From a.ghisla at gmail.com Tue Apr 8 12:18:00 2014 From: a.ghisla at gmail.com (Anne Ghisla) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2014 21:18:00 +0200 Subject: [OSGeo-Announce] OSGeo Code Sprint 2014 in Vienna - A great success! Message-ID: <20140408211800.2f0bfdbe@galadriel.localdomain> In the week from March 24 to 28 more than 60 developers from over 18 projects gathered for the OSGeo Code Sprint 2014 in the rooms generously provided by the City of Vienna (MA 14). Improvements of and new features for the individual projects were decided and implemented in direct personal communication among the relevant developers. A very important core element of free and open source software development is the active exchange and the direct collaboration of the individual projects and initiatives. Vector tiles are one of the current hot topics among the whole community that have been extensively discussed at the Code Sprint. A specification draft has been prepared and will be discussed further. The following paragraphs provide some highlights and achievements of the various participating projects during the Code Sprint. With 210 updates in the code base during the Code Sprint the international [GRASS GIS](http://grass.osgeo.org) development team has released the new version 7 after 6 years of development. The free software package provides novel methods to process, analyze, and visualize geographic data and runs on all major platforms (MS Windows, Apple, Linux, BSD) and architectures (x86, amd64, arm) from laptops to mainframes. The [QGIS project](http://www.qgis.org) took care of bug resolving, discussed future new features, updated and simplified the management of plugins which can be generated and freely provided by users. Together with the GRASS GIS project the integration of version 7 in QGIS has been prepared. The [MapServer](http://mapserver.org) team decided on the release plan for the upcoming 7.0 release, worked on easier processes for documentation translations, and resolved several smaller issues with respect to coverty scans, dateline crossing data, pixel is point vs. pixel is area, UTF-grid, etc. A proposal was made or maybe better an experiment undertaken to harmonize the data models of [GDAL](http://gdal.org) and [OGR](http://gdal.org/ogr/index.html). Considerable work went into scala bindings for GDAL. The [PostGIS](http://postgis.org) team succeeded to close all remaining tickets for the 2.1.2 and 2.0.5 releases and releasing them. Very interesting work started on 3D exports using [three.js](http://threejs.org). [OpenLayers 3](http://ol3js.org) is a comprehensive rewrite of a well established library for displaying and interacting with geospatial data on the web. The new version is currently in pre-release beta state. During the sprint, the documentation system was improved to include documentation of the events that the library emits. Work on feature clustering to unclutter a map with too many point features was started, and a demo of displaying HiDPI (Retina) tiles from the [Austrian basemap](http://basemap.at) was created. The inter-project discussion about creating a common transport format for vector tiles will benefit the project in the near future. [pycsw](http://pycsw.org) finished packaging for version 1.8 and worked on OSGeo project incubation. In order to find and exploit synergies in functionality and technology the projects [EOxServer](http://eoxserver.org) and [GeoNode](http://geonode.org) started a closer collaboration at the Code Sprint. Various other projects have also been present and active at the Code Sprint like [PDAL](http://pdal.io), [ZOO-Project](http://www.zoo-project.org), [MapMint](http://www.mapmint.com), etc. A great result for the local community in Vienna and Austria is the start of [regular OSGeo/FOSSGIS meetups](http://www.fossgis.de/wiki/Stammtisch_Wien). -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 836 bytes Desc: not available URL: From a.ghisla at gmail.com Sat Apr 12 01:51:35 2014 From: a.ghisla at gmail.com (Anne Ghisla) Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2014 10:51:35 +0200 Subject: [OSGeo-Announce] Regular Session and Academic Track proposals due early next week (4/15) Message-ID: <20140412105135.5c1fabd7@galadriel.localdomain> April 11, 2014 Portland, OR, USA Regular Session and Academic Track proposals due A reminder to all FOSS4G attendees - the proposal submission deadline for both the Academic Track[1] and Regular Sessions[2] is next Tuesday, April 15th. For the Regular Sessions, we strongly recommend reviewing our advice[3] for successful proposals before submitting. [1] https://2014.foss4g.org/calls-for-papers/academic-track-cfp [2] https://2014.foss4g.org/calls-for-papers/cfp [3] https://2014.foss4g.org/advice-on-writing-submissions The community voting on the Regular Sessions will directly follow the deadline, April 18th to 28th. Travel Grant Announcement We realize that traveling to and attending a conference can be expensive, and that not everyone who uses or develops open source software has provided funding to pay their way or the means to pay for it themselves. To make sure that as many deserving people as possible can attend FOSS4G, we're creating a travel grant program[4] with funds to cover registration and travel costs. Watch for details coming soon. [4] https://2014.foss4g.org/attending/travel-grants One additional reminder: Early Bird Registration[5] is open! [5] https://2014.foss4g.org/schedule/registration Important Conference Dates See the full calendar [6] for more details. * April 15th: Academic Paper/Presentation Proposals Due * June 15th: Early bird registration ends * Sept 8th-9th: Workshops * Sept 10th-12th: Main Conference * Sept 13th: Code Sprint [6] https://2014.foss4g.org/about/calendar/ For more information or to keep informed from the FOSS4G Organizing Committee, follow @foss4g on Twitter, subscribe to our announcements list[7], or contact: foss4g2014-info at osgeo.org [7] [7] http://eepurl.com/N5Q6X Darrell Fuhriman, Chair of the FOSS4G