[OSGeo-Board] The stack - what is it?

Tue Mar 14 09:15:08 PST 2006

Markus Neteler wrote:
> Gary,
> 
> FOSS4G is the conference merge of GRASS conf and Mapserver conference
> as decided at the Bangkok 2004 GRASS Conf (Dave and Jeff from DM were
> there, also more than 150 GRASS folks). Then also EOGEO joined.
> 
> We decided to merge as we wanted to the communities closer.
> Now there is the OSGeo Foundation and the FOSS4G, next step
> will be to get the FOSS4G 2007/2008 into the foundation umbrella.
> 
> The OSG'05 conf was basically a Mapserver/EOGEO conf with some
> exposure to GRASS etc., but now, in 2006, there is only FOSS4G
> with GRASS/Mapserver/EOGEO inside. I hope that OSGeo get's
> a representative place there. As Frank said, he and me are in the steering
> committee as well as others, so I don't see a problem with that.
> 
> so far some background,
> 
> Markus

To add to the confusion we organize the FOSSGIS conference 
(http://www.fossgis.de) with Autodesk as prominent sponsor. It is fully 
localized, German language only and tries to not stand in the way of the 
FOSS4G - therefore we pulled it to the end of March. It seems that it 
currently is the most inclusive in that it shows the whole stack 
including Java stuff ranging from GeoServer to deegree, MapServer and 
GRASS from the C side of things and a variety of client applications in 
between. There is no active affiliation with either GRASS, MapServer, 
EOGEO or any other community organizing committee, it is low level 
funded, fully community driven, free of  cost to attend. We currently 
count 170 attendees, still getting more each day.

Arnulf.

> XAMPP: A poor man solution are the various GISIX etc live CDs with
> the full OSGeo stack on it. See http://grass.itc.it/download/cdrom.php
> and other sites
> 
> On 3/10/06, Gary Lang <gary.lang at autodesk.com> wrote:
> 
>>BTW I was assuming that FOSS4G was a separate conference from the one that is held in Minnesota and Ottawa, since holding it there seems to exclude a number of people in the U.S. If they couldn't afford to go to Chicago...
>>
>>ADSK is putting together a sponsorship of FOSS4G, and I'll definitely be going. I don't know if I'm speaking or not... the sponsorship is being done by my group and our EMEA team.
>>
>>I've also been asked to speak at Where 2.0. I hereby solicit ideas for my talk...
>>
>>Gary
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From:   Gary Lang
>>Sent:   Fri 3/10/2006 6:59 AM
>>To:     board at board.osgeo.org
>>Cc:
>>Subject:        RE: [OSGeo-Board] The stack - what is it?
>>
>>Great. So FOSS4G is the conference this year. Did not know that.
>>
>>I'll take another look at the existing packaging efforts. I didn't see an XAMPP for GIS in there.
>>
>>Gary
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From:   Frank Warmerdam on behalf of Frank Warmerdam (External)
>>Sent:   Fri 3/10/2006 6:35 AM
>>To:     board at board.osgeo.org
>>Cc:
>>Subject:        Re: [OSGeo-Board] The stack - what is it?
>>
>>Gary Lang wrote:
>>
>>>2) Funding: initial money provided. More available. Need to have a proven funding process (non-ADSK) in place by the sixth month as proof that we can be self-sustaining, in my mind, and non-ADSK money being provided by month 10. This is important for clear independence, which is important for everyone, including Autodesk.
>>
>>Gary,
>>
>>I'll take this as encouragement that I ought to come forward with the
>>motion to form the fundraising committee.
>>
>>
>>>9) Operate the annual conference. This is in 4 months, yes? Unclear where we are on this.
>>
>>There was already a FOSS4G conference committee started before OSGeo launched.
>>They will operate this years conference which is going to be in Switzerland
>>in September.
>>
>>My position is that we have lots to deal with and should not interfere in
>>this years conference.  We do want to be prepared to take on responsibility
>>for the conference following September but I don't see alot of action items
>>on this till then.
>>
>>
>>>10) We have not discussed this. I assume the timing of this is related to 9)?
>>
>>I think we should talk to the FOSS4G conference committee about this.  If
>>they are ok with this being an OSGeo award, we could award it at the
>>conference.  Last year an adhoc conference subcommittee was formed to award
>>it (I believe).   Last years was the first year it was awarded.
>>
>>BTW, I'm pretty sure that Markus and I are on the FOSS4G international
>>steering committee so he and I can take on liason duties.
>>
>>
>>>Please give me feedback: do I have the current status of 1) - 10) right? Also, let's list who we think are the "owners" of 1) - 10) tommorrow.
>>
>>There are several of the goals that I am hopeful we will see others step
>>forward to "own".  In particular, international outreach and the educational
>>related work.
>>
>>
>>>On 6), it feels to me like a good service OSGeo might provide is to build
>>
>> > something like FWTools in combination with something like this:
>> > http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html, as well as PostGIS, tested and
>> > delivered on Linux, OS X, and Windows. Does this make sense  to others?
>>
>>>What is the success of FWTools to date? # downloads? # list members?
>>
>> > #committers? Should it be an OSGeo project?
>>
>>In February:
>>
>>FWTools for windows: 30GB - roughly 2000 successful downloads.
>>
>>FWTools for linux: 8GB - roughly 300 successful downloads.
>>
>>FWTools mailing list: 137 members
>>
>>FWTools Committers: 1 (me)
>>
>>Note that FWTools is a one man operation.  It fills a particular role
>>- cutting edge (from cvs) collection of tools ready to use for win32
>>or any x86 linux.  It would not be a suitable base for a foundation
>>packaging effort.  The FGS program would be a much more suitable base
>>to work from for a distribution agnostic linux binary distribution.
>>MS4W is a rough analog on the windows side.
>>
>>FGS and MS4W are both DM Solutions projects (hosted on maptools.org)
>>though FGS started out between Tyler, myself and a few others.
>>
>>On the linux side we have been discussing a "support group" for packagers.
>>My hope is that appropriate packages for RPM based distributions would
>>come out of that, and for Debian things are already progressing well.
>>A bit trickier is "blessing" a foundation set of binaries.  If we wanted
>>to do this I think FGS (which is linux distribution agnostic) would be
>>the best base to work from.
>>
>>In the short term (2-4 months) I think we should work to bring support
>>some of the existing packaging efforts but look forward to adopting or
>>coming up with a way of deliering trustworthy well integrated binaries
>>for Win32, Linux and MacOS X as you suggest.
>>
>>Best regards,
>>--
>>---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
>>I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
>>light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
>>and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGF, http://osgeo.org
>>
>>
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