MapGuide PSC Meeting 10-26-2006

MapGuide PSC - Home

Meeting Info

The second meeting of the MapGuide PSC will take place Thursday October 26 at 17:00 UTC (1:00 PM EST / 11:00 AM MST / 10:00 AM PST).

Meeting Chair:  Bob Bray
Universal Time:  http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=10&day=26&year=2006&hour=17&min=0&sec=0&p1=0
Location:  The meeting will be held on IRC at #mapguide

Agenda

• PSC Nominations
• RFC Template Discussion
• Road Map/Release Schedule Discussion (PS)

Agreement on

• Haris elected to the MapGuide PSC
• Paul volunteered (with some arm twisting) to post a draft RFC template to the Wiki.
• General agreement on Pauls release strategy with some refinement required.

Actions

Bob to:

• Post strawman roadmap

Paul to:

• Post his release strategy e-mail as initial draft content for a release strategy document.

All to:

• Review, edit, comment on proposed RFC template.
• Review, edit, comment on proposed release strategy.
• Review proposed roadmap for the next meeting.

Carry forwards

• Evaluate expansion of PSC in one month

IRC Log

brayr	Welcome everyone. I am going to wait another minute or two to start to see if others join. I know Jason will not be here today.
Haris_	Hi, I got invitation from Jason to attend this meeting today
Andy	Hi Haris, good to see you here.
Haris_	Thank you
brayr	Ok, I was hoping Paul was going to join since he added an agenda item but lets get started and see if he joins late.
brayr	I kicked off the FDO PSC yesterday starting with the same PSC guideline document. I'd like to incorporate feedback from that group and then put the guidelines up for formal approval.
brayr	On the agenda, the first order of business is PSC Nominations. So far we have one, Haris, from Jason. Any others 
Andy	Based on our requirements from the last meeting for a nominee, Haris seems to be a good fit if he's interested.
brayr	Agreed.
brayr	Jsut wanted to see if there were other contenders before we vote to fill the position.
brayr	Haris did you get a chance to review the PSC document on the website?
Haris_	Yes, and I am very much interested to be involved
Haris_	new to this things but willing to learn
brayr	I would like to involve you in the FDO PSC too.
Haris_	that would be great
brayr	I think it would be good to have an external developer involved in both projects. Jason recommended it and I certainly agree.
brayr	So if there are no other candidates, I motion to add Haris to the MapGuide PSC.
brayr	And +1 from Jason by proxy.
Andy	Do we need to second the motion, or does it just go to vote?
brayr	Wow, process questions. I think we need a second.
Andy	Hey, I was on the board for my homeowners association. I learned something. I second the motion.
TomFukushima	+1
Andy	+1
bdechant	+1
brayr	And I am of course +1.
brayr	So that is everyone but Paul.
brayr	Just checking the rules I wrote last week. Man my memory is going fast.
Andy	Looks like we're good. 2/3 quorum in attendance. Paul can still veto, but I'm sure he won't.
brayr	Majority is good, so motion passed. Welcome Haris (unless of course Paul vetos).
Haris_	Thank you, it is my pleasure
brayr	Yes I think Paul was promoting Haris in last weeks meeting too, so I think we are good.
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brayr	Hey Paul, you missed the first vote.
Andy	His IRC channel must be burning.........
pagameba	hi, sry I'm late
pagameba	no excuse :)
pagameba	I disagree
pagameba	what did we vote on?
pagameba	;)
brayr	No problems. We just added Haris to the PSC. Unless you veto of course.
pagameba	not me ...
pagameba	+1
brayr	Great, that makes it unanomous.
brayr	Well if I could spell anyway.
pagameba	Hi Haris ...
pagameba	:o we have Frank too ... wow
brayr	We will revisit membership size in another few weeks, but lets leave it at 7 for now. As always if someone has a good candidate please bring them to the PSCs attention.
FrankW	is just a fly on the wall.
Haris_	Hi, thanks for no veto, you have beeron me
brayr	Next agenda item: RFC Template.
brayr	Any thoughts on what this should contain or good models to follow?
brayr	Or volunteers to put a draft together?
pagameba	what does mapserver do?
pagameba	can we start from that?
brayr	They have a template of sorts, but it varys I think based on whether it is Technical or not.
