[Live-demo] FOSS4G Presentation

Jody Garnett jody.garnett at gmail.com
Sat Feb 20 21:41:49 EST 2010


Afternoon team:

As noted in an earlier conversation I submitted the "A Friendly
Hands-on Survey of Popular Geospatial Services"
(http://2009.foss4g.org/tutorials/#tutorial_01) for a workshop at
FOSS4G 2010. This tutorial walked people through the use of the
LiveDVD and provided some background in geospatial, open standards ans
so forth in order to understand how the software works together.

This workshop request was, sadly to say, rejected. The rejection
letter did however ask that I discuss the topic on this email list.  I
am still a bit sad on this one as the Live DVD is by its nature a
hands on experience; and a workshop or tutorial is really one of the
best ways to get your head around it ...

I am still planning to go to FOSS4G; and I can pull together a
presentation on the use of the LiveDVD.  However I feel more like I am
QA on this Live DVD project, then a core member, and I don't want to
step on anyone's toes if they are submitting a presentation
themselves.

We may also (as an email list) be a bit organize and submit several
takes on the LiveDVD topic order to have a better chance of getting
in...

Here are some examples presentations that could be run ....

Live DVD Quickstart and Demo
- Have two presenters (or an excited presenter and multiple desktops)
- Run a basic set of slides (similar to those used in the tutorial
above). Introduction to the Live DVD; What is Open Source, Open Source
Spatial, Stack diagram grouping projects into "client" and "server"
grouped according to function/ogc standard.
- Switch between the slides and a demo of the software being named
- Back up plan for demo consisting of a video of the software being
used from the live dvd (ie capture using wink)
- Considering the demos take a fair time (to load an app and go
through the steps required to show a map) I imagine the presenter
could talk as a second person went through the steps of the demo.
- Ask that people try out the live DVD included with their conference
materials prior to the presentation?

Live DVD Part I Desktop Applications
- Go over pen source risk/reward and how to evaluate an open source product
- Focus on desktop applications
- but go through one or two documented use cases that can be
accomplished in each of the applications
- Would be good to specifically target existing (say ESRI) users and
offer a feature comparison or at least a translation from ESRI speak
to OGC speak

Live DVD Part II Server Applications
- Go over pen source risk/reward and how to evaluate an open source product
- Focus on server applications (PostGIS, MapServer, GeoServer, deegree )
- would be great to look at the configuration of each application
- more of a chance to compare capabilities; a slide for each application
- could bring in a community leader for each application to run the
demo? (would need a "timer" to provide each a set time of 5 mins)
- once again provide context for someone familiar with ESRI products

OSGeo Products and Using the LiveDVD
- really go for the open source spatial software overview; emphasizing
the different products and related history
- favour the OSGeo accepted products; leave the incubation and non
osgeo products for bullet points
- have 1/3 of the presentation devoted to starting up the live dvd and
showing where the documentation is and how to run one application

FOSS4G Advocacy using the LiveDVD
- Straight up Live DVD presentation 50% live DVD; 50% "local osgeo
chapter" stratagies
- how it is run; what the scripts do
- how to grab a copy and produce a live dvd for your "local osgeo
chapters" event
- go over different approaches to FOSS4G advocay
- ways to use the live dvd to help different parties:
-- government representatives can try it out without installing the
software on their provided laptop
-- sitting developers down and going over the layered architecture and
how the standards slot together
-- use in conjunction with tutorials and workshops
-- uses in education

Other suggestions?

Jody


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