https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=Wiki-Goliadranger 2026-04-13T22:35:56Z User contributions MediaWiki 1.35.9 https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=Season_of_Docs_Ideas_2019&diff=119948 2019-04-13T03:10:14Z

<p>Wiki-Goliadranger: /* People keen to take part */</p> <hr /> <div>[[Season_Of_Docs_2019|Season of Docs]] home page.<br /> <br /> ''From simple to grandiose writing tasks which will improve OSGeo projects, and open source in general. It includes ideas and first steps for tech writers, software users and those participating in Google’s [https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/ Season-of-Docs].''<br /> <br /> We, the communities behind the [https://www.osgeo.org/ OSGeo Foundation’s] open source geospatial projects, are positioned to help solve big documentation challenges faced by all open source projects. We can achieve this by continuing as we are doing now, with ordinary people, gifting bursts of effort, toward small, discrete and achievable tasks, to collectively achieve an extraordinary impact.<br /> <br /> =Leveraging Google’s Season-of-Docs=<br /> <br /> Google’s [https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/ Season-of-Docs] is an initiative to bring open source and technical writer communities together to write documentation. We propose we use this initiative as a focal point to attract a collaborative community to pilot big ideas. In particular:<br /> * Open source projects face sustainability challenges. How will docs developed during Season-Of-Docs be maintained long term?<br /> * Can a writer’s expertise be amplified to help community users and developers write good docs more effectively and efficiently?<br /> * Could best practices developed in one project be applied to the greater open source eco-system? <br /> <br /> We propose to focus on one (or more) writing initiatives, for one of our leading OSGeo projects. Goals should focus on:<br /> * Being directly applicable for the project.<br /> * Be captured as a template, which can be easily applied to other OSGeo projects. Ideally this will grow into an initiative which is of value to all open source projects.<br /> * Engages a Season-of-Docs sponsored writer, along with volunteers from project and writing communities. <br /> <br /> ==Key roles sought==<br /> * '''Mentor''': As an experienced project team member, provide technical mentorship toward a writing initiative.<br /> * '''Writer''': As someone keen to give back to open source through docs, volunteer to be mentored and tackle our OSGeo writing initiatives.<br /> * '''Senior writer''': Drive the writing aspects of an initiative, including empowering other participants. (Eligible for a stipend from Google).<br /> * '''Learning expert''': Help shape documentation templates and guides by linking back to educational theory. (This role is highly prized).<br /> * '''Administrator''': As an engaged OSGeo community member, act as a Season-of-Docs administrator.<br /> <br /> ==Interested?==<br /> <br /> If you are considering helping, or maybe just want to learn a bit more, then please reach out to us on our [https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/seasonofdocs email list]. If keen, then add yourself to the list below. ''(Be concise: Name, brief background, how you’d like to contribute.)''<br /> <br /> ==People keen to take part==<br /> * '''Cameron Shorter''': Geospatial business analyst. Co-founder of OSGeoLive. Co-editor of OSGeoLive doc templates; reviewer of most of the 50 Project Overview and Quickstart documents. Ex-board member of OSGeo Foundation. Keen to provide connections to our community and to be practically involved in writing initiatives.<br /> * '''Astrid Emde''': Senior GIS consultant at WhereGroup in Bonn, Germany. OSGeo board member and secretary. Awarded the Sol Katz award for leadership and longtime contributions to open source geospatial communities. Contributor to OSGeoLive, the OSGeo marketing committee and co-coordinator of meetups, code-sprints, and the annual German-speaking open source geospatial conference. She likes documentation and teaching people OSGeo Software. Keen to provide connections to our community and to be practically involved in writing initiatives.<br /> * '''Johanna Boltman''': Ex-English teacher, IT admin, and user of open source software as a geospatial officer at a local council. Keen to be mentored in writing docs.<br /> * '''Andrew Jeffrey''': Spatial Consultant in Bathurst, NSW, Australia, involved in QGIS training and support. Involved in the Australian QGIS user group, have contributed to QGIS documentation, and have a keen interest in improving the community and access to information for users. Out of the Google Summer of Docs, I am interested in being mentored to improve my QGIS documentation contributions, and learn of any best practices that can facilitate a good delivery of information.<br /> * '''Adam Steer''': Independent geospatial consultant, scientist, community builder. Board member of OSGeo Oceania; charter member of OSGeo and OGC representative. Sometimes occupying all the chairs of coder/writer/analyst/manager - sometimes all at once; keen to contribute my experience to both document and training material writing; and mentoring new contributors. Also keen to learn and improve my own practices in contributing to OSGeo projects.<br /> * '''Belinda Baker''': Background in writing process documentation and user of open source software as a GIS Consultant at a software company. Keen to be mentored in writing docs.<br /> * '''Liam Turner''': GIS Specialist for NSW Government (Australia), previously a high school physics teacher. User of open source technical documentation, keen to make a contribution.<br /> * '''Nicolas Roelandt:''' Geospatial engineer at the French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks. OSGeo charter member and OSGeoLive Project Steering Committee (PSC) member. Works on OSGeoLive documentation and translation build process (using the Transifex platform). Keen to support others in the use of these tools.<br /> * '''Luca Delucchi:''' Geographer; OSGeo and Open Street Map contributor and advocate. Core developer and translator of the GRASS GIS project; main developer of pyModis library; OSGeoLive and ZOO-Project contributor; president of the Italian OSGeo local chapter. Willing to help improve Jupyter interactive notebook documents in line with a developed template and writing instructions, if one is developed and committed to.<br /> * '''Nick Bearman: '''Teaching Fellow in Geospatial Analysis (University College London) and GIS Trainer &amp; Consultant (Geospatial Training Solutions). Contributed to QGIS documentation. Write and deliver GIS training courses to a variety of participants. Keen to learn how to contribute more effectively, particularly to QGIS documentation. Also looking to run a workshop on how to contribute to open source documentation at upcoming FOSS4G UK event in Edinburgh, UK in September 2019.<br /> * '''Sergio Acosta y Lara:''' Architect (Universidad de la República/UdelaR) working with Geographic Information Technologies for nearly 30 years. In charge of the Department of Geomatics (Ministry of Transport and Public Works) and member of several Working Groups for Technical Specifications of the IDEuy (Spatial Data Infrastructure of Uruguay). Charter Member of the OSGeo Foundation (Open Geospatial Foundation) and member of the Advisory Board of the Geo4all initiative​, Regional chair for Iberoamerica and co-editor of its newsletter. Coordinator for gvSIG Batoví (design and development of a GIS applied to educational environments for the Plan Ceibal (OLPC initiative for Uruguay) based on gvSIG. Co-coordinator of the gvSIG Uruguay Community (web) and of its blog.<br /> * '''Phillip Davis''': Professor Computer Science in Corpus Christi, Texas USA. Longtime FOSS4G advocate, rabble-rousing bigot troublemaker for open source taking over the world. Project manager and major maniac behind the 2012-2015 build of the USA GeoAcademy. Created five FOSS4G MOOC courses as project manager and major funder from NSF and DOL. Interested in helping to promote and develop any FOSSG educations resource. Potential NSF and DOL US Federal grant writer and Principal Investigator.<br /> <br /> =The back story=<br /> <br /> For background on the value of communicators, along with ideas on the sort of communities that have proven to be successful in the past, we suggest starting with [http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com/2019/02/inspiring-techies-to-become-great.html this article on inspiring techies to become great writers].