OSSIM incubation status

Status

On 2 Feb 08, Richard recommended the ossim project for graduation from incubation. Subsequent review by incubation committee members has led to additional changes and improvements. Currently awaiting formal review by the incubation committee.

In Sep 08 the incubation committee put OSSIM incubation status on the agenda. OSSIM incubation status is to be reviewed, last known action was an email from Frank Warmerdam suggesting several improvements to the internal source code license and copyright documentation. Many of these changes have been subsequently implemented. It was agreed that the overall status would be reviewed and presented at an upcoming incubation meeting.

24 Feb 2009 - Time to complete the incubation review and process. OSSIM continues to be an active project focusing on a scientific approach to remote sensing and photogrammetry. The core C++ library is mature, most of the development is currently focused on OMAR, ossimPlanet and ImageLinker applications built on the core software library. Provenance code review was completed, subsequent clarifications and comments were addressed. Recommend the project be brought before the committee and voted on for incubation graduation.

30 Mar 09, Dave Lucas wrote and tested a script to insert license information and a pointer in each of the header files. Procedures for the conversion were also generated. Reviewing visibility and governance section.

Has an OSGeo committee member been assigned as Mentor?

Yes Richard Gould

Has the project been approved for incubation by the OSGeo board?

Yes on 2 Feb 2008

Richard Gould wrote:
Hi all,
I believe the time has come for OSSIM to graduate from incubation.
Since they first joined the incubator, the project's infrastructure
and accessibility has evolved considerably.
The incubation status page is here:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/OSSIM incubation status
The provenance review is very brief, but the code has been reviewed.
The only remaining issue is that not all of the file had proper
headers.  This is being resolved at the moment.
The review is here:
http://trac.osgeo.org/ossim/wiki/ossimprovenance
The other relevant documents for incubation can be found here:
http://trac.osgeo.org/ossim/wiki/GovernanceAndCommunity

Richard

The team has subsequently strived to improve the online documentation and fix the remaining headers.

Infrastructure Transition

The OSSIM project is enthusiastic about being a fully participating project in the OSGeo foundation. Following standard open source software collaboration methods, we attempt to intelligently manage the available resource and apply it to areas of greatest need. Conversely, if something isn't broken, not much resource will be allocated to changing it. The project is hesitant to commit significant resource to embedding structure in Collabnet. We feel the foundation would be better served deploying open source solutions that are under the direct control of the foundation project members. We have no issues with using Collabnet as a skeletal infrastructure to tie these open resources together as long as best of breed solutions are free to be used.

Has the projectname.osgeo.org domain been populated with the projects we presence?

OSSIM is currently hosted on a wiki at http://www.ossim.org. While potentially evaluating a move to a Plone site the project has no motivation for moving to static web pages on ossim.osgeo.org. ossim.osgeo.org has been created and populated with a brief description and a link to the host site.

Is the OSGeo bug tracker being used for the project?

Completed the switch to osgeo trac and migrated the bugzilla database for the ossim baseline.

Is the OSGeo mailing list manager being used for the project?

No, currently using sourceforge for those services OSSIM Mailing List

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

Completed the migration to osgeo svn for the ossim baseline.

Are binary and source downloads available from the OSGeo download area?

Yes, using telascience as the primary download site for ossim binaries, docs, etc.

Community Functioning

Is there a functioning user support mechanisms (ie. mailing list)?

The OSSIM mailing list is hosted on sourceforge.net with archives available at: ossim archive

The history shows there are several postings a day over the last five years. Most of the status and communication occurs on the mailing list. There are a couple of sub-projects within the ossim baseline. One of the more active applications is ossimPlanet. An irc chat room #ossimplanet at irc.freenode.net has been up for the last couple of years. On average there are 10-15 people logged into the chat room.

Are source and binary downloads for the package available?

existing and functioning well. The primary site for this is on : telascience

Has a Project Steering Committee been formed, and given control of the project?