Organizing Committee, email: darrell at garnix.org From a.ghisla at gmail.com Wed Apr 23 08:25:46 2014 From: a.ghisla at gmail.com (Anne Ghisla) Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2014 17:25:46 +0200 Subject: [OSGeo-Announce] FOSS4G PDX 2014: Community voting open through May 5th Message-ID: <20140423172546.1215ff27@galadriel.localdomain> What presentations do you want to see at FOSS4G? Now is the time to tell us! The FOSS4G community at large can now read and score potential presentations. The conference committee will use the aggregate scores from the community review process to help choose which presentations to accept, and to assign presentations to appropriately sized rooms. The community review process is an important part of creating a conference that benefits and reflects the community. Your input is a significant part of what makes FOSS4G a great conference. Note that you do not need to be registered for the conference to vote. And remember, all presentations will be available online, so even if you are unable to attend, your vote matters. You can vote now at: http://community-review.foss4g.org/. Please complete your voting by May 5th. Important Conference Dates See the full calendar for more details at https://2014.foss4g.org/about/calendar. * June 15th: Early bird registration ends * Sept 8th-9th: Workshops * Sept 10th-12th: Main Conference * Sept 13th: Code Sprint About FOSS4G The annual FOSS4G conference is the largest global gathering focused on open source geospatial software. FOSS4G brings together developers, users, decision-makers and observers from a broad spectrum of organizations and fields of operation. Through six days of workshops, presentations, discussions, and cooperation, FOSS4G participants create effective and relevant geospatial products, standards, and protocols. FOSS4G has been held all over the world and draws attendees from over 40 countries. Nottingham, England hosted the conference in 2013. In 2014, Portland, Oregon, USA will host FOSS4G's tenth year. About OSGeo The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) was founded in 2006 to support and build the highest-quality open source geospatial software. The foundation's goal is to encourage the use and collaborative development of community-led projects, data development and education. Many projects live under the OSGeo umbrella, including FOSS4G, http://osgeo.org. About PDX-OSGeo - Portland Area and Oregon OSGeo Chapter The PDX-OSGeo chapter of OSGeo has been meeting, discussing and promoting the use of open source geospatial technology since 2009. Chapter members often organize or present on open source software at regional geospatial conferences. PDX is the airport code and like the PDX airport, the group has a wide catchment area. __________________________________________________________________ For more information or to keep informed from the FOSS4G Organizing Committee, follow @foss4g on Twitter, subscribe to our announcements list, or contact foss4g2014-info at osgeo.org Subscribe to announcements list: http://eepurl.com/N5Q6X Darrell Fuhriman, Chair of the FOSS4G Organizing Committee, darrell at garnix.org From a.ghisla at gmail.com Thu Apr 24 07:30:34 2014 From: a.ghisla at gmail.com (Anne Ghisla) Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2014 16:30:34 +0200 Subject: [OSGeo-Announce] Welcome to 75th ICA-OSGeo lab - University of Salzburg Message-ID: <20140424163034.60ed4580@galadriel.localdomain> We are pleased to welcome Z_GIS ,Department of Geoinformatics, University of Salzburg [1] as our 75th ICA-OSGeo lab. Z_GIS are one of the leading centres of Geospatial education and research globally with over 85 staff and one of the best examples of their global impact and leadership is the distance education initiative offering masters and diploma programmes in Geographical Information Science and Systems through the UNIGIS [2] International Association. They already contribute to Open Source Geo through both their teaching within UNIGIS and MSc in Applied Geoinformatics (e.g. QGIS module) and research (they develop innovative applications based on OSM, application-centric development of sensor web services architectures etc). They also contribute to outreach through FOSS focused workshops at AGIT [3], GI Forum [4] etc. Dr Suchith Anand , chair of the ICA-OSGeo labs initiative said "This an important milestone in our growth and we warmly welcome Z_GIS to our initiative. Prof. Josef Strobl is also the Advisory Board member of ICA-OSGeo Labs and we are looking forward to working closely with him, Dr Hermann Klug and other colleagues at Salzburg for building up more research and education collaborations and opportunities globally. Over the last two years since the ICA-OSGeo labs initiative was launched, it has grown rapidly thanks to the strong support of colleagues globally. We now have strong presence in all continents expect Antarctica! Our biggest growth country wise is in the United States of America (over 12) and region wise it is in Europe with over 30 labs joining our initiative. Free and open GI software helps make geospatial education available to students worldwide. We thank all of you for your strong support for this education initiative and it is very happy for us that our initiative has now grown rapidly from very humble beginnings and is helping to widen the benefits of geospatial education opportunities to thousands of students worldwide. More details of our mission at http://www.geoforall.org [5] " Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) [6] is a not-for-profit organisation founded in 2006 whose mission is to support and promote the collaborative development of open source geospatial technologies and data. International Cartographic Association (ICA) [7] is the world authoritative body for cartography and GIScience. [1] http://www.zgis.at/index.php/en/ [2] http://www.unigis.net [3] http://www.agit.at [4] http://www.gi-forum.org [5] http://www.geoforall.org [6] http://www.osgeo.org [7] http://icaci.org