<br /> <br /> =Ideas=<br /> <br /> ==Best practice templates==<br /> <br /> Good documentation benefits from access to cross-disciplinary skills. Expertise is typically spread across developers, users, domain experts, teachers, technical writers, graphic artists, and translators. Ramp-up time is high for any group attempting to learn another’s skill-set. This creates a significant barrier to entry. <br /> <br /> Our OSGeoLive initiative has [http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com/2019/02/inspiring-techies-to-become-great.html achieved] sustained, cross-domain collaboration by capturing writer’s expertise within templates with clear and punchy writing instructions. These templates were then provided to developers and domain experts. By using an outline/write/review/translate/publish process we’ve achieved significant efficiencies by allowing experts to focus only on the areas they know best. However, OSGeoLive has only tackled the Project Overview and Quickstarts. Projects which have tacked harder documentation types haven’t addressed cross-project consistency.<br /> <br /> How can we align our OSGeoLive writing initiatives with other projects and help build best practice templates for key documentation types? This will be valuable if addressed at an OSGeo level. It will be significantly more valuable if extended to an international, cross-domain level. (It will be challenging to attract momentum, but good groundwork is in place, and if implemented it would have a huge positive impact.)<br /> <br /> <br /> Potential resources:<br /> * Daniele Procida’s [https://www.divio.com/blog/documentation/ What nobody tells you about documentation].<br /> * [https://github.com/mdyd-dev/nearme-documentation/tree/master/marketplace_builder/views/pages/doc-templates Nearme writing templates] with [https://www.platform-os.com/blog/post/blog/building-our-documentation-site-on-platformos-part-2-content-production-and-layouts accompanying blog post].<br /> * [http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com/2018/06/technical-documentation-writing.html Document type definitions].<br /> * [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeoLive_AddProject#Documentation Writing instructions for OSGeoLive Project Overviews and Quickstarts].<br /> * The [https://www.writethedocs.org/about/stay-connected/ Write-The-Docs community] are a likely source of potential co-contributors and defacto owners of such templates.<br /> * [https://www.cebm.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Blooms-Taxonomy-Teacher-Planning-Kit.pdf Bloom’s Taxonomy: Teacher Planning Kit] is helpful for selecting language for training.<br /> * Someone has suggested ISO standards, but you need to pay to use them, and they appear overly verbose: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_JTC_1/SC_7#Published_standards ISO/IEC/IEEE 26511, 25612, 25613, 25614, 25615].<br /> <br /> ==Other doc types for OSGeoLive==<br /> <br /> To date, our OSGeoLive community have been sustainably maintaining two of the easier documentation types: Project Overviews and Quickstarts. Established OSGeo projects also have documentation, in various stages of currency, completion, relevance, verbosity, and quality. <br /> <br /> I believe we are ready to extend our consistency and best practices to some of the harder documentation types - such as tutorials, workshops and howtos. We should start by focusing on one of OSGeo’s flagship projects, such as QGIS or PostGIS. Join the project’s existing documentation initiatives. Provide feedback and improvements as required. Build templates and writing instructions which can be adopted by other projects. Integrate these with the OSGeoLive publishing and translation pipeline.<br /> <br /> Resources:<br /> * To help position training with other courses, it helps to link back to a Body of Knowledge, such as the [https://gistbok.ucgis.org/ Body of Knowledge for Geographic Information Science and Technologies (GIS&amp;T)].<br /> <br /> ==QGIS Documentation==<br /> <br /> QGIS, a desktop GIS application, is one of the OSGeo Foundation’s flagship projects with a broad developer and documentation community. <br /> <br /> * Pyqgis cookbook code snipped are now automatically tested, meaning that every new contribution will be rock solid and code snippets can be taken &quot;as they are&quot; and pasted in QGIS<br /> * Change the doc style to the more readable Read-The-Docs vanilla theme (fully supported by sphinx). A live example here [https://qgis.org/test/en/ https://qgis.org/test/en/].<br /> * Besides from contents, writing documentation isn't easy because of the complex framework (sphinx, git, github, etc). Improving the WYSIWYG github editor would be a great enhancement<br /> * Cleaning the issue tracker in github (&gt; 400 issue now) in many different ways: verifying issues, closing duplicates, make order in the labels, etc<br /> <br /> Resources:<br /> * [https://www.qgis.org/en/docs/index.html QGIS Documentation]<br /> * [https://github.com/qgis/QGIS-Documentation/issues QGIS Documentation Issues]<br /> * [http://spatialquerylab.com/foss4g-academy-curriculum/ University-level lectures and labs, created by GeoAcademy] (based on the older QGIS 2.18)<br /> <br /> ==Other OSGeo Project Docs ==<br /> <br /> TBD: Are there other projects that are at a tipping point - that could achieve the QGIS momentum if they get a push?<br /> <br /> ==Improve OSGeoLive writing instructions==<br /> <br /> We’ve recently updated our OSGeoLive process for generating documentation, and have moved our documentation repository from MediaWiki to trac. We appear to have introduced a few gaps in the move. In particular, the new docs don’t reference our specific writing instructions which are embedding in [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OSGeo/OSGeoLive-doc/master/doc/overview/postgis_overview.rst Project Overview] and [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OSGeo/OSGeoLive-doc/master/doc/quickstart/udig_quickstart.rst Quickstart] reference documents. A nice discrete task would be to review the old and new processes, and update the new docs to ensure they still contain relevant information, and are easy to follow.<br /> <br /> Resources:<br /> * [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeoLive_AddProject#Documentation Old, OSGeoLive documentation processes]<br /> * [https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeolive/wiki/How%20to%20document%20a%20project New (incomplete) processes]<br /> <br /> ==New OSGeoLive Quickstarts and Overviews:==<br /> <br /> For our 2019 OSGeoLive release we hope to attract a number of projects which have recently signed up as OSGeo Foundation Community projects. These projects will need help writing their Project Overviews and Quickstarts. Existing project documentation also needs to be updated to align with the latest releases. (Reviewing 50 Quickstarts to ensure they still work is a time-consuming exercise).<br /> <br /> Resources:<br /> * Ask OSGeoLive team about which new projects are joining OSGeoLive<br /> * [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeoLive_AddProject#Documentation Old, OSGeoLive documentation processes]<br /> * [https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeolive/wiki/How%20to%20document%20a%20project New (incomplete) processes]<br /> <br /> ==Simplify OSGeoLive’s doc writing process==<br /> <br /> Like most open source projects, OSGeoLive templates and content have primarily been created by developers (and a few users), without access to the insights provided by trained technical writers and teachers. <br /> <br /> Johanna Botman explains the challenges our approach has introduced. She started her working career as an English teacher, then moved into IT, website design, and is now uses geospatial software, as a geospatial officer at a local council. She observed:<br /> <br /> :: Some of the issues relating to getting started [with writing project documentation] are about bridging the gap between developers and writers. Developers write code in coding tools. They collaborate, they are used to versioning and are at home with unformatted raw text and automation tools. Writers? They work on Windows machines in Word - maybe in Google Docs if they are lucky. They don’t know about running build scripts, running Linux variants, Github, chat programs, HTML, RST formats, wikis and the variants of markup languages. <br /> :: It’s one thing to work with the open source software, another to write about it, and a third thing to work out how to write it so that it fits in with the project. It seems as if the developers have created the writing system in a way that they are used to working, not necessarily in a way that works for writers.