OSGeo-Live 4.5, the Open Source Geospatial DVD, released

Version 4.5 of the OSGeo-Live GIS software collection has been released. OSGeo-Live is a self-contained bootable DVD, USB flash drive and Virtual Machine based upon Ubuntu Linux that is pre-configured with a wide variety of robust open source geospatial software. The applications can be trialled without installing anything on your computer, simply by booting the computer from the DVD or USB drive.Highlights:

• 45 Quality GeoSpatial Open Source applications installed and pre-configured
• Quality free world maps
• One page overviews and quick starts for all applications
• Overviews of key OGC standards
• Translations for Greek, German, Polish, Spanish and Japanese

Packages:

• 52º North SOS (Sensor Observation Service) 3.1.1
• 52º North WPS (Web Processing Service) 2.0 RC6
• AtlasStyler (Feature Style Editor) 1.6
• deegree (Web Services) 2.3
• GDAL/OGR (GeoSpatial Data Translation Tools) 1.7.3
• GeoKettle (Business Intelligence) 3.2.0-20090609
• Geomajas (Browser GIS Client) 1.8
• GeoNetwork (Metadata Catalog) 2.6.3
• Geopublisher (Electronic Library Manager) 1.6
• GeoServer (Web Service) 2.1rc1
• GMT (Generic Mapping Tools) 4.5.1
• GpsDrive (GPS Navigation Software) 2.11
• GRASS GIS (Fully featured GIS) 6.4.0
• gvSIG Desktop (Desktop GIS) 1.10
• Kosmo Desktop (Desktop GIS) 2.0
• Mapbender (Geoportal Framework) 2.7
• MapFish (Web Mapping Framework) 2.0
• MapGuide Open Source (Web Service) 2.2.0
• Mapnik (Cartographic rendering engine) 0.7.0
• MapServer (Web Service) 5.6.6
• MapTiler (Tiled Map Publishing) 1.0beta2
• Marble (3D desktop globe) 0.9.5
• MB-System (Sea floor mapping) 5.2.1880
• OpenCPN (Marine GPS navigation) 2.3.1
• OpenJUMP GIS (Desktop GIS) 1.4.0.1
• OpenLayers (Browser GIS Client) 2.10
• osgEarth (Terrain rendering toolkit) 2.0
• OpenStreetMap (Tools for mapping the world) 3751
• OSSIM (Image Processing) 1.8.10
• OTB - ORFEO Toolbox Library (Image Processing) 3.8.0
• pgRouting (GIS Tools) 1.05
• PostGIS (Spatial Database) 1.5.2
• Prune (GPS Track Editing) 10-1 Lucid
• Quantum GIS (Desktop GIS) 1.6.0
• QGIS mapserver (Web Service) 1.6.0
• Rasdaman (Multi-Dimensional Raster Database) 8.1
• R Spatial (Statistical Programming) 2.12.1
• SAGA (Desktop GIS) 2.0.5
• Sahana (Disaster management) Eden 0.5.3
• SpatiaLite (Spatial Database) 2.4
• uDig (Desktop GIS) 1.2.0
• Ushahidi (Crowd Sourced Event Mapping) 2.0.1
• Viking (Manage and plot GPS data) 0.9.9
• ZOO Project (Web Processing Service) 1.2.0
• zyGrib (Weather forecasting) 3.9.9.1

Credits:

Over 60 people have directly helped with OSGeo-Live packaging, documenting and translating, and thousands have been involved in building the packaged software.

Packagers and documenters: Alan Boudreault, Alex Mandel, Alexandre Dube, Andrea Antonello, Anton Patrushev, Astrid Emde, Brian Hamlin, Bruno Binet, Cameron Shorter, Dane Springmeyer, Daniel Kastl, Eike Hinderk Jürrens, Eric Lemoine, Etienne Dube, Fran Boon, François Prunayre, Gavin Treadgold, Gérald Fenoy, Hamish Bowman, Haruyuki Seki, Henry Addo, Ian Turton, Jody Garnett, Johan Van de Wauw, Jorge Sanz, Juan Lucas Domínguez Rubio, Judit Mays, Klokan Petr Pridal, Kristof Lange, Lance McKee, Manuel Grizonnet, Mark Leslie, Massimo Di Stefano, Michael Owonibi, Nathaniel V. Kelso, Pirmin Kalberer, Ricardo Pinho, Sergio Baños, Simon Pigot, Stefan A. Tzeggai, Stefan Hansen, Thierry Badard and Trevor Wekel

Translators: Aikaterini Kapsampeli, Angelos Tzotsos, Anne Ghisla, Argyros Argyridis, Astrid Emde, Christos Iossifidis, Daniel Kastl, Haruyuki Seki, Javier Sanchez, Jorge Sanz, Lars Lingner, Marco Puppin, Massimo Di Stefano, Milena Nowotaska, Nobusuke Iwasaki, Otto Dassau, Ruth Schoenbuchner, Thomas Baschetti, Valenty Gonzalez and Yoichi Kayama

Sponsoring institutions:

LISAsoft provides sustaining resources and staff toward the management and packaging of software onto the Live DVD. http://www.lisasoft.com

Information Center for the Environment at the University of California, Davis provides hardware resources and development support to the OSGeo Live project. http://ice.ucdavis.edu

The DebianGIS and UbuntuGIS teams provide and quality-assure many of the core packages.

The Australian Government's Office of Spatial Data Management sponsored reviews of software marketing documentation. http://www.osdm.gov.au

Australian Defence embrace interoperablity through standards

The Australian Defence Geospatial Strategy 2010 outlines how Defence intends to embrace the use of standards within a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) for delivering geospatial functionality.

The application of Defence geospatial information and technology standards is vital to achieving a geospatially networked force. In order to allow geospatial information to be delivered seamlessly across the network from the strategic to the tactical level the capabilities that Defence acquires in the future must be able to ingest standard data formats. Non-compliance with standards will result in additional costs and delays in the acquisition of systems. Once operational, non-compliant platforms adversely affect interoperability and create an ongoing requirement to convert proprietary data formats into standard data formats resulting in systems that are expensive and unsupportable in the long term. It is important, therefore, that Geospatial Standards, including metadata standards, are collaboratively developed, managed and published across all of Defence.

This move toward standards will be particularly valuable for Australia's long term spatial capabilities as defence initiatives will also benefit geospatial services in government and private sectors.

[Image sourced from the Defence Geospatial Strategy 2010]