adequately addressed?
+: Yes.
+=== Mentor Notes ===
+Putting together notes for a documentation of the vetting process.
+* Example of header addition: http://grass.itc.it/pipermail/grass-commit/2007-April/028266.html (Note: archive unavailable online since migration was not accepted by OSGeo-SAC :-( )
+* more of them here: http://grass.itc.it/pipermail/grass-commit.mbox/grass-commit.mbox
+: What has been done in past years:
+* 1999: GPL 2 and later addition in the headers
+** https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-dev/1999-October/thread.html
+** https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-dev/1999-November/thread.html
+** https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-dev/1999-December/thread.html
+* 2000: identification of license incompatible code
+** https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-dev/2000-September/012134.html etc
+** https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-dev/2000-December/011086.html etc
+* 2003: identification of license incompatible code
+** https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-dev/2003-September/012827.html etc
+** https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-dev/2003-October/012936.html etc
+** https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-dev/2003-October/012937.html etc
+==== How is vetting done ====
+* In a first step all main.c have been checked for the appearance of the GNU GPL copyright text in several versions (the wording is not always identical but this was an easy way to select the recognizable ones)
+* The resulting list of main.c were checked manually.
+** If the provided information was not sufficient it was added.
+** As all source code is documented via CMS way back into last century most information was there and had only be to retrieved and added as a a comment to the header
+** Most issues with code or content were resolved immediately (see CVS logs in the past months, watch out for copyright in the comments).
+* Developers have been made aware of [[Code_Provenance_Review#FAQ]].
+* Whenever anybody touched any code in the past months the existence and correctness of license and author information was checked and then added, extended or cleaned up.
+* The PSC chair and mentors started to search the code base for missing information on a random basis and found quite a few additional places that needed attention. The chair explained some ways of how certain issues were addressed:
+** Example of Public Domain ./grass6/visualization/xganim/
+** Example of "numerical recipies in C" removal http://www.nabble.com/NR-licence-issue-and-replacement-of-G_ludcmp%28%29-tf3682152.html
+** As a result from the preliminary searches the mentors have started to check all modules. A painfully large pile that is.
+** All issues have been resolved --[[User:Seven|Seven]] 15:13, 23 January 2008 (EST)
+==== Other Areas of Interest ====
+* New sample dataset at http://www.grassbook.org/data_menu3rd.php - published with CC-BY-SA license.
+[[Category:Incubation]]