<br /> <br /> There are many ways we can help solve this problem, from small to large:* Technical writers can try using our existing writing guides, and document anything that is difficult to understand, and help us fix it.<br /> * We can revisit and potentially improve the tools and processes we use. [https://www.gitbook.com/ Gitbook] looks promising. We have already adopted [https://www.transifex.com/ Transifex] for translations. Some research into options and what others are doing would help here.<br /> * Processes, tools and howto-write guides could both draw from international initiatives, and if we find ourselves to be world leading, then we should feed our insights back into international best practices.<br /> <br /> ==Define an authoritative style guide==<br /> <br /> It would be great if there was a compact, authoritative style guide (with different configurations), which could be selected in a similar manner to the [https://creativecommons.org/choose/ selection of a Creative Commons license]. It should be freely available, and coordinated by a non-profit community. (One version might be too idealistic, maybe we need a few). <br /> <br /> Benefits provided:<br /> * Reduced time learning and maintaining multiple style guides.<br /> * Improved documentation quality and consistency, resulting in improved reader comprehension.<br /> * Easier for writing tools to support the guide(s).<br /> * Make it easier for projects to set and apply writing standards. <br /> <br /> Resources:<br /> * [https://developers.google.com/style/ Google developer documentation style guide].<br /> * [https://docs.geoserver.org/latest/en/docguide/style.html GeoServer style guide] (also referenced by GeoNode)<br /> * The Australian government [https://www.themandarin.com.au/102797-the-first-new-edition-of-the-commonwealth-style-manual-since-2002-is-in-the-works/?utm_campaign=TheJuice&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=newsletter has announced] that we are updating our style guide. [http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com/2019/01/toward-universal-style-manual.html I’ve suggested collaboration].<br /> * TBD: What other style guides should we mention?<br /> <br /> ==OSGeoLive to apply a style guide==<br /> <br /> To date, the OSGeoLive team haven’t selected a style guide. It would be good to get advice from technical writers on which we should choose. We potentially should retrospectively clean up our public facing documentation in line with the selected guide. I’m aware there are tools for auto-checking documentation quality. What options are available for open source projects?<br /> <br /> ==Open Source Geospatial Introductory Workshop==<br /> <br /> It wouldn’t take much to create a practical 3-hour introductory workshop introducing ~ six to eight of the leading Open Source geospatial applications. It would be a valuable contribution to many spatial conferences. It could use the existing OSGeoLive distribution along with installed data, and can draw upon existing Quickstarts.<br /> <br /> The workshop should make use of best practice template structure for presenting, and set up a template which can be expanded out to other OSGeo projects.<br /> <br /> Resources:<br /> * [http://live.osgeo.org/en/overview/overview.html OSGeoLive Quickstarts].<br /> * Nicolas Roelandt, Astrid Emde are proposing such a workshop for the Free and Open Source for Geospatial conference (FOSS4G).<br /> <br /> ==Define an authoritative Code of Conduct==<br /> <br /> Most conferences and open source communities adopt a Code of Conduct and/or a Diversity Statement. It would be great of the multiple variants were consolidated, and selectable via a tick-box selection process, (like the [https://creativecommons.org/choose/ selection of a Creative Commons license]).<br /> <br /> Resources:<br /> * I [https://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php?title=Diversity&amp;oldid=84020 reviewed numerous Code of Conducts] when co-authoring the [https://www.osgeo.org/code_of_conduct/ The OSGeo Foundation’s Code of Conduct].<br /> * [https://www.contributor-covenant.org/ Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct], which has attracted a lot of projects.<br /> <br /> ==Jupyter Notebooks as an OSGeoLive documentation type==<br /> <br /> Jupyter Notebook is a web application that allows you to create and share documents that contain live code, equations, visualizations and explanatory text. It is a useful communication medium for explaining technical concepts. We included Jupyter Notebooks on prior OSGeoLive releases, but we didn’t have a maintainer to bring the documentation up to the standards we expect for OSGeoLive documents.<br /> <br /> It would be good to:<br /> # Have Project Overviews and Quickstarts updated to our quality standards, so we can re-introduce Jupyter Notebooks.<br /> # Consider using Jupyter Notebooks as another documentation type supported by OSGeoLive - which would mean developing templates for its use by other OSGeo projects, and attracting maintainers from these projects to create material.<br /> <br /> Resources:<br /> * OSGeoLive 11.0 was the latest release which includes [https://live.osgeo.org/archive/11.0/en/overview/jupyter_overview.html Jupyter Notebook docs] <br /> * [https://github.com/OSGeo/OSGeoLive-Notebooks OSGeoLive repository of Jupyter Notebooks]<br /> <br /> ==Tweak the OSGeoLive Presentation==<br /> <br /> We maintain [https://live.osgeo.org/en/presentation.html#/ a lightning presentation of the ~ 50 projects on OSGeoLive]. It is a challenge to keep this presentation concise enough to fit within a conference presentation time-slot and could do with tweaking.<br /> <br /> [[Category: Season of Docs]]</div>

Wiki-Goliadranger https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=Season_of_Docs_Ideas_2019&diff=119947 2019-04-13T03:09:25Z

<p>Wiki-Goliadranger: /* People keen to take part */</p> <hr /> <div>[[Season_Of_Docs_2019|Season of Docs]] home page.<br /> <br /> ''From simple to grandiose writing tasks which will improve OSGeo projects, and open source in general. It includes ideas and first steps for tech writers, software users and those participating in Google’s [https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/ Season-of-Docs].''<br /> <br /> We, the communities behind the [https://www.osgeo.org/ OSGeo Foundation’s] open source geospatial projects, are positioned to help solve big documentation challenges faced by all open source projects. We can achieve this by continuing as we are doing now, with ordinary people, gifting bursts of effort, toward small, discrete and achievable tasks, to collectively achieve an extraordinary impact.<br /> <br /> =Leveraging Google’s Season-of-Docs=<br /> <br /> Google’s [https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/ Season-of-Docs] is an initiative to bring open source and technical writer communities together to write documentation. We propose we use this initiative as a focal point to attract a collaborative community to pilot big ideas. In particular:<br /> * Open source projects face sustainability challenges. How will docs developed during Season-Of-Docs be maintained long term?<br /> * Can a writer’s expertise be amplified to help community users and developers write good docs more effectively and efficiently?<br /> * Could best practices developed in one project be applied to the greater open source eco-system? <br /> <br /> We propose to focus on one (or more) writing initiatives, for one of our leading OSGeo projects. Goals should focus on:<br /> * Being directly applicable for the project.<br /> * Be captured as a template, which can be easily applied to other OSGeo projects. Ideally this will grow into an initiative which is of value to all open source projects.<br /> * Engages a Season-of-Docs sponsored writer, along with volunteers from project and writing communities. <br /> <br /> ==Key roles sought==<br /> * '''Mentor''': As an experienced project team member, provide technical mentorship toward a writing initiative.<br /> * '''Writer''': As someone keen to give back to open source through docs, volunteer to be mentored and tackle our OSGeo writing initiatives.