FrankW	Mapserver doesn't have a template, but there are certain "standard items" that normally appear.
brayr	Frank can you elaborate on the items?
pagameba	FrankW: does the mapserver approach work well? What are things you would change if you could?
FrankW	I try to encourage people to include a "backwards compatibility", "regression tsting" section for instance.
FrankW	pagameba: I'd suggest using some of the mapserver rfcs as a guide when writing a template.
FrankW	If you do a good one, I'll take it back to the mapserver and gdal psc's!
pagameba	which rfcs do you think would serve as the best example(s)?
brayr	yea, that gives us a start anyway. I think GeoServer has a template for the Improvement Proposals, but I will have to check. We could look at that too.
danmo	For those not familiar with the MapServer site, RFCs are at http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/development/rfc
sigq	Title: RFCs UMN MapServer (at mapserver.gis.umn.edu)
FrankW	pagameba: I'm partial to http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/development/rfc/ms-rfc-21/
sigq	Title: MS RFC 21: MapServer Raster Color Correction UMN MapServer (at mapserver.gis.umn.edu)
pagameba	wonders which 'fly' wrote it ...
pagameba	:o ... waddya know, its Frank's RFC :)
FrankW	lol
danmo	http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/development/rfc/ms-rfc-18 adds voting history and comments from the review period... do we care to have that in RFCs?
sigq	Title: MS RFC 18: Encryption of passwords in mapfiles UMN MapServer (at mapserver.gis.umn.edu)
pagameba	Overview, Technical Changes, Implications (mgserver, mapagent, API, docs, ...), Test Plan, Staffing, Tracking Bug
brayr	A motivation section with some use cases would be good.
brayr	Yes we should track the votes either in the document associated with it somehow. I really need to have a better look at Drupal to see what is possible.
brayr	Eventually it would be nice to have some kind of a Drupal template/form for these things. But that will have to wait till we are up and running on our new infrastructure.
Andy	Sorry, what's Drupal?
brayr	Ah sorry. it's a content management system.
brayr	For those who do not know, our current hosting infrastructure is going away at the end of January.
brayr	We are moving to a new CMS based infrastructure around the first of the year.
brayr	One of the benefits is that it will give everyone more ability to edit/modify the web site content.
brayr	Anyway, back on topic. Anyone care to put a draft template together or should we just wait till the first RFC comes in? Which might be soon.
brayr	I personally would like to see a little structure, but I am also fine with working out the kinks as we go along.
Andy	It would probably be easier to have the template in place already so the submitter could format the RFC properly.
brayr	Hmm, silence however tells me that we will take a more iterative approach. I added a list of actions to the PSC page on the Wiki.
brayr	http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/MapGuide_PSC
sigq	Title: MapGuide PSC - OSGEO (at wiki.osgeo.org)
brayr	For now lets see what comes first, a template or an RFC. Maybe the author of the first RFC will wind up creating the template.
pagameba	ok, I'll start one in the wiki
brayr	Hey is that a voluneer?
brayr	Thanks Paul.
brayr	Next topic, Pauls Road Map/Release Schedule e-mail.
brayr	There was a lot of stuff in there, including some versioning ideas and a release schedule.
Haris_	Where can I see that email
Andy	I can forward it right now.
Haris_	thanks
brayr	In the archives: https://mapguide.osgeo.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=psc&msgNo=25
sigq	Title: mapguide: Mail reader (at mapguide.osgeo.org)
brayr	The version numbering scheme outlined is pretty standard, no argument from me on any of that.
brayr	I would also agree with a minor version every 6 months or so.
brayr	We could start by shooting for a 1.1 release in late November or early December.
Andy	I agree with both as well. It's where we start to look at actual feature inclusion and the overall road map where things get a bit more sticky.
brayr	Well for Nov/Dec we take what is in trunk right now.
brayr	FDO 3.2 and KML Serving.
brayr	There are a bunch of small things as well, multi-line labels for the AJAX Viewer for example.
