[Live-demo] Thinking about OSGeo-Live 5.0 (the FOSS4G 2011 release)

Mon May 2 19:05:47 EDT 2011

Brian,
Comments inline.

On 2/05/2011 9:47 AM, maplabs at light42.com wrote:
> Hi Cameron, All-
>
>  first and foremost, thank you for the planning and all around diligence
>
> All of those points listed  are documentation or license related.. One 
> inevitable condition of the participants here is that we all "see"
> this large, multi-layered  thing from our own vantage points

Yes, and I see that as one of our strengths, in that we get a much more 
robust product due to the multiple ideas and different perspectives 
everyone brings to the project.

>
> PostGIS / Natural Earth
>
> As you know I have been focusing on Postgis, Natural Earth data
> and a few of the apps that are particulalry useful for dealing with 
> those..
> The Natural Earth data set is excellent, and, is not used by its 
> authors in the
> way the OSGeo tools use it.. so I had written some 'cleaning' functions
> using PostGIS 2.0 beta, and in fact, the current script fetches a pre-
> cleaned, selected set of layers, not the raw Natural Earth set itself. 
> There is more that can be done with that.. I want to reach out to Dane
> Springmeyer, as I noticed he was doing some similar geometry cleaning
> on his own in a script on GitHub

I suggest that we look to find who has a vested interest in these tasks, 
and then collectively define a valuable and achievable set of goals for 
the next release.
I'm willing to help facilitate this if there is sufficient interest.

>
>  PostGIS 2.0 is in the works, and that will raise more than a couple of
> issues in itself. Compatability is quite good though.. I want to 
> understand
> how the "packages only" policy will apply, as packaging always lags...
> FOSS4G
>
>   I imagine things will be very active in preparation for FOSS4G
> It will be good to see the LiveDVD used by presenters, and also
> a very big chance to get feedback from the core constituency
>
>   I am susceptible to overload, so it will be good to get the LiveDVD
> in order and freeze.. and then subsequently, have a strategy for a 
> "live" Live,
>  that can take the inevitable last minute requests and such.. Since 
> that is
> so important, I think it should  be given ample time and
> attention allocations..
> I noticed there is a proposed talk at FOSS4G about "turning the LiveDVD
> into a server"

I've heard a couple of people talking about an OSGeo-Live Server 
release. Maybe 5.0 will be the first opportunity to deploy it.  Lets see 
who is interested.

> .. however, I also noticed that there are about 5x more proposed
> talks than there is time for.. so no idea if that will be presented
>
> I want to mention again that  MapGuide is disproportionally big

Conserving disk space will need to be a key theme for this release. I'm 
thinking we will need to remove windows installers from the DVD release, 
but that is open for discussion.

>
> GeoServer finally fixed their KML issue, so that will be good.. to 
> have a newer GeoServer and maybe some layers preset
>
> Desktop Image for FOSS4G 2011 release
>
>   As you know, I am working on a desktop design.. I want to be clear 
> about
> when people want to see entries, and how a final design will be picked 
> from
> whatever entries there are...

I've raised mentioned to the FOSS4G 2011 committee that they may be 
interested in preparing the background image and sleeve design based 
upon the FOSS4G 2011 and OSGeo-Live themes.
Lets include them in discussions.

> Scripting
>
>   There was some talk amongst the install scripters about 
> standardiznig on some
> available shell variables, and rewriting the install scripts to depend 
> on them.. It would make some shaky things tighter.. but, its a lot of 
> work.. TBD

This would be valuable. If it is to be done, then it is best to do early 
in the release cycle (within the next 3 to 4 weeks).
Conventions should be stored in our wiki, somewhere near:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Add_Project#Packaging_conventions

>
> GDAL / OGR
>
>   GDAL continues to make amazing strides.. (I gather so is Java GeoTools,
> but I dont know about that first-hand)  It remains to be seen how to best
> apply GDAL/OGR advances, and how that fits into a "beginners" disk

We introduced GDAL/OGR into the last release and described how to use it 
from the command line.
As far as I'm aware, GeoTools doesn't have a command line interface, but 
I think it would be valuable to include a "Project Overview" doc for 
each of the OSGeo supported libraries, especially if it is included in 
one of the packages on the DVD.

>
> Installers vs. Digital Earth
>
>   There is some inevitable tension in the choices made on what to 
> include and
> what to hilight.  I am in the camp that "Digital Earth" is very 
> important, with
> INSPIRE and other topics..  On another hand, there is also the evangelism
> of FOSS GIS itself, and what OSGeo has to offer.. With limited disk space
> on one disk and a large audience, the editorial descisions are 
> important..
> anyway, thats a bit off the top of my head

Are you pondering whether we provide priority to Data over Applications, 
or visa-versa?
My feeling is that the focus on OSGeo-Live is in promoting applications. 
We need to provide sufficient data to demonstrate these applications 
effectively. However, I don't see OSGeo-Live as being a data-centric 
distribution. Maybe someone will wish to create a branch of OSGeo-Live 
with a data-centric focus.

>   -Brian
>
> ==
> Brian Hamlin
> planetwork.net
> OSGeo California Chapter
> (415) 717-4462 cell
>
> On Mon, 02 May 2011 08:56:23 +1000, Cameron Shorter  wrote:
> As per our schedule [1], it is now time to start our planning for our
>> next osgeo-live 5.0 release.
>> Before I put out a general press release, I'm interested to hear 
>> ideas on what we should focus on for this upcoming release.
>> My thoughts are:
>> * We have quickstarts for all (bar one) of our projects now, however 
>> we haven't had extensive review of all these quickstarts yet. I'd 
>> like to see critical review of all quickstarts this time around.
>> * Many of the documents are translated to varying levels of 
>> completeness. It would be great to see that consolidated in this 
>> release.
>> * As always, we will probably get a couple more projects included.
>> * Toward the end of the last release cycle, there was discussion 
>> about the licence of osgeo-live documentation, and the DVD itself. 
>> I'd like to see that discussed and resolved.
>> * Since we have quickstarts, it would be achievable for someone to 
>> record each quickstart, as a short video. This would be quite a bit 
>> of work, but very achievable for someone who is highly motivated.
>> * I'm noticing that many of our project contacts are not keeping up 
>> with this osgeo-live email list, which is understandable as it has 
>> become quite busy and people are not monitoring day-to-day 
>> activities. I'd like to start a low traffic announce email list, 
>> specifically for announcing our key milestones (primarily for 
>> advertising our press releases).
>> * What else should we be thinking about and focusing on?
>>
>>
>> [1] 
>> https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Al9zh8DjmU_RdE1SYUN3YWJ2N1NpSUczbW9IRWZNclE&hl=en_GB#gid=0
>>
>> -- Cameron Shorter
>> Geospatial Solutions Manager
>> Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
>> Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
>>
>> Think Globally, Fix Locally
>> Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
>> http://www.lisasoft.com
>>
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>> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc
>>
>>
>
>

-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com