<br /> * '''Senior writer''': Drive the writing aspects of an initiative, including empowering other participants. (Eligible for a stipend from Google).<br /> * '''Learning expert''': Help shape documentation templates and guides by linking back to educational theory. (This role is highly prized).<br /> * '''Administrator''': As an engaged OSGeo community member, act as a Season-of-Docs administrator.<br /> <br /> ==Interested?==<br /> <br /> If you are considering helping, or maybe just want to learn a bit more, then please reach out to us on our [https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/seasonofdocs email list]. If keen, then add yourself to the list below. ''(Be concise: Name, brief background, how you’d like to contribute.)''<br /> <br /> ==People keen to take part==<br /> * '''Cameron Shorter''': Geospatial business analyst. Co-founder of OSGeoLive. Co-editor of OSGeoLive doc templates; reviewer of most of the 50 Project Overview and Quickstart documents. Ex-board member of OSGeo Foundation. Keen to provide connections to our community and to be practically involved in writing initiatives.<br /> * '''Astrid Emde''': Senior GIS consultant at WhereGroup in Bonn, Germany. OSGeo board member and secretary. Awarded the Sol Katz award for leadership and longtime contributions to open source geospatial communities. Contributor to OSGeoLive, the OSGeo marketing committee and co-coordinator of meetups, code-sprints, and the annual German-speaking open source geospatial conference. She likes documentation and teaching people OSGeo Software. Keen to provide connections to our community and to be practically involved in writing initiatives.<br /> * '''Johanna Boltman''': Ex-English teacher, IT admin, and user of open source software as a geospatial officer at a local council. Keen to be mentored in writing docs.<br /> * '''Andrew Jeffrey''': Spatial Consultant in Bathurst, NSW, Australia, involved in QGIS training and support. Involved in the Australian QGIS user group, have contributed to QGIS documentation, and have a keen interest in improving the community and access to information for users. Out of the Google Summer of Docs, I am interested in being mentored to improve my QGIS documentation contributions, and learn of any best practices that can facilitate a good delivery of information.<br /> * '''Adam Steer''': Independent geospatial consultant, scientist, community builder. Board member of OSGeo Oceania; charter member of OSGeo and OGC representative. Sometimes occupying all the chairs of coder/writer/analyst/manager - sometimes all at once; keen to contribute my experience to both document and training material writing; and mentoring new contributors. Also keen to learn and improve my own practices in contributing to OSGeo projects.<br /> * '''Belinda Baker''': Background in writing process documentation and user of open source software as a GIS Consultant at a software company. Keen to be mentored in writing docs.<br /> * '''Liam Turner''': GIS Specialist for NSW Government (Australia), previously a high school physics teacher. User of open source technical documentation, keen to make a contribution.<br /> * '''Nicolas Roelandt:''' Geospatial engineer at the French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks. OSGeo charter member and OSGeoLive Project Steering Committee (PSC) member. Works on OSGeoLive documentation and translation build process (using the Transifex platform). Keen to support others in the use of these tools.<br /> * '''Luca Delucchi:''' Geographer; OSGeo and Open Street Map contributor and advocate. Core developer and translator of the GRASS GIS project; main developer of pyModis library; OSGeoLive and ZOO-Project contributor; president of the Italian OSGeo local chapter. Willing to help improve Jupyter interactive notebook documents in line with a developed template and writing instructions, if one is developed and committed to.<br /> * '''Nick Bearman: '''Teaching Fellow in Geospatial Analysis (University College London) and GIS Trainer &amp; Consultant (Geospatial Training Solutions). Contributed to QGIS documentation. Write and deliver GIS training courses to a variety of participants. Keen to learn how to contribute more effectively, particularly to QGIS documentation. Also looking to run a workshop on how to contribute to open source documentation at upcoming FOSS4G UK event in Edinburgh, UK in September 2019.<br /> * '''Sergio Acosta y Lara:''' Architect (Universidad de la República/UdelaR) working with Geographic Information Technologies for nearly 30 years. In charge of the Department of Geomatics (Ministry of Transport and Public Works) and member of several Working Groups for Technical Specifications of the IDEuy (Spatial Data Infrastructure of Uruguay). Charter Member of the OSGeo Foundation (Open Geospatial Foundation) and member of the Advisory Board of the Geo4all initiative​, Regional chair for Iberoamerica and co-editor of its newsletter. Coordinator for gvSIG Batoví (design and development of a GIS applied to educational environments for the Plan Ceibal (OLPC initiative for Uruguay) based on gvSIG. Co-coordinator of the gvSIG Uruguay Community (web) and of its blog.<br /> * &quot;'Phillip Davis'&quot;: Professor Computer Science in Corpus Christi, Texas USA. Longtime FOSS4G advocate, rabble-rousing bigot troublemaker for open source taking over the world. Project manager and major maniac behind the 2012-2015 build of the USA GeoAcademy. Created five FOSS4G MOOC courses as project manager and major funder from NSF and DOL. Interested in helping to promote and develop any FOSSG educations resource. Potential NSF and DOL US Federal grant writer and Principal Investigator.<br /> <br /> =The back story=<br /> <br /> For background on the value of communicators, along with ideas on the sort of communities that have proven to be successful in the past, we suggest starting with [http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com/2019/02/inspiring-techies-to-become-great.html this article on inspiring techies to become great writers].<br /> <br /> =Ideas=<br /> <br /> ==Best practice templates==<br /> <br /> Good documentation benefits from access to cross-disciplinary skills. Expertise is typically spread across developers, users, domain experts, teachers, technical writers, graphic artists, and translators. Ramp-up time is high for any group attempting to learn another’s skill-set. This creates a significant barrier to entry. <br /> <br /> Our OSGeoLive initiative has [http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com/2019/02/inspiring-techies-to-become-great.html achieved] sustained, cross-domain collaboration by capturing writer’s expertise within templates with clear and punchy writing instructions. These templates were then provided to developers and domain experts. By using an outline/write/review/translate/publish process we’ve achieved significant efficiencies by allowing experts to focus only on the areas they know best. However, OSGeoLive has only tackled the Project Overview and Quickstarts. Projects which have tacked harder documentation types haven’t addressed cross-project consistency.<br /> <br /> How can we align our OSGeoLive writing initiatives with other projects and help build best practice templates for key documentation types? This will be valuable if addressed at an OSGeo level. It will be significantly more valuable if extended to an international, cross-domain level. (It will be challenging to attract momentum, but good groundwork is in place, and if implemented it would have a huge positive impact.)<br /> <br /> <br /> Potential resources:<br /> * Daniele Procida’s [https://www.divio.com/blog/documentation/ What nobody tells you about documentation].<br /> * [https://github.com/mdyd-dev/nearme-documentation/tree/master/marketplace_builder/views/pages/doc-templates Nearme writing templates] with [https://www.platform-os.com/blog/post/blog/building-our-documentation-site-on-platformos-part-2-content-production-and-layouts accompanying blog post].<br /> * [http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com/2018/06/technical-documentation-writing.html Document type definitions].<br /> * [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeoLive_AddProject#Documentation Writing instructions for OSGeoLive Project Overviews and Quickstarts].<br /> * The [https://www.writethedocs.org/about/stay-connected/ Write-The-Docs community] are a likely source of potential co-contributors and defacto owners of such templates.