The Life of Open Source Spatial with QGIS - From Hobby to Grown Up, with Bonus Growing Pains

Explore the evolution of QGIS from a hobby project to a widely-used open source spatial desktop tool in this 45-minute conference talk. Discover how the project grew from a simple PostGIS viewer to a comprehensive Geographic Information System, competing with commercial offerings. Learn about the challenges faced during this growth, including changes in developer and user expectations, the need for better documentation and translations, and the shift towards a more structured organization. Gain insights into the project's governance, funding strategies, and efforts to maintain a welcoming and diverse community. Understand the delicate balance between volunteering and commercialization, and the importance of stability for users relying on QGIS for daily work. Reflect on the impact of growth on the project's culture and the lessons learned in managing a successful open source initiative.

Intro
Geographic Informatio n System
Sits on top of other major open source projects
GDAL Proj Python
Let's go back to the start
2002 Gary Sherman creates the start of Quantum GIS
Started only as a Post GIS** viewer
Started as a hobby project
One of the biggest open source cross platform GIS software applications
Part of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation
No longer just a PostGIS viewer
Large friendly community of users and developers
More frequent and stable release cycles
1,712,306 total lines of code 908,668 lines of C++ 152,298 lines of Python 480,429 lines of XML??!
Documentation doesn't write itself
Growing pain: Installers
You can't just do source dumps
We have had communication breakdowns around installers
Growing pain: Breaking changes
It was for the better but hurt
Growing pain: Documentation
Keeping up with rate of change is hard
Focus on stabilizing
Lots of people use and rely on QGIS for daily work
Stability is important to everyone
Forming governance
Established PSC
Rebanding and trademarks
Have a way to take money
Projects need money to sustain long term
Drawing the line between volunteering and getting paid
Grant projects
Growing the community
Be welcoming to new members
Diversity in location Diversity in gender Diversity in skills etc etc
Be aware of other cultures
Mentor and promote into core members of the community
Developer vs User expectations will differ
The community can fragment
Community matters a lot
Support your favourite project