<div class="h1">
<h1>Profile - Markus Neteler</h1>
<p>October 2006</p>
<div class="h2">
<h2>Personalia</h2>
<table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0>
<tr>
<td>Name:</td>
<td>Markus Neteler</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Location:</td>
<td>Trento, Italy</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Company:</td>
<td><a href="http://mpa.itc.it/">L'Istituto Trentino di Cultura - Il
Centro per la Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica</a> (ITC-irst) +
<a href="http://www.cealp.it/">Centro di Ecologia Alpina</a>
(CEA), both research institutes, and the <a
href="http://www.gdf-hannover.de">Gesellschaft für Datenanalyse
und Fernerkundung</a> (GDF), Hannover</a> company.</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<div class="h2">
<h2>Interview</h2>
<ol>
<li>
<p><em>Tell us a bit about yourself?</em></p>
<p>I have an M.Sc. degree in Physical Geography and Landscape
Ecology from the University of Hanover in Germany. I worked at the
Institute of Geography as Research Scientist and teaching associate
for two years. Since 2001, I work as researcher at ITC-irst and CEA
(Center for Alpine Ecology), Trento, Italy. I am working on remote
sensing for environmental risk assessment and Free Software GIS
development. Helena Mitasova and I have written the first book on
the Open Source GIS GRASS (3rd edition forthcoming!). I live with my
wife and my kids in the nice Trentino Province in Italy. My passion
is classical music, I was actively playing in a symphony orchestra,
but time and orchestras are currently rare.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>How long have you been working in the geospatial domain and
why?</em></p>
<p>As a student, I started to use GIS in 1994, first a bit of
Arc-Info, then GRASS for a series of projects at University of
Hanover in Germany. I immediately became very interested in the GIS
technology, so I started to play around. First first "teaching
GRASS" experiences I had in India at Anna University (Chennai, Tamil
Nadu) where I stayed in 1997 for a couple of months as student. I
got deeply involved in the GRASS development since 1998. Phisan
Santitamnont from Thailand who was a doctorate student at University
of Hanover was opening the door for me to get GRASS running on early
Linux versions.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>What are you using geospatial software for - what software
are you using to get the job done (we want to know about both
commercial and open source)?</em></p>
<p>Years ago, I used proprietary software a bit, but found it more
interesting to discover details of GIS algorithms in open source
GIS. Also for teaching, I only use open source GIS: Nowadays, for
example, with QGIS on top of GRASS, you can do fancy things in an
afternoon. At ITC-irst and CEA, we are using GRASS and related
software for traffic accident projects, for the identification of
unexploded bombs from World War II (Adige valley in Trentino), and
for risk analysis of tick-borne diseases.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>What attracted you to the projects you are using or
participating in?</em><p>
<p>I like the community approach (the famous "bazaar"): people
contribute what they can: ideas, source code, documentation, data,
bug & wish reports and so forth. I help to solve some of their
problems, and they do a lot for me. This works pretty well, in the
GRASS project even with a very low administrational overhead. Beside
the more technical issues I got a series of nice opportunities to
travel the world such as an invitation to Japan from Osaka City
University with further travels to Thailand and Vietnam.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>Are you involved with any of the OSGeo governance or
committees?</em></p>
<p>I am serving on the board of directors and I am involved in the
'Public Geodata' and 'Education' committees.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>What open source projects are you contributing to as a
developer?</em></p>
<p>I am basically contributing to GRASS GIS, sometimes also
something to other related projects. In future, want to do a bit
more on free geodata since our toolbox to process spatial data is
really rich and powerful. However, here in Europe, we are lacking
reasonable access to spatial data. Hopefully OSGeo can help to
deliver some datasets. I am also involved in developing workshop and
training material, supporting localization of GRASS, software
packaging etc.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>What open source projects do you consider yourself a user and
why are you using them (remember to use the full URL)?</em></p>
<p>In terms of GIS, I am <a href="http://grass.itc.it/">GRASS</a>
power user. :-) Of course I also use GDAL/OGR, PROJ4, QGIS, a bit
of Mapserver. Then R-stats, Latex, OpenOffice and tons of other
packages - say, I only use free software.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>Is your company using code from these projects and if so
please describe how/why if you can?</em></p>
<p>At ITC-irst, we are hosting part of the GRASS infrastructure and
contribute to the development. For example, the new GRASS 6 vector
engine was developed by my former colleague Radim Blazek. I am
co-founder of GDF Hannover is offering solutions to Free Software
GIS, commercially helping companies and individuals to implement
FOSS4G solutions. GDF Hannover is also hosting the GRASS Wiki and
the Tutorials Translation Portal.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>What operating systems are you using (Windows, Linux, BSD,
Apple, etc.)?</em></p>
<p>I am using Linux (the Mandriva distribution).</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>What programming languages do you use (scripting and
compiled)?</em></p>
<p>Primarily C and Un*x shell scripts, with the emergence of the
GRASS-Python interface I'll most likely switch to Python.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>What spoken/written languages are you fluent in?</em></p>
<p>German, English and Italian. I wish I knew more French.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>This is for us to do a better job, what do you think needs to
be added to the web site to help you?</em></p>
<p>A better users mailing list archival and searching tool and a
more intuitive content management system.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>