<br /> * [https://www.cebm.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Blooms-Taxonomy-Teacher-Planning-Kit.pdf Bloom’s Taxonomy: Teacher Planning Kit] is helpful for selecting language for training.<br /> * Someone has suggested ISO standards, but you need to pay to use them, and they appear overly verbose: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_JTC_1/SC_7#Published_standards ISO/IEC/IEEE 26511, 25612, 25613, 25614, 25615].<br /> <br /> ==Other doc types for OSGeoLive==<br /> <br /> To date, our OSGeoLive community have been sustainably maintaining two of the easier documentation types: Project Overviews and Quickstarts. Established OSGeo projects also have documentation, in various stages of currency, completion, relevance, verbosity, and quality. <br /> <br /> I believe we are ready to extend our consistency and best practices to some of the harder documentation types - such as tutorials, workshops and howtos. We should start by focusing on one of OSGeo’s flagship projects, such as QGIS or PostGIS. Join the project’s existing documentation initiatives. Provide feedback and improvements as required. Build templates and writing instructions which can be adopted by other projects. Integrate these with the OSGeoLive publishing and translation pipeline.<br /> <br /> Resources:<br /> * To help position training with other courses, it helps to link back to a Body of Knowledge, such as the [https://gistbok.ucgis.org/ Body of Knowledge for Geographic Information Science and Technologies (GIS&amp;T)].<br /> <br /> ==QGIS Documentation==<br /> <br /> QGIS, a desktop GIS application, is one of the OSGeo Foundation’s flagship projects with a broad developer and documentation community. <br /> <br /> * Pyqgis cookbook code snipped are now automatically tested, meaning that every new contribution will be rock solid and code snippets can be taken &quot;as they are&quot; and pasted in QGIS<br /> * Change the doc style to the more readable Read-The-Docs vanilla theme (fully supported by sphinx). A live example here [https://qgis.org/test/en/ https://qgis.org/test/en/].<br /> * Besides from contents, writing documentation isn't easy because of the complex framework (sphinx, git, github, etc). Improving the WYSIWYG github editor would be a great enhancement<br /> * Cleaning the issue tracker in github (&gt; 400 issue now) in many different ways: verifying issues, closing duplicates, make order in the labels, etc<br /> <br /> Resources:<br /> * [https://www.qgis.org/en/docs/index.html QGIS Documentation]<br /> * [https://github.com/qgis/QGIS-Documentation/issues QGIS Documentation Issues]<br /> * [http://spatialquerylab.com/foss4g-academy-curriculum/ University-level lectures and labs, created by GeoAcademy] (based on the older QGIS 2.18)<br /> <br /> ==Other OSGeo Project Docs ==<br /> <br /> TBD: Are there other projects that are at a tipping point - that could achieve the QGIS momentum if they get a push?<br /> <br /> ==Improve OSGeoLive writing instructions==<br /> <br /> We’ve recently updated our OSGeoLive process for generating documentation, and have moved our documentation repository from MediaWiki to trac. We appear to have introduced a few gaps in the move. In particular, the new docs don’t reference our specific writing instructions which are embedding in [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OSGeo/OSGeoLive-doc/master/doc/overview/postgis_overview.rst Project Overview] and [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OSGeo/OSGeoLive-doc/master/doc/quickstart/udig_quickstart.rst Quickstart] reference documents. A nice discrete task would be to review the old and new processes, and update the new docs to ensure they still contain relevant information, and are easy to follow.<br /> <br /> Resources:<br /> * [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeoLive_AddProject#Documentation Old, OSGeoLive documentation processes]<br /> * [https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeolive/wiki/How%20to%20document%20a%20project New (incomplete) processes]<br /> <br /> ==New OSGeoLive Quickstarts and Overviews:==<br /> <br /> For our 2019 OSGeoLive release we hope to attract a number of projects which have recently signed up as OSGeo Foundation Community projects. These projects will need help writing their Project Overviews and Quickstarts. Existing project documentation also needs to be updated to align with the latest releases. (Reviewing 50 Quickstarts to ensure they still work is a time-consuming exercise).<br /> <br /> Resources:<br /> * Ask OSGeoLive team about which new projects are joining OSGeoLive<br /> * [https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeoLive_AddProject#Documentation Old, OSGeoLive documentation processes]<br /> * [https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeolive/wiki/How%20to%20document%20a%20project New (incomplete) processes]<br /> <br /> ==Simplify OSGeoLive’s doc writing process==<br /> <br /> Like most open source projects, OSGeoLive templates and content have primarily been created by developers (and a few users), without access to the insights provided by trained technical writers and teachers. <br /> <br /> Johanna Botman explains the challenges our approach has introduced. She started her working career as an English teacher, then moved into IT, website design, and is now uses geospatial software, as a geospatial officer at a local council. She observed:<br /> <br /> :: Some of the issues relating to getting started [with writing project documentation] are about bridging the gap between developers and writers. Developers write code in coding tools. They collaborate, they are used to versioning and are at home with unformatted raw text and automation tools. Writers? They work on Windows machines in Word - maybe in Google Docs if they are lucky. They don’t know about running build scripts, running Linux variants, Github, chat programs, HTML, RST formats, wikis and the variants of markup languages. <br /> :: It’s one thing to work with the open source software, another to write about it, and a third thing to work out how to write it so that it fits in with the project. It seems as if the developers have created the writing system in a way that they are used to working, not necessarily in a way that works for writers.<br /> <br /> There are many ways we can help solve this problem, from small to large:* Technical writers can try using our existing writing guides, and document anything that is difficult to understand, and help us fix it.<br /> * We can revisit and potentially improve the tools and processes we use. [https://www.gitbook.com/ Gitbook] looks promising. We have already adopted [https://www.transifex.com/ Transifex] for translations. Some research into options and what others are doing would help here.<br /> * Processes, tools and howto-write guides could both draw from international initiatives, and if we find ourselves to be world leading, then we should feed our insights back into international best practices.<br /> <br /> ==Define an authoritative style guide==<br /> <br /> It would be great if there was a compact, authoritative style guide (with different configurations), which could be selected in a similar manner to the [https://creativecommons.org/choose/ selection of a Creative Commons license]. It should be freely available, and coordinated by a non-profit community. (One version might be too idealistic, maybe we need a few). <br /> <br /> Benefits provided:<br /> * Reduced time learning and maintaining multiple style guides.<br /> * Improved documentation quality and consistency, resulting in improved reader comprehension.<br /> * Easier for writing tools to support the guide(s).<br /> * Make it easier for projects to set and apply writing standards. <br /> <br /> Resources:<br /> * [https://developers.google.com/style/ Google developer documentation style guide].<br /> * [https://docs.geoserver.org/latest/en/docguide/style.html GeoServer style guide] (also referenced by GeoNode)<br /> * The Australian government [https://www.themandarin.com.au/102797-the-first-new-edition-of-the-commonwealth-style-manual-since-2002-is-in-the-works/?utm_campaign=TheJuice&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=newsletter has announced] that we are updating our style guide. [http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com/2019/01/toward-universal-style-manual.html I’ve suggested collaboration].<br /> * TBD: What other style guides should we mention?