Project Steering committee has just been formed. Currently consists of six developers with commit privileges. Garrett Potts is the designated lead and has final say over software architecture implementation. A module system needs to be added allowing segmented checkin control for other contributors. This should not impact incubation status.

On average the core developers meet for lunch in Melbourne Florida once a month in Melbourne Florida. During these meetings we typically discuss the overall direction of the project and key areas that contributors are working on. Significant recommendations are summarized and posted to the mailing list. The ossim core library is fairly mature and stable. Therefore there has not been a lot to report recently with regard to interface or refactoring changes. There are ideas for an OSSIM 2.0 that are being accumulated on the wiki.

Does the Project Steering Committee have documentation on project procedures for PSC decisions, contributor guidelines, etc.

Yes, status and links at: Governance and Community

How many active developers are there? Are they from multiple organizations?

Indicate number and some organizations involved. Garrett Potts, Mark Lucas, David Burken, Scott Bortman are the core OSSIM team external checkin privileges have been granted to Dr Frederic Claudel from the South African Center for remote sensing and James Hopper from SAIC Corporation. The core team works for different defense contractors and have continued to collaborate over the years as they have transitioned between different employment. OSSIM may be somewhat unique in that most of the core development is funded by government programs through those contractors. Through out the history of OSSIM we have maintained the baseline as an open source project outside of direct company control.

Additional References

OSSIM Governance Procedures

OSSIM Commiter Guidelines

OSSIM Openness Evaluation

OSSIM OSGeo Participation

Foundation Membership

Have project documents been updated to reflect membership in the foundation, and the relationship of the project to the foundation?

Yes, web site currently reflects OSGeo membership, documentation for OSSIM, brochures, presentations are also modified. This will be an ongoing process.

Has an effort been made to brand the project web site with OSGeo foundation web styling and branding marks?

Prominent posting of OSGeo logo, links, conferences integrated into the website.

Code Copyright Review

Has a Code Provenance Review document been prepared for the project?

Yes, OSSIM Provenance Review completed successfully on 10 Aug 07. Code was reviewed over the last several months. Dave Burken, Mark Lucas, Scott Bortman, and Garrett Potts met from the Program Steering committee and finalized the review. No issues or problems are being worked, we have completed a diligent review of the source code and find no licensing or patent issues.

Received additional input on the provenance review 2 Mar 08. As a result, improved the license.txt file, and placed and copied it to a couple of top level modules. The header files will be modified via script to point to the updated license file. The vast majority, over 97% of the core, was written by the current maintainers. The review focused primarily on projection code from Geotrans, Matrix operations, and shapefile capabilities that were imported from other sources. The current license information on those included or incorporated codes were maintained in the baseline. The top level license agreement now highlights those contributions and their associated histories.

Have issues raised in the provenance review been adequately addressed?

No issues were raised in the code review. Successfully completed on 10 Aug 07 with a formal meeting of the PSC. Added Legal section

2 Mar 08, made some minor improvements in the licensing documentation.

4 Mar 08, Frank Warmerdam submitted a number of specific comments that were acted upon. These included pointers to specific files that needed headers, clarification on the derivation from Geotrans which is in the public domain, and correctly referencing shapelib.

Sep 08, reviewing current incubation status. Will provide status and a briefing to the incubation committee after the FOSS4g conference.

6 Oct 08 - meeting of the program steering committee discussed current incubation status and plans for OSSIM 2.0 changes.

The PSC for OSSIM physically meets at least once a month in Melbourne Florida, Results of those meetings and additional discussion about directions in the baseline will be repeated on the mailing list. In the past attempts have been made to announce architectural changes and new functionality on the mailing list. Most of the active developers and testers are on the #ossimplanet chat channel and much communication takes place there. The team has agreed to push more of the discussion through the mailing list in the future.

24 Feb 2009 - Recommend that the project be brought before the board for incubation graduation. Mark Lucas