GeoPackage.org and GitHub

Start at geopackage.org. That is my message every time I present about GeoPackage. GeoPackage is the first OGC project with its own home page. (The old structure was really only good for finding downloadable versions of the specification documents.) The new site provides access to most project-related resources including:

• A web-based version of the standard
• Implementations
• Sample data
• Relevant hyperlinks for partipants
• Frequently Asked Questions

Meanwhile, we have migrated most of our work to GitHub:

• The AsciiDoc of the specification itself [1]
• Issue Tracker
• GitHub Pages (for maintaining geopackage.org itself)[2]

We have had good results using the common GitHub workflows. The issue tracker has allowed much more public input than was ever possible before. It is much easier to manage changes to  geopackage.org through pull requests. The processes for managing the specification itself are still being improved but at least there is a short turnaround between a SWG decision and the corresponding update to the online specification. 

There are just a few things that remain on the old OGC site:

• Email lists (one public, one for SWG members only)
• Portal (for hosting internal files like presentations and for files that are too big to host on GH Pages)
• Wiki (now used primarily for meeting agenda, minutes, and a detailed change log)

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[1] A back end process produces HTML from the specification AsciiDoc so that changes to the AsciiDoc are immediately reflected in the on-line version of specification.
[2] Via the gh-pages branch (particularly index.html) in the https://github.com/opengeospatial/geopackage repository