<br /> <br /> ==OSGeoLive to apply a style guide==<br /> <br /> To date, the OSGeoLive team haven’t selected a style guide. It would be good to get advice from technical writers on which we should choose. We potentially should retrospectively clean up our public facing documentation in line with the selected guide. I’m aware there are tools for auto-checking documentation quality. What options are available for open source projects?<br /> <br /> ==Open Source Geospatial Introductory Workshop==<br /> <br /> It wouldn’t take much to create a practical 3-hour introductory workshop introducing ~ six to eight of the leading Open Source geospatial applications. It would be a valuable contribution to many spatial conferences. It could use the existing OSGeoLive distribution along with installed data, and can draw upon existing Quickstarts.<br /> <br /> The workshop should make use of best practice template structure for presenting, and set up a template which can be expanded out to other OSGeo projects.<br /> <br /> Resources:<br /> * [http://live.osgeo.org/en/overview/overview.html OSGeoLive Quickstarts].<br /> * Nicolas Roelandt, Astrid Emde are proposing such a workshop for the Free and Open Source for Geospatial conference (FOSS4G).<br /> <br /> ==Define an authoritative Code of Conduct==<br /> <br /> Most conferences and open source communities adopt a Code of Conduct and/or a Diversity Statement. It would be great of the multiple variants were consolidated, and selectable via a tick-box selection process, (like the [https://creativecommons.org/choose/ selection of a Creative Commons license]).<br /> <br /> Resources:<br /> * I [https://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php?title=Diversity&amp;oldid=84020 reviewed numerous Code of Conducts] when co-authoring the [https://www.osgeo.org/code_of_conduct/ The OSGeo Foundation’s Code of Conduct].<br /> * [https://www.contributor-covenant.org/ Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct], which has attracted a lot of projects.<br /> <br /> ==Jupyter Notebooks as an OSGeoLive documentation type==<br /> <br /> Jupyter Notebook is a web application that allows you to create and share documents that contain live code, equations, visualizations and explanatory text. It is a useful communication medium for explaining technical concepts. We included Jupyter Notebooks on prior OSGeoLive releases, but we didn’t have a maintainer to bring the documentation up to the standards we expect for OSGeoLive documents.<br /> <br /> It would be good to:<br /> # Have Project Overviews and Quickstarts updated to our quality standards, so we can re-introduce Jupyter Notebooks.<br /> # Consider using Jupyter Notebooks as another documentation type supported by OSGeoLive - which would mean developing templates for its use by other OSGeo projects, and attracting maintainers from these projects to create material.<br /> <br /> Resources:<br /> * OSGeoLive 11.0 was the latest release which includes [https://live.osgeo.org/archive/11.0/en/overview/jupyter_overview.html Jupyter Notebook docs] <br /> * [https://github.com/OSGeo/OSGeoLive-Notebooks OSGeoLive repository of Jupyter Notebooks]<br /> <br /> ==Tweak the OSGeoLive Presentation==<br /> <br /> We maintain [https://live.osgeo.org/en/presentation.html#/ a lightning presentation of the ~ 50 projects on OSGeoLive]. It is a challenge to keep this presentation concise enough to fit within a conference presentation time-slot and could do with tweaking.<br /> <br /> [[Category: Season of Docs]]</div>

Wiki-Goliadranger https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=Open_Geoscience_Committee&diff=85740 2015-08-24T19:58:40Z

<p>Wiki-Goliadranger: </p> <hr /> <div>== Background ==<br /> The idea for the committee was conceived during a EGU-themed birds of a feather meeting at the FOSS4G-Europe in Como, Italy on July 16 2015<br /> <br /> == Motivation ==<br /> <br /> There is currently no established interface between the OSGeo communities and geoscience organisations like the American Geoscience Union (AGU) or the European Geoscience Union (EGU). At the same time OSgeo members publish their scientific work, which is based on FOSS and open data, within such organisations, often without being aware of each other. Further, students and young scientists who are using FOSS as a base for their work need information on how to share this work and reap the recognition within Acemdia which they deserve.<br /> <br /> Within geoscience, the new role model of &quot;Open Science&quot; or &quot;Science 2.0&quot; is emerging. Many desiderata for future &quot;open scientists&quot;, including publication of both the data and software, active international networking and reach out to industry and society are already common practice within OSGeo. Therefore OSGeo can provide guidance by best practices on how these practices can be established within Academia.<br /> <br /> == Goals ==<br /> <br /> * Launch the discussion how to address &quot;Open Geoscience&quot; among all stakeholders within OSGeo.<br /> <br /> * Development of best practices within and beyond OSGeo.<br /> <br /> * Establish communication with scientific communities such as EGU and AGU.<br /> <br /> == Communication ==<br /> <br /> * through the OpenGeoscience mailing list ([https://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/opengeoscience subscribe])<br /> <br /> == Activities ==<br /> * Planning of activities for EGU 2016 [August 2015 - tbd]<br /> * tbd <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> == Next steps ==<br /> * update this page / outline of committee<br /> * [ACHIEVED] create mailing list ([https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/1518 ticket]) <br /> * [ACHIEVED] draft email request to send to the OSGeo Board to create a new committee (preferably before next Board meeting on 13 August)<br /> * Schedule a telco regarding EGU 2016 planning<br /> <br /> == Meeting Minutes ==<br /> tbd<br /> <br /> <br /> == Members ==<br /> <br /> * [[User:Madi| Margherita Di Leo]], Founding Member<br /> * [[Jeff McKenna]], Founding Member, OSGeo President<br /> * [[User:Peter_Loewe|Peter Löwe]], Founding Member [Chair]<br /> * [[User:Maxi71| Massimiiano Cannata]], Founding Member [Co-Chair]<br /> * [[User:goliadranger | Phillip Davis]], Member Geo For All Education Committee<br /> <br /> <br /> == Pictures ==<br /> Holding the 1st &quot;charter&quot; of the committee. On that paper was written: &quot;Open Geoscience Committee: an entry for Open Source geoscience topics.&quot;<br /> [[File:OGC_founding_event_01_20150716.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Founding meeting 01]]<br /> [[File:OGC_founding_event_02_20150716.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Founding meeting 02]]</div>

Wiki-Goliadranger https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=Open_Geoscience_Committee&diff=85739 2015-08-24T19:57:59Z

<p>Wiki-Goliadranger: </p> <hr /> <div>== Background ==<br /> The idea for the committee was conceived during a EGU-themed birds of a feather meeting at the FOSS4G-Europe in Como, Italy on July 16 2015<br /> <br /> == Motivation ==<br /> <br /> There is currently no established interface between the OSGeo communities and geoscience organisations like the American Geoscience Union (AGU) or the European Geoscience Union (EGU). At the same time OSgeo members publish their scientific work, which is based on FOSS and open data, within such organisations, often without being aware of each other. Further, students and young scientists who are using FOSS as a base for their work need information on how to share this work and reap the recognition within Acemdia which they deserve.<br /> <br /> Within geoscience, the new role model of &quot;Open Science&quot; or &quot;Science 2.0&quot; is emerging. Many desiderata for future &quot;open scientists&quot;, including publication of both the data and software, active international networking and reach out to industry and society are already common practice within OSGeo. Therefore OSGeo can provide guidance by best practices on how these practices can be established within Academia.<br /> <br /> == Goals ==<br /> <br /> * Launch the discussion how to address &quot;Open Geoscience&quot; among all stakeholders within OSGeo.<br /> <br /> * Development of best practices within and beyond OSGeo.<br /> <br /> * Establish communication with scientific communities such as EGU and AGU.