TinyOWS and mod_geocache integration in the MapServer project

This page discusses the administrative details of the integration of the TinyOWS and mod_geocache projects into the MapServer project, if RFC 70 and 71 are accepted.

Governance

• It is planned that the MapServer PSC would become the ultimate authority for the merged projects
• Olivier Courtin to be added to the MapServer PSC as owner of the TinyOWS module
• Thomas Bonfort is already on the PSC and will act as owner of the mod_geocache module
• It is understood that even though the ultimate decision authority is the PSC and the merged projects will have to follow the PSC rules (RFCs, etc.), the recommendations of a module owner are most of the time followed and the PSC does not get in the way of a module owner trying to make enhancements to the software, unless other devs envisions possible issues, in which case the group works together to define a better solution. (in other words, Oliver and Thomas will remain the technical leads of their respective modules and the PSC will do its best to support them in their work)

Sub-project names

License

• RFC70: TinyOWS already use MIT licence, as MapServer does. Copyright holders (Barbara Philippot and Olivier Courtin) should be kept on existing TinyOWS files.
• RFC71: The apache licence of mod-geocache will be switched to the same licence as MapServer.

Release planning / scheduling

• Tricky: we want to allow TinyOWS and mod_geocache to have an independent and faster release cycle than MapServer core which is more mature. But users would also benefit from a combined/unified release of the full suite every once in a while... so we need to be able to allow a mix of both.

• Release numbering?
  • MapServer 6.x, TinyOWS 1.x, mod_geocache 0.4 ... confusing if we want to appear as a unified project... and then which version number do we gove to the complete suite?
  • Adopt a common release numbering scheme? e.g. Ubuntu-style based on year.month? Would allow intermediate releases by component, while having consistent release numbers between all components ... e.g. MapServer suite with all components initially released as 11.08 (august 2011), next major release of MapServer core planned for early 2012, but in the meantime sub-projects can be released as 11.10, 11.11, etc... and next full suite release (including MapServer core) could be around February as v12.2?
  • Other options?

Build system integration

Single build system or multiple/separate ones? It seems that we need a mix of both...

Source and binary packaging

Mailing lists

SVN

Tickets (Trac)

Website and documentation