Rush on Geospatial Open Source Workshops at FOSS4G

Sydney, Australia. 23 September 2009. http://2009.foss4g.org

Many FOSS4G workshops are close to full, with one workshop already at capacity. http://2009.foss4g.org/workshops/ People wanting to learn about Geospatial Standards, Geospatial Open Source Software and Business Cases should sign up soon to avoid disappointment.

Also, in Open Source tradition, there is a breadth of other exciting activities to sign up for:

• Wed evening: Ignite Spatial - 5 minute talks about anything spatial
• Birds of a Feather - register a discussion topic
• Live DVD - beta version is ready to test
• Saturday afterwards: Code Sprint
• Demonstration Theatre still a few slots free
• InstallFest - sign up if you will be there
• OSGeo Annual Meeting
• Volunteers - do you have a space set of hands that can be put to good use
• Benchmarking 2009 - the famous WMS shootout
• Posters
• Monday: FME User meeting

About FOSS4G

FOSS4G is the international Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial conference, which comes to Sydney, Australia, 20-23 October 2009. FOSS4G offers presentations, workshops, demos, an install-fest, and a code sprint. It is presented by the world's best Developers, Policy Makers, Sponsors and Geospatial Professionals and includes the latest geospatial applications, standards, government programs, business processes and case studies. Topics include mobile platforms, location based applications, crowd sourcing, cloud computing, development, spatial standards, integration of cross-agency data, Spatial Data Infrastructures, Sensor Webs, Web Processing Services, Integration of Open Source and Proprietary Software and more.

Media Sponsors

• Position Magazine: http://www.positionmag.com.au/
• Asian Surveying and Mapping Newsletter: http://www.asmmag.com
• Geoconnexions Magazine: http://www.geoconnexion.com/
• Directions Magazine: http://directionsmag.com/
• GIS Development: http://gisdevelopment.net/
• Baliz Media: http://www.BALIZ-MEDIA.com/

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For more information or to keep informed from the FOSS4G Organising Committee, join our email list or twitter feed at: http://2009.foss4g.org/about_us/

Mark is trialling Sydney entertainment for us

One of the perks of running a conference is that you are occasionally given free tickets to shows, or harbour cruises or the like, in the hope that we might write a blog like this and tell all our international friends to go see the show.
So Mark Leslie, who has been flat out sorting out workshops and other things, has volunteered to check out the "Wicked" musical currently running in Sydney. Thanks Mark.

What windows installers should be on the FOSS4G Live DVD?

Sydney, Australia. 6 September 2009. http://2009.foss4g.org

The Arramagong Live DVD / GISVM email list has been running hot last week, with ~ 15 people helping write install scripts for projects in order to meet our feature freeze deadline tomorrow, Monday 7 September.

The list of linux projects currently being packaged for the FOSS4G LiveDVD are:

PostGIS ,GeoServer ,Mapserver ,GRASS ,Qgis ,gvSIG ,uDig ,Open Layers ,GeoNetwork ,Open Jump ,Deegree ,GpsDrive ,mapnik ,MB System ,pgRouting ,52 North Sensor Observation Service ,Mapfish ,Marble.

Our next steps are:

• Package up the windows installers for the Live DVD. Please tell us what installers are available, and where they are located, by updating the following ticket: http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/424
• Write introductory documentation for all projects
• Test the image and iron out any issues we find before users find them. (I'm hoping communities will step up and test their favourite applications starting next week.)
• Plus lots of little things

Details for getting involved are at: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc and we hang out at irc://freenode.net#foss4g

Live DVD Timeline

Date	Date	Milestone
7 Sep 2009	in 1 day	LiveDVD Feature Freeze
11 Sep 2009	in 1 week	LiveDVD Beta Release
18 Sep 2009	in 2 weeks	LiveDVD Final Freeze
20 Sep 2009	in 2 weeks	LiveDVD Final Release & sent to printers

About GISVM

GISVM is a Free(dom) and ready to use anywhere Geographic Information System Virtual Machine. Based on the amazing Virtualization technology it can be used on almost any operating system environment and is intended to be a hassle-free installation option for anyone that needs a ready to use GIS solution.

About Arramagong Live DVD

The Arramagong Live DVD provides a stack of most of best Geospatial Open Source software, pre-configured with sample data. It is based on the XUbuntu linux operating system and also contains windows installers. A FOSS4G 2009 release of Arramagong will be given to all delegates at the FOSS4G conference. It has been built by LISAsoft in conjunction with the Open Source Geospatial community.

About FOSS4G

FOSS4G is the international Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial conference, which comes to Sydney, Australia, 20-23 October 2009. FOSS4G offers presentations, workshops, demos, an install-fest, and a code sprint. It is presented by the world's best Developers, Policy Makers, Sponsors and Geospatial Professionals and includes the latest geospatial applications, standards, government programs, business processes and case studies. Topics include mobile platforms, location based applications, crowd sourcing, cloud computing, development, spatial standards, integration of cross-agency data, Spatial Data Infrastructures, Sensor Webs, Web Processing Services, Integration of Open Source and Proprietary Software and more.

Upcoming FOSS4G milestones

• 14 Sep 2009, Final program available
• 21 Sep 2009, Poster Submission closes
• 20 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Workshop
• 21-23 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Presentations and Tutorials
• 24 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Code Sprint

Media Sponsors

• Position Magazine: http://www.positionmag.com.au/
• Asian Surveying and Mapping Newsletter: http://www.asmmag.com
• Geoconnexions Magazine: http://www.geoconnexion.com/
• Directions Magazine: http://directionsmag.com/
• GIS Development: http://gisdevelopment.net/
• Baliz Media: http://www.BALIZ-MEDIA.com/

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For more information or to keep informed from the FOSS4G Organising Committee, join our email list or twitter feed at: http://2009.foss4g.org/about_us/

or contact:

Cameron Shorter, Chair of the FOSS4G Organising Committee and Geospatial Systems Architect at LISAsoft

tel +61-2-8570-5050

c a m e r o n . s h o r t e r @ l i s a s o f t . c o m

More about Australia's Digital Regions Initiative

I attended a briefing about Australia's Digitial Regions Initiative which is co-funding projects to help regional education, health, and disaster response projects. (previous description).
The key take home points for me were:

• The Expression of Interest, due 14 September 2009, is aimed at identifying potential projects, and giving parties the opportunity to find each other and collaborate on the final proposal, to be lodged by 14 October.
• I asked whether it was in scope to propose an Open Street Map style application, which facilitates community collection, cleaning, and collaboration around spatial and attribute data. This was certainly considered in scope, if the value to communities could be demonstrated. Value is based upon the number of people serviced, the value presented to each person, and whether the service is filling an existing gap.
• The initiative is expecting to fund 50% of multi-million dollar projects. However, smaller projects will be considered, so long as they can demonstrate appropriate value. External funding sources (and I'm specifically thinking about co-funding with international government programs) would be acceptable.