ANNOUNCE: Free and Open Source Software for Geoinformatics conference

[Jeff McKenna]

Many of you might not be aware of this conference, but in the last few 
years there were Open Source Geospatial conferences held in North 
America (Minnesota, USA in `05 and Ottawa, Canada in `04) that were an 
overwhelming success.  Building on this excitement, this conference has 
joined with the organizers of the GRASS users conference to create an 
international open source GIS conference in Switzerland this September 
(see the official announcement below).  There will be workshops and 
presentations on many open source GIS packages, with developers and 
users from around the world.  It's going to be quite an event and we 
hope you can make it.

FOSS4G2006 organizing committee
http://www.foss4g2006.org


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FOSS4G2006, the international conference addressing geospatial data 
technologies developed by or of relevance to the Open  Source community, 
will be held September 12-15th, 2006 in Lausanne,  Switzerland. The 
conference will bring together all of the  Free and Open Source Software 
for Geoinformatics (FOSS4G) communities.  The conference incorporates 
the OSGIS Conference, Mapserver User Meeting,  GRASS Users Conference, 
Java oriented FOSS4G and EOGEO Workshops with  the intent to be broadly 
inclusive.

Lausanne, Switzerland will host the conference, making it the first time 
many of these groups will  meet in Europe. A committee is working to 
design a program with elements  that will interest participants from the 
novice to the expert. The  conference strives to build on the successes 
and enthusiasm generated  by previous, related meetings.

Important dates to note (dates are approximate and subject to change):

   April 15, 2006    Workshop submission deadline

   June 30, 2006     Presentation submission deadline


   April 15, 2006    Final registration opening
             (pre-registration is open)

   June 30, 2006     Early registration deadline

We strongly encourage making your room reservation early as September is 
still high season for tourism in Lausanne.

For more information, registration and/or submit a contribution, please 
visit the conference website at
     http://www.foss4g2006.org

Take advantage of the opportunity FOSS4G2006 offers to network with 
fellow geospatial data professionals, renewing old  acquaintances and 
making new ones. Hope to see you there!