GvSIG Technical Steering Committee

This page contains a summary of how gvSIG is technically managed, witch groups are on the project to manage the technical decisions and how they operate in order to assure the decisions are made in a democratic way, etc.

The gvSIG Technical Project Committee (TPC) is a group of 20 people, all experts form different areas (3D, mobile devices, documentation, i18n, ...) that are working on gvSIG project from several years most of them. They are part of different entities such as universities, private companies and public administration.

Objectives of the TPC
The TPC is in charge of the technical steering of the gvSIG project. The technical aspects we delimit for the gvSIG project are:


 * new functionalities to develop
 * development engineering (architecture, methodologies, etc.)
 * project documentation
 * collaborative infrastructure

The Board of Directors of the TPC
A subgroup of 8 people from the TPC is formed by the technical leaders of the project. This group has the responsibility of approving or rejecting the most important decisions of the governance of the project, usually based on the proposals prepared by the TPC.

This group has ordinary meetings (mostly in face, but also via IM) every two weeks with documented agenda and minutes.

Coordinator of the TPC
A member of the board acts as a coordinator of the whole TPC. His role is to manage the discussions, assure the communications inside the TPC and the rest of the project are fluent, and act as an interlocutor for the TPC outside.

At this time Jorge Sanz is the coordinator of the gvSIG TPC.

Working groups
The real work of the TPC happens in working groups. When a new proposal arises, or a medium/big task appears, the TPC creates a new working group with a board member as a chair of it.

These working groups have their own collaboration space at the gvSIG portal with its own forum and document space where the members work and discuss about the central topic.

Some of these working groups can have a long term goal and work preparing proposals to the Board of the TPC and others have a very specific objective and when it's accomplished the group is dissolved.

The chair of the working group (a member of the Board) should report to the rest of the board on any ordinary meeting how it's group is going, present reports, answer questions, etc.

Adding members to the TPC
The first TPC group was elected by the Board of Directors. This group was decided by the Board based on the technical skills and role of the member in different areas of gvSIG development.

Nowadays, after a test period, the TPC now has the right to elect new members. Any member of the TPC can nominate a member of the gvSIG community and the TPC should vote it.

Stepping down
Any member can step down the TPC at any moment, but besides that the TPC can promote the expulsion of a member of the TPC (witch will be voted by the Board of Directors) on any of this situations:


 * Serious lack of discipline with any member of the TPC
 * Serious lack of consideration on a public forum with the gvSIG project
 * Continued lack of activity on the TPC (voting, participating on working groups)
 * Incompatibility with the TPC activities due to:
 * Lack of time to work on the TPC
 * Conflict of interest between the TPC or gvSIG and the current employer of the member