FrankW	fdo3.2++
Andy	Is there any easy way to see an overview list of items in the trunk?
brayr	Frank: yes, that is what I meant. Support for the 3.2.x branch of the API and most recent provider builds.
brayr	The only way is to look at the SVN history or the project tracker artifacts.
Andy	OK, thanks.
TomFukushima	And the release notes when it's release :)
brayr	I have an action to create a draft roadmap together. I'll try and list everything I know about.
Andy	Yes, that kind of list is what I'm referring to, but prior to release. Maybe something to think about for the future.
TomFukushima	I can go through the submissions and find what's been put in to date
brayr	We could create a Project Tracker query for that, but it is a pain and we are moving away from it, so I dont really want to expend the energy for something that is going away.
brayr	Overall I agree with everything in Pauls e-mail, but would like to shift the dates next year.
pagameba	dates were examples
TomFukushima	So, for example, we would like to do a minor release every 6 months, but it's okay if it's a month early or late right?
brayr	I would prefer to shoot for September / February targets for the minor versions, but that is the commercial guy talking.
brayr	yea, they are just loose targets.
brayr	At least from my perspective.
pagameba	that was my intention
pagameba	the idea being that we start to think about a release and look more closely at what is in development
pagameba	the PSC should start thinking about a release at least 2 months before the release to give time for beta/RC process
Andy	I don't think hard and fast target dates would work well. We've all seen what happens when software is released prematurely just because it has to meeting marketing's dates.
pagameba	http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/MapGuide_RFC_Template
sigq	Title: MapGuide RFC Template - OSGEO (at wiki.osgeo.org)
brayr	Andy: Unfortunately my reality is a little different. Just to put this in perspective, after this coming year MG will ship every April. No exceptions.
pagameba	Andy ...
pagameba	it is a different way of doing releases
pagameba	we are not pushing out features
pagameba	we are cutting a release with whatever features are done
brayr	Right.
pagameba	it works extremely well for mapserver
brayr	and I think it will work equally well for us.
pagameba	the idea being that a project with frequent releases is more stable
Andy	I see, that makes sense. If the feature isn't quite ready, it just doesn't make it into the release.
pagameba	it gives an impression of health too
brayr	and forward progress, even if it is in little steps.
Haris_	I am also for faster releases
pagameba	also ... from postgis experience, most people won't use a pre-release version
pagameba	so you lose some benefit of being open source
pagameba	ie lots of testers
Andy	Thanks for the clarification, folks. That all makes sense. Bob, I feel for you though since your situation is much more difficult.
pagameba	but everyone jumps on the latest release
brayr	My situation is really no different. We ship what is ready, every April regardless.
brayr	Paul, can you also post the content of your e-mail. It seems like the start of a release process document to me.
pagameba	note also that bugfix and major releases happen whenever, it is only the minor releases that are on a fixed schedule
pagameba	sure
pagameba	why not
brayr	thanks.
pagameba	I'm doing everything else!
pagameba	;)
Andy	Paul, let me know if you need any help with the RFC. It's new stuff to me, but I'll help where I can.
brayr	I'll get the roadmap posted and send an e-mail when it is done. Should be by Monday.
pagameba	I've done the first cut at the RFC, see link about
pagameba	above
brayr	And I think we are out of time. Any last minute issues / questions?
brayr	Thanks Andy. Everyone else should have a look and edit their thoughts into the RFC template
brayr	Silence means we are done for today. We should try to iterate more on the roadmap and process issues next week.
bdechant	Thanks Bob
brayr	Thanks everyone.
Andy	See you all next week.
Haris_	see you
pagameba	bye all
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brayr	Frank, thanks for adding your input. It is always appreciated.