<br /> <br /> == Communication ==<br /> <br /> * through the OpenGeoscience mailing list ([https://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/opengeoscience subscribe])<br /> <br /> == Activities ==<br /> * Planning of activities for EGU 2016 [August 2015 - tbd]<br /> * tbd <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> == Next steps ==<br /> * update this page / outline of committee<br /> * [ACHIEVED] create mailing list ([https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/1518 ticket]) <br /> * [ACHIEVED] draft email request to send to the OSGeo Board to create a new committee (preferably before next Board meeting on 13 August)<br /> * Schedule a telco regarding EGU 2016 planning<br /> <br /> == Meeting Minutes ==<br /> tbd<br /> <br /> <br /> == Members ==<br /> <br /> * [[User:Madi| Margherita Di Leo]], Founding Member<br /> * [[Jeff McKenna]], Founding Member, OSGeo President<br /> * [[User:Peter_Loewe|Peter Löwe]], Founding Member [Chair]<br /> * [[User:Maxi71| Massimiiano Cannata]], Founding Member [Co-Chair]<br /> * [[User:Phillip Davis | Phillip Davis]], Member Geo For All Education Committee<br /> <br /> <br /> == Pictures ==<br /> Holding the 1st &quot;charter&quot; of the committee. On that paper was written: &quot;Open Geoscience Committee: an entry for Open Source geoscience topics.&quot;<br /> [[File:OGC_founding_event_01_20150716.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Founding meeting 01]]<br /> [[File:OGC_founding_event_02_20150716.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Founding meeting 02]]</div>

Wiki-Goliadranger https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=FOSS4G_Europe_2015_BirdsOfAFeather&diff=84422 2015-06-09T16:28:16Z

<p>Wiki-Goliadranger: </p> <hr /> <div>= Introduction =<br /> Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions are unstructured timeslots where people can self-organise themselves to discuss topics of interest.<br /> <br /> == General Information ==<br /> During the [http://europe.foss4g.org/2015/ FOSS4G Europe 2015] conference in Como, Italy, there will be a number of spaces for people to hold Birds of a Feather sessions.<br /> <br /> &lt;br/&gt;<br /> The 1-hour time blocks outlined below are just general guidelines. Adjust as needed. For reference, an overview of the FOSS4G schedule is available at [http://europe.foss4g.org/2015/Program http://europe.foss4g.org/2015/Program].<br /> <br /> &lt;br/&gt;<br /> === Rooms ===<br /> We have available the three rooms of the conference (VS9, V08, V2.12) from 8 am up to 8 pm.<br /> Therefore the BOFs can be there when there are not sessions.<br /> <br /> === Capacities ===<br /> * Room VS9: 236<br /> * Room V08: 98<br /> * Room V2.12: 93<br /> &lt;br/&gt;<br /> <br /> ==FOSS4G Contact==<br /> * conference-europe(at)lists.osgeo.org<br /> &lt;br/&gt;<br /> <br /> == Wednesday ==<br /> <br /> === Room VS9 ===<br /> <br /> {| class=&quot;wikitable&quot; border=&quot;1&quot;<br /> |-<br /> ! Timeslot !! Topic/Group !! Description !! Contact<br /> |-<br /> | 08:00-09:00 || || || <br /> |-<br /> | 13:00-14:00 || || || <br /> |}<br /> <br /> &lt;br/&gt;<br /> <br /> === Room V08 ===<br /> <br /> {| class=&quot;wikitable&quot; border=&quot;1&quot;<br /> |-<br /> ! Timeslot !! Topic/Group !! Description !! Contact<br /> |-<br /> | 08:00-09:00 || || || <br /> |-<br /> | 13:00-14:00 || || || <br /> |}<br /> <br /> &lt;br/&gt;<br /> <br /> === Room V2.12 ===<br /> <br /> {| class=&quot;wikitable&quot; border=&quot;1&quot;<br /> |-<br /> ! Timeslot !! Topic/Group !! Description !! Contact<br /> |-<br /> | 08:00-09:00 || || || <br /> |-<br /> | 13:00-14:00 || || || <br /> |}<br /> <br /> &lt;br/&gt;<br /> <br /> == Thursday ==<br /> <br /> === Room VS9 ===<br /> <br /> {| class=&quot;wikitable&quot; border=&quot;1&quot;<br /> |-<br /> ! Timeslot !! Topic/Group !! Description !! Contact<br /> |-<br /> | 08:00-09:00 || GeoForAll || Discussions about open education || JM<br /> |-<br /> | 13:00-14:00 || || || <br /> |-<br /> | 18:00-19:15 || || || <br /> |}<br /> <br /> &lt;br/&gt;<br /> <br /> === Room V08 ===<br /> <br /> {| class=&quot;wikitable&quot; border=&quot;1&quot;<br /> |-<br /> ! Timeslot !! Topic/Group !! Description !! Contact<br /> |-<br /> | 08:00-09:00 || || || <br /> |-<br /> | 13:00-14:00 || || || <br /> |-<br /> | 18:00-19:15 || || || <br /> |}<br /> <br /> &lt;br/&gt;<br /> <br /> === Room V2.12 ===<br /> <br /> {| class=&quot;wikitable&quot; border=&quot;1&quot;<br /> |-<br /> ! Timeslot !! Topic/Group !! Description !! Contact<br /> |-<br /> | 08:00-09:00 || || || <br /> |-<br /> | 13:00-14:00 || || || <br /> |-<br /> | 18:00-19:15 || || || <br /> |}<br /> <br /> &lt;br/&gt;<br /> &lt;br/&gt;<br /> <br /> == Friday ==<br /> <br /> === Room VS9 ===<br /> <br /> {| class=&quot;wikitable&quot; border=&quot;1&quot;<br /> |-<br /> ! Timeslot !! Topic/Group !! Description !! Contact<br /> |-<br /> | 08:00-09:00 || || || <br /> |-<br /> | 13:00-14:00 || || || <br /> |-<br /> | 18:00-19:15 || || || <br /> |}<br /> <br /> &lt;br/&gt;<br /> <br /> === Room V08 ===<br /> <br /> {| class=&quot;wikitable&quot; border=&quot;1&quot;<br /> |-<br /> ! Timeslot !! Topic/Group !! Description !! Contact<br /> |-<br /> | 08:00-09:00 || || || <br /> |-<br /> | 13:00-14:00 || || || <br /> |-<br /> | 18:00-19:15 || || || <br /> |}<br /> <br /> &lt;br/&gt;<br /> <br /> === Room V2.12 ===<br /> <br /> {| class=&quot;wikitable&quot; border=&quot;1&quot;<br /> |-<br /> ! Timeslot !! Topic/Group !! Description !! Contact<br /> |-<br /> | 08:00-09:00 || || || <br /> |-<br /> | 13:00-14:00 || || || <br /> |-<br /> | 18:00-19:15 || || || <br /> |}<br /> <br /> &lt;br/&gt;<br /> &lt;br/&gt;<br /> <br /> == FOSS4G 2016 BOF ==<br /> <br /> * Description: Planning for the 2016 conference that will be held in Bonn, Germany<br /> * When/Where: Wednesday 15th of July, 16h30, '''Room unknown'''<br /> <br /> Who is coming:<br /> * [[Jeff McKenna]]<br /> * [[Till Adams]]<br /> *<br /> <br /> <br /> == GeoForAll ==<br /> <br /> * Description: Discussions about open education. Sharing within the OSGeo, ICA, and ISPRS communities. http://www.geoforall.org/<br /> * When/Where: Thursday 16th of July, 08:00-09:00, Room VS9<br /> <br /> Who is coming:<br /> * [[Jeff McKenna]]<br /> * [[Phillip Davis]]<br /> <br /> == Your BOF Name Here ==<br /> <br /> * Description: <br /> * When/Where: <br /> <br /> Who is coming:<br /> * <br /> * <br /> <br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> * See [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_BirdsOfAFeather FOSS4G 2009 Birds of a Feather] for inspiration!<br /> <br /> [[Category:FOSS4G]]</div>

Wiki-Goliadranger https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=LIDAR_Format_Letter&diff=83613 2015-04-17T13:23:32Z

<p>Wiki-Goliadranger: </p> <hr /> <div>=Open Letter of the Need for Open Standards in LiDAR=<br /> April 2015.<br /> <br /> We, the undersigned, are concerned that the current interoperability between LiDAR applications, through use of the open &quot;LAS&quot; format, is being threatened by ESRI's introduction and promotion of an alternative &quot;Optimized LAS&quot; '''''proprietary format.''''' This is of grave concern given that fragmentation of the LAS format will reduce interoperability between applications and organisations, and introduce vendor lock-in.<br /> <br /> <br /> We request that:<br /> # The OGC initiate the formalisation of an open standard for storing LiDAR data, and that OGC sponsors help prioritise the development of this open LiDAR standard.<br /> # ESRI support the OGC in their [http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/vision mission] &quot;to advance the development and use of international standards and supporting services that promote geospatial interoperability.&quot; In particular, ESRI join the OGC in consolidating an Open Standard for use of LiDAR data. This might include proposing ESRI's &quot;Optimized LAS&quot; as an Open Standard to remove any technical or legal hurdles in use of &quot;Optimized LAS&quot; as an Open Standard. A simple test to determine if &quot;Optimized LAS&quot; can be used as an Open Standard would be if &quot;Optimized LAS&quot; can legally be implemented by Open Source software such as libLAS or LASzip.<br /> # Users and sponsors of LiDAR data, publicly state their preference for the use of an open LiDAR format over proprietary when selecting software and services.<br /> # The custodians of the open LAS format [http://www.asprs.org/LD-Division/LAS-Working-Group.html LAS Working Group (LWG)], who are part of [http://www.asprs.org/ American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS)], request the term &quot;LAS&quot; not to be included in the name of a proprietary format, as it makes such a proprietary format appear to be an approved derivative of LAS.<br /> <br /> <br /> =Signed=<br /> Name, Affiliation(s), Optional comment on interest in Open LiDAR format<br /> <br /> # Suchith Anand, Geo for All, committed to Open Principles in Geo Education and Policy.<br /> # Martin Isenburg, founder of [http://rapidlasso.com rapidlasso GmbH] and creator of [http://rapidlasso.com/LASzip LASzip], [http://rapidlasso.com/LAStools LAStools], and [http://rapidlasso.com/PulseWaves PulseWaves].<br /> # Cameron Shorter, GeoSpatial Director at [http://lisasoft.com LISAsoft]. Core contributor and coordinator of [http://live.osgeo.org OSGeo-Live]. Contributor to numerous OGC testbeds, technical lead on a range of previous Australian and New Zealand Open Government initiatives.<br /> # Stefan Keller, founder and director of [http://www.hsr.ch/geometalab Geometa Lab]; Professor in GIS, databases, open (government) data and interoperability; maintainer of GeoConverter; contributor to open source software (GDAL/OGR, QGIS).<br /> # Patrick Hogan, NASA World Wind Project Manager, committed to the US National Spatial Data Infrastructure principles, one being &quot;to make geographic data more accessible to the public&quot; [http://www.fgdc.gov/nsdi/nsdi.html NSDI]. Open standards are essential for this.<br /> # Lene Fischer, Associate Professor, Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen. User of Open and free Data from The Danish Geodata Agency - Using LAZ and LAS http://download.kortforsyningen.dk/content/dhmpunktsky.<br /> # [http://www.ege-como.polimi.it/index.php?content=maria_brovelli Maria Antonia Brovelli], Full Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Politecnico di Milano. Geo For All, committed to Open Principles in Geo Education and Policy. Committed to Open Principles in Research.<br /> # Ron Fortunato, President of [http://www.trilliumlearning.com/AmericaBridge/ Trillium Learning] LLC. Committed to open data standards that are necessary for education and all levels of communication.<br /> # [http://www.geodatawiz.com/armin-schmidt Armin Schmidt], Chief Developer at [http://www.GeodataWIZ.com GeodataWIZ Ltd] and Chairman of [http://www.archprospection.org ISAP], committed to better science through Open Data.<br /> # [http://www.linkedin.com/in/gconti Giuseppe Conti], CTO Trilogis Srl, Italy. Committed to open data standards that maximize opportunity for innovative solutions, unencumbered by artificial obstacles to data exchange.<br /> # [http://pt.linkedin.com/pub/jorge-rocha/1b/560/499 Jorge Gustavo Rocha], Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Minho, Portugal, committed to better science through [http://www.gistam.org/EventChairs.aspx?y=2016 Open Data].<br /> # [http://people.eecs.ku.edu/~miller/ Jim Miller], University of Kansas, Professor, Computer Science. Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.<br /> # [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brandt-melick/22/869/261 Brandt Melick], Information Technology Department Director, Springfield Oregon USA. The need to promote open solutions is paramount.<br /> # Alex Paza Makini, National University Solomon Islands, Natural Resources and Applied Science. Committed to open data standards for education and research, and everything beyond.<br /> # Jorg M. Hacker, Professor, Director/Chief Scientist of [http://www.airborneresearchaustralia.com Airborne Research Australia], Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. Open formats have always been a great benefit to airborne LiDAR.<br /> # Didier Richard, Head of IS Training Dept. in Education and Research Directorate of [http://www.ign.fr Institut National de l'Information Géographique et Forestière], France. OGC user, Contributor to OSGeO projects like GDAL.<br /> # [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/adryane-gorayeb/74/517/96a Adryane Gorayeb], [http://www.ufc.br/ Federal University of Ceará Brazil], Geography Department. Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.<br /> # [http://www.linkedin.com/in/yuryryabov Yury Ryabov], PhD, Senior researcher at [http://www.istc.ru/istc/db/inst.nsf/wsu/i0001823 Russian Scientific-Research Centre for Ecological Safety], [http://www.interacademies.net/Academies/ByRegion/CentralEasternEurope/13383.aspx Russian Academy of Sciences], Saint Petersburg, Russia. Open data formats are essential for successful and reproducible scientific research.<br /> # [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/teresa-lamelas-gracia/40/4a7/20b María Teresa Lamelas], [http://cud.unizar.es/ Centro Universitario de la Defensa Zaragoza], [http://geoforest.unizar.es/es/index.php GeoForest-IUCA]. Committed to open data standards for education and research.<br /> # [http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidherries David Herries], [http://www.interpine.co.nz/SitePages/Home.aspx Using LiDAR for forest yield modelling at Interpine Innovation]. Establishing open data standards provide scope for exponential growth in innovation. This is key to a rapidly developing technology like LiDAR.<br /> # [[User:Ivansanchez|Iván Sánchez Ortega]], [http://www.mazemap.no Mazemap]. OSGeo Charter member and Open Data nerd.<br /> # [[User:AnitaGraser|Anita Graser]], GIS specialist with AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, OSGeo Charter member and QGIS team member. Committed to open data standards for education and research.<br /> # [[User:vehrka|Pedro-Juan Ferrer]], [http://www.geomaticblog.net Geomaticblog]. OSGeo Charter member and member of the Open Knowledge Foundation.<br /> # [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/karl-donert/3/160/571 Professor Karl Donert], President European Association of Geographers (http://www.eurogeo.nl/ EUROGEO)<br /> # Drew Fenton, Boulder Creek, CA [http://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/ Countdown to the Last Coast Redwood]. Please protect Open Standards for geospatial data!<br /> # [[User:Bolosig|Wladimir Szczerban]], [http://www.geoinquiets.cat Geoinquiets] Geogeek &amp; OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter Member, Spain<br /> # [http://vmx.cx Volker Mische], OSGeo Charter member and creator of GeoCouch<br /> # [http://www.linkedin.com/in/clquintanilla Carlos López Quintanilla], [http://www.psig.es PSIG] [http://www.geoinquiets.cat Geoinquiets] GIS consultant, Spain<br /> # [[User:woodbri|Stephen Woodbridge]], [http://imaptools.com iMaptools], OSGeo Charter member.<br /> # [[User:odoepner|Oliver Doepner]], [http://oliver.doepner.net doepner.net], Software Engineer (Java,Linux), Open Standards and Open Source advocate<br /> # [[User:Lucadelu|Luca Delucchi]], [http://gis.cri.fmach.it Fondazione Edmund Mach], OSGeo Charter member, FOSS4G and Open Data developer, advocate, contributor and user.<br /> # Antoine Cottin, CTO of [http://www.carbomap.com Carbomap Ltd.] and creator of [http://github.com/carbomap/Fleurdelas Fleurdelas], Edinburgh, United Kingdom.<br /> # [http://strk.keybit.net Sandro Santilli], [http://strk.keybit.net/services.html NetLab], Free Software Hacker. There are already too many users slave to their tools, let's stop that!<br /> # [http://www.itopen.it Alessandro Pasotti], [http://www.itopen.it ItOpen], GIS Free Software Developer.<br /> # [http://www.roccatello.com Eduard Roccatello], [http://www.3dgis.it 3DGIS], 3DGIS CTO and co-Founder<br /> # [[User:moovida|Andrea Antonello]], [http://www.hydrologis.com HydroloGIS], OSGeo Charter member, Open Source GIS developer, HydroloGIS co-founder.<br /> # [http://www.associazionegfoss.it Stefano Campus], President of [http://www.associazionegfoss.it GFOSS.it] Association (Associazione Italiana per l'Informazione Geografica Libera), Italian Local Chapter of OSGeo Foundation.<br /> # [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Madi Margherita Di Leo], OSGeo Charter Member<br /> # [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sacosta Sergio Acosta y Lara], OSGeo Charter Member<br /> # [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin], CEO at NextGIS, OSGeo Charter Member. Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.<br /> # [[User:Steko|Stefano Costa]], Soprintendenza Archeologia della Liguria, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Italy<br /> # [http://www.geog.illinois.edu/people/jgrn Jonathan Greenberg], Assistant Professor, [