From jsanz at osgeo.org  Mon Jul 23 01:05:56 2018
From: jsanz at osgeo.org (Jorge Sanz)
Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2018 10:05:56 +0200
Subject: [OSGeo-Announce] OSGeo Europe celebrates her first anniversary
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 <789f06d3-3d10-45d0-2da5-b014fb88e77d@frigne.be>
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FOSS4G Europe, code sprint Guimar?es, Portugal, Europe, 21 July 2018

It is exactly one year ago, on the FOSS4G Europe conference in Marne La
Vallee, the European Local chapter was found. <Image founding team:
https://www.osgeo.org/wp-content/uploads/OSGeo-Europe-Found-21-July-2017.jpg
>
OSGeo Europe will focus to help the local European ecosystem with the
adoption of open source and lobbying to include the use of open source
software and promote the creation of open source software in all
European taxpayer funded projects. The created software should be
returned to the citizen, and OSGeo can help to control if this process
works well.

As one of the first successful initiatives the chapter organised some
activities to establish an INSPIRE version of the OSGeo Live environment.

Another important  initiative is the launch during this FOSS4G
conference of the OSGeo Europe eco system. Involved Industry partners,
universities and governmental departments are bundling forces to promote
open source on a collaborative booth. The first initiative is taken
place on the INSPIRE Conference and 5 partners where willing to tell
their story why they became involved in OSGeo on our common booth
<image: OSGeo European eco system:
https://www.osgeo.org/wp-content/uploads/A0_eco-system.png>


About the The European Local Chapter
------------------------------------
The OSGeo Europe local chapter was found exactly one year ago on the
FOSS4G Europe conference in Paris [Picture]. In the adagio to think
global, but act local, the European local chapter will focus to Europe?s
specific needs in terms adoption rate and promotion of open source software.
Some important initiatives we want to connect to are European programs
such as 'INSPIRE'[1], the COPERNICUS program[2], FiWare[3], and many
others needs specific localised attention.
OSGeo Europe is a sparring partner and representation (Single point of
contact) for the European institutions in Brussels on behalve OSGeo, the
other committees, local chapters and projects. You can reach the local
chapter by sending a mail to Europe at osgeo.org

About the Open Source Geospatial Foundation
-------------------------------------------
The Open Source Geospatial Foundation advocates the use of Open Source
to better serve our field. We also have many members who are also
passionate about the importance of the Free and Open approach to more
fairly leverage the wealth of geospatial information available today.
OSGeo is pleased to be at the forefront of the shift towards open
geospatial:
Open Data applies the principles of free and open to geospatial data.
This is more than publishing information for free access ? open data
provides a mechanism for participants to contribute change back as equal
partners in data collection and review.
Open Education applies the principles of open source to the creation of
teaching materials allowing organizations to share syllabus materials
reducing cost and reaching a wider audience.
Open Science combines these ideas to better realize research objectives,
by both sharing the data used to support a conclusion, alongside the
open source software used for analysis.
Open Standards promote interoperability between applications,
organizations and fields of endeavour. Open standard are a key tool
allowing geospatial practitioners to work together, with the added
benefit of avoiding technology lock-in.
Together these approaches define a new way of addressing the world?s
needs. OSGeo is pleased to celebrate our members, partners and friends
shaping this future!


[1] https://inspire.ec.europa.eu/
[2] http://www.copernicus.eu/
[3] https://www.fiware.org/
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From jsanz at osgeo.org  Mon Jul 30 01:11:43 2018
From: jsanz at osgeo.org (Jorge Sanz)
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 10:11:43 +0200
Subject: [OSGeo-Announce] Celebrating 35 years of GRASS GIS!
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Today marks 35 years of GRASS GIS development - with frequent releases
<https://grass.osgeo.org/download/software> the project keeps pushing the
limits in terms of geospatial data processing quality and performance.

GRASS (Geographic Resources Analysis Support System) is a *free and open
source Geographic Information System* (GIS) software suite used for
geospatial data management and analysis, image processing, graphics and map
production, spatial modeling, and 3D visualization. Since the major GRASS
GIS 7 version, it also comes with a feature rich engine for *space-time
cubes* useful for time series processing of *Landsat and Copernicus
Sentinel satellite data* and more. GRASS GIS can be either used as a
desktop application or as a backend for other software packages such as
*QGIS* and *R*. Furthermore, it is frequently used on *HPC and cloud*
infrastructures for massive parallelized data processing.

Brief history

In 1982, under the direction of Bill Goran at the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL), two GIS
development efforts were undertaken. First, Lloyd Van Warren, a University
of Illinois engineering student, began development on a new computer
program that allowed analysis of mapped data.  Second, Jim Westervelt
(CERL) developed a GIS package called "*LAGRID ? the Landscape Architecture
Gridcell analysis system*" as his master?s thesis. Thirty five years ago,
on 29 July 1983, the user manual for this new system titled "*GIS Version 1
Reference Manua*l" was first published by J. Westervelt and M. O'Shea. With
the technical guidance of Michael Shapiro (CERL), the software continued
its development at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Construction
Engineering Research Laboratory (USA/CERL) in Champaign, Illinois; and
after further expansion version 1.0 was released in 1985 under the
name *Geographic
Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS)*. The GRASS GIS community was
established the same year with the first annual user meeting and the launch
of GRASSnet, one of the internet's early mailing lists. The user community
expanded to a larger audience in 1991 with the "Grasshopper" mailing list
and the introduction of the World Wide Web. The users' and programmers'
mailing lists archives for these early years are still available online
<https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-user/>.
In the mid 1990s the development transferred from USA/CERL to The Open
GRASS Consortium (a group who would later generalize to become today's Open
Geospatial Consortium -- the OGC <https://www.opengeospatial.org/>). The
project coordination eventually shifted to the *international development
team* made up of governmental and academic researchers and university
scientists. Reflecting this shift to a project run by the users, for the
users, in 1999 GRASS GIS was released under the terms of the GNU General
Public License (GPL). A detailed history of GRASS GIS can be found at
https://grass.osgeo.org/history/.
Where to next?

The development on GRASS GIS continues with more energy and interest than
ever. Parallel to the *long-term maintenance* of the GRASS 7.4 stable
series, effort is well underway on the new upcoming cutting-edge 7.6 release
<https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/wiki/Grass7/NewFeatures76>, which will bring
many new features, enhancements, and cleanups. As in the past, the GRASS
GIS community is open to any contribution, be it in the form of programming,
documentation, testing <https://grass.osgeo.org/get-involved>, and financial
sponsorship <https://grass.osgeo.org/donations>. Please contact us
<https://grass.osgeo.org/home/contact-us>!

*About GRASS GIS*

The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (https://grass.osgeo.org/),
commonly referred to as GRASS GIS, is an Open Source Geographic Information
System providing powerful raster, vector and geospatial processing
capabilities in a single integrated software suite. GRASS GIS includes
tools for spatial modeling, visualization of raster and vector data,
management and analysis of geospatial data, and the processing of satellite
and aerial imagery. It also provides the capability to produce
sophisticated presentation graphics and hardcopy maps. GRASS GIS has been
translated into about twenty languages and supports a huge array of data
formats. It can be used either as a stand-alone application or as backend
for other software packages such as QGIS and R geostatistics. It is
distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).
GRASS GIS is a founding member of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation
(OSGeo).



*The GRASS Development Team, July 2018*
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