PSC Meeting 2025-05-09

Participants

• Anna Petrasova
• Helmut Kudrnovsky
• Huidae Cho
• Linda Karlovska
• Markus Neteler
• Paulo van Breugel
• Vaclav Petras
• Veronica Andreo

Agenda

The topics proposed are:

• Hosting of GRASS server at OSL, Oregon State University. See: https://osuosl.org/blog/osl-future/.
• Financial Sponsoring via NumFocus. Status update.
• Conda update
• GRASS Developer Summit Raleigh 2025, NC.
  • Remote participation?
  • Schedule
• Status of new docs: https://grass.osgeo.org/grass-devel/manuals/
• Status of doc and macOS uploads.
• Status of new branding.
  • The main logo on wiki needs server-side update. Current file is https://grasswiki.osgeo.org/w/skins/common/images/grasslogo_wiki.png?3fa1b. (Also, this goes to mapping relation with OSGeo SAC.)
    • 7th May 2025: markusN has updated the logo on the wiki
• Wiki status
  • The Main Page needs a major update and, more importantly, a complete change of approach
  • Ohloh_Project Widget is broken: Widget:Ohloh_Project used in Software requirements specification
    • 7th May 2025: markusN has been updated from https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Widgets, error messages here disappeared but the widget is not rendered yet. More time to be spent.
    • VP: Consider if we actually want Widget:Ohloh_Project or Widgets.
  • There is no favicon.
    • 7th May 2025: markusN has added the favicon on the wiki
• Website
  • we have notable SEO issues on the website which penalize our search engine ranking.
• GSoC.
• Shall we consider applying to Outreachy, too? See: https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/qgis-psc/2025-March/010525.html.

Minutes

• From previous meeting:
  • mailman migration to discourse:
    • The grass-user mailing list has been migrated to Discourse.
    • We will close the grass-web mailing list that receives spam mostly. Markus will put it into read-only mode, after an announcement to the list.
    • Anna will remove grass-web references from the website
    • We should add a “Contact us” something to the website → improve website footer
    • We decided to change the grass-stats mailing list and grass-translation mailing list mailing lists to read-only mode to reduce channel confusion. Markus will do this as he has permission, after an announcement has been sent to the list explaining the alternative(s).
    • For now, we keep the grass-psc mailing list list on mailman, but we are considering merging it to GRASS developer in Discourse, as subscribers are pretty much the same (that is, close down the mailing list). We also keep grass-announce on mailman.
  • tutorials contributing guide: a PR is there, but it seems useless. Vero volunteers to work on it; we are still trying to figure out the workflow (i.e., what to commit and so on).

• Hosting of GRASS server at OSL - Oregon University using OSGeo infrastructure hosted there.
  • OSL funding is at risk. We have no action item as OSGeo will handle this, but we will keep an eye on it in case we need to take action.
  • News: Seems the next year is again funded (OSL blog).

• NumFOCUS status update: The main reason to go with them is that they provide invoices when someone donates to the project, while OSGeo is not willing/legally able to do so, and we are missing some funding/sponsoring opportunities because of that. Also, NumFOCUS brings new funding options.
  • Contract draft: edits concerning the PSC description were included.
  • OSGeo cannot remain our fiscal host; it will become NumFOCUS; but we can still use the OSGeo money via reimbursements as usual.
  • Once the agreement is signed, we’ll meet with their Finance department and go through NumFOCUS onboarding.

• Conda
  • Huidae built a Linux conda package, but without FHS (Filesystem Hierarchy Standard)
  • The Windows conda package is not stable, probably a CMake issue
  • There are 2 open issues: conda for Linux and Windows, CMake for Windows
  • HC will resume work on it next week
  • Instructions to test: https://github.com/OSGeo/grass/issues/5067

• GRASS Developer Summit at Raleigh (agenda schedule)
  • Remote participation? We decided async work is better according to previous years experiences, but we could define a time slot for a call with folks contributing remotely.
  • There will be a PSC meeting during the summit: Friday 23, 5pm CET, 11am ET. Calendar invite sent.

• New docs:
  • They are up and looking great: https://grass.osgeo.org/grass-devel/manuals/
  • Automatic upload from CI to the web server is WIP, needs GHA.
  • Only some Python examples do not work, but that should be solvable.
  • Corey is working on syncing branding among the website, docs, and tutorials

• JSON: theoretically we want 3 types: format=json (WIP), --json (implemented), --json-interface-description (not yet implemented)

• Releases:
  • 8.4.2 in some weeks

• New branding:
  • Wiki:
    • logo and favicon were updated by MN
    • svg file in the corner? To be checked by MN -> looks terrible
    • review the Wiki landing page and redo it
      • highlight PSC and Events categories because that’s the current usage, and remove other links that are already on the website
    • Ohloh/OpenHub Project Widget is broken: let’s remove it -> done
    • Ideas on what to do with all the content we have on the media wiki:
      • obsolete everything and then select what to keep,
      • go topic by topic
      • obsolete everything that was not edited in the last 3 years, maybe with a bot extension?
      • To be discussed further

• Website SEO issues:
  • Our search engine ranking is partially penalized at time. See: https://github.com/OSGeo/grass-website/issues/513
  • TODO: a volunteer to fix the issues noted in the ticket

• Website analytics:
  • There's the GFOSS.it Matomo instance, but we do not have much control over it, only MN has a user account, via Luca D.
  • OSGeo-SAC related ticket to install Matomo. Anna will revive it and Vashek will ask Howard.
  • Corey offered to sponsor it as OpenPlains
  • The paid option is around USD 500 yearly

• GSoC:
  • We got only one student this year, he'll work on the JSON project.