From warmerdam at pobox.com Fri Sep 10 02:14:49 2010 From: warmerdam at pobox.com (Frank Warmerdam) Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 05:14:49 -0400 Subject: [OSGeo-Announce] GRASS GIS 6.4.0 Released Message-ID: We are pleased to announce the release of GRASS GIS 6.4.0, the first in the new line of 6.4 stable releases. As a stable release 6.4 will enjoy long-term support. The next release (6.4.1) will introduce a few new features which are still undergoing final testing, but after that all further 6.4 releases will be bugfix-only. Due to our highly conservative stabilization policy this is the first official version of GRASS to introduce new features since October 2006 and supersedes the previous stable line of GRASS 6.2. As such the floodgates are open and there are many new features to explore and many new structural improvements to be found in the software. GRASS 6.4 brings a number of exciting enhancements to the GIS. Our new wxPython graphical user interface (wxGUI) is debuted, Python is now a fully supported scripting language, and for the first time since its inception with a port from the VAX 11/780 in 1983, GRASS will now run natively on a non-UNIX based platform: MS-Windows! In addition to bringing the software to a host of new users, the ability to run GRASS on any common computer platform furthers our goal of open access to the software. We hope you will enjoy the ability to use this program on the systems that are most convenient to you and your work. Due to the freshness of WinGrass there may still be a few rough edges yet to discover, but after more than a year of dedicated testing and quality-assurance review we are very pleased with the results. Users can be confident to use this version for their day to day work, indeed due to the open development model many already do. Existing UNIX and Mac users will be happy to know that these new features do not disrupt the base GIS which remains as solid as ever and fully backwards compatible with earlier GRASS 6.0 and 6.2 releases. The venerable Tcl/Tk GUIs are also still available if you prefer to use them. The GRASS software including over 400 built-in analysis modules and 100 community supplied add-on modules and toolboxes can be downloaded for free from the main GRASS website at http://grass.osgeo.org/, or from many local mirrors worldwide. In addition to the extensive documentation which comes with the software, our Wiki help system contains a wealth of user supplied tips and tricks, tutorials, and guides. Since 6.4 entered the testing phase work has begun on GRASS 7 and is progressing rapidly, including many new wxGUI improvements and tools which we hope to bring over for the upcoming 6.4.1 release. More complete information on the new features of GRASS 6.4.0 are available at: http://grass.osgeo.org/announces/announce_grass640.html From warmerdam at pobox.com Fri Sep 10 02:38:21 2010 From: warmerdam at pobox.com (Frank Warmerdam) Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 11:38:21 +0200 Subject: [OSGeo-Announce] OpenLayers 2.10 Final Release Message-ID: The OpenLayers Development Team is proud to announce the release of OpenLayers 2.10, the latest stable release of OpenLayers. The 2.10 release adds several important features. Some of the highlights include: * Support for Google Maps v3 * Significant improvements to the panel control functionality * Improvements in support for WMS, WFS standards ... and many other bug fixes. http://trac.openlayers.org/wiki/Release/2.10/Notes From warmerdam at pobox.com Fri Sep 10 03:37:10 2010 From: warmerdam at pobox.com (Frank Warmerdam) Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 12:37:10 +0200 Subject: [OSGeo-Announce] Geomajas 1.7 Released Message-ID: Thanks to the hard work of our community, the Geomajas team is proud to announce the release of Geomajas 1.7.1. The biggest improvements occurred in the plug-in system. Plug-ins are now automatically registered, allowing extensions and overwriting base services. Plug-ins register their dependencies and Geomajas checks at startup whether the dependent modules are available and compatible. The plug-ins now have an independent release cycle to allow improvements to be easily released. A complete description of the release is available at: http://geomajas.org/geomajas-1.7.1 From warmerdam at pobox.com Tue Sep 14 06:43:25 2010 From: warmerdam at pobox.com (Frank Warmerdam) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2010 09:43:25 -0400 Subject: [OSGeo-Announce] Prof. Helena Mitasova Receives Sol Katz Award Message-ID: <4C8F7BFD.4040208@pobox.com> Prof. Helena Mitasova was honored with the Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software 2010 during the closing plenary of the FOSS4G 2010 conference in Barcelona, Spain. Helena has contributed a variety of methods, algorithms, documentation and tutorials amongst other efforts to the FOSS4G community. Her outstanding contributions date back to 1990 when she started to develop new analytical modules for GRASS GIS. Since then she served on many committees within OSGeo, she is coauthor of the first Open Source GIS book; she published over 50 scientific and academic publications linked to FOSS4G and contributed a rich OSGeo GIS dataset to the community which has become a standard for software testing and teaching. See Helena's video acceptance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tQzwiiHYII Background ---------- The Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software is awarded annually by OSGeo to individuals who have demonstrated leadership in the GFOSS community. Recipients of the award will have contributed significantly through their activities to advance open source ideals in the geospatial realm. The hope is that the award will both acknowledge the work of community members, and pay tribute to one of its founders, for years to come. Sol Katz was an early pioneer of GFOSS and left behind a large body of work in the form of applications, format specifications, and utilities. In the early 80's, Sol assisted in the development of a public domain GIS package called MOSS (Map Overlay and Statistical System). This software was arguably the first open source GIS software in the world. Sol would later go on to release and maintain PC MOSS. He was also one of the first involved in public data translator utilities. Utilities that he developed for converting DEMs and reading SDTS files were contributed back to the geospatial community, and are still available today. Sol was also a frequent contributor to many geospatial list servers, providing much guidance to the geospatial community at large. Sol Katz's collection of GIS utilities at the BLM is still available at ftp://ftp.blm.gov/pub/gis/. Sadly, after fighting Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma for almost a decade, Sol died April 23, 1999 in bed. His legacy will always live on in the GFOSS world. http://www.osgeo.org/solkatz From warmerdam at pobox.com Mon Sep 20 13:50:08 2010 From: warmerdam at pobox.com (Frank Warmerdam) Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2010 16:50:08 -0400 Subject: [OSGeo-Announce] Ingres 10.1 with Geospatial Support Available Message-ID: <4C97C900.8090300@pobox.com> The Ingres Geospatial community project is pleased to announce the first availability of binaries for Ingres 10.1 with the new OGC Simple Features based geospatial support built in. This software is licensed under the GPL license version 2, thus free to download, develop against, modify, and redistribute. The installers for each operating system are available for download at: http://www.fosslc.org/drupal/content/ingres-101-geospatial-support-available The Ingres Geospatial team has been working closely with Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) projects to improve and incorporate them as part of the new core Geospatial capability within the open source Ingres database. The new binaries are based on Ingres 10.1 and include the following features: * OGC SFS SQL v1.1 data types & functions * Projections, EPSG data loaded automatically * Support for Java, C/C++, .NET, Perl, Python, Ruby, etc A brief video introducing this software is available at: http://www.fosslc.org/drupal/content/brief-introduction-ingres-geospatial-features Projects directly incorporated into Ingres Geospatial include PROJ.4 and GEOS, both of which have received a variety of improvements from the Ingres geospatial team since the beginning of its effort. Improvements have also been made in libgeotiff, and GDAL/OGR in pursuit of improved coordinate system dictionaries, which helps many other projects as well. Support for Ingres has, or is being incorporated into GDAL/OGR, GeoTools, MapServer, Drupal, and more as part of efforts to ensure as wide application support as possible. As part of it's support for the open source geospatial ecosystem Ingres is also a proud sponsor of OSGeo, the GDAL/OGR project and FOSS4G 2010. For more information, please visit our project wiki. http://community.ingres.com/wiki/IngresGeospatial From warmerdam at pobox.com Mon Sep 27 09:02:39 2010 From: warmerdam at pobox.com (Frank Warmerdam) Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:02:39 -0400 Subject: [OSGeo-Announce] OSGeo and Centre for Geospatial Science Sign MoU Message-ID: <4CA0C01F.9050901@pobox.com> Nottingham, UK ,September 22, 2010 - The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) and the Centre for Geospatial Science (CGS), University of Nottingham have signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the establishment of an Open Source Geospatial Lab (OSGL) and to develop collaboration opportunities for academia, industry and government organisations in open source GIS software and data in the UK. Professor Mike Jackson, Director of the Centre of Geospatial Science, said "The MOU between OSGeo and the Centre for Geospatial Science at the University of Nottingham is an indication of the close collabor- ation between the two organisations which has already underpinned two very successful Conferences on open source research in the geospatial domain. CGS is funding two research internships to help progress joint research activities and welcomes both offers of funding for further internee sponsorships and approaches from potential visiting scientists who may wish to spend a period of time based at the Centre in Nottingham to work on open source geospatial research." Arnulf Christl, President of OSGeo, said, "The Foundation has successfully achieved it's first primary goal: To support Free and Open Source Software projects in the geospatial realm. One of the other two pillars of the foundation is supporting education which is much harder for a developer driven organization to achieve on it's own. Therefore this Memorandum of Understanding with CGS is a great success from OSGeo's point of view and will mark the start of an ongoing strong partnership with academia. In the long run this will enhance education and research in the Open Source geospatial realm in a broader context as other institutes recognize the opportunity and join forces." Tyler Mitchell, Executive Director of OSGeo said "Engaging academia at several levels is crucial to meeting our common long term missions of advancing open source geospatial technology. OSGeo's relationship with CGS serves as a proactive template for how other institutions can also engage with OSGeo at a more formal level. This will open up additional exciting opportunities that we haven't even thought of yet." The MOU provides for the establishment of a research laboratory for supporting development of open-source geospatial software technologies, training and expertise. It also provides provision of internship opportunities for high quality students. An Advisory Board/Steering Committee coordinated by the OSGeo Board and CGS, is to be setup and will be comprised of key members of OSGeo, OSGeo:UK, eminent academics, industry leaders, etc. to give strategic input and direction for Open Source Geospatial Lab and its open source activities. OSGeo is a not-for-profit organization founded in 2006 whose mission is to support and promote the collaborative development of open source geospatial technologies and data. Details at http://www.osgeo.org/ The University of Nottingham is a world-class research intensive University and in the top 1% of all universities worldwide. The Centre for Geospatial Science is the key leader in the Open Source Geospatial domain within the UK. CGS is actively involved in multiple Open Source geospatial initiatives. Details at http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cgs/ The first phase of internships are now released at: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cgs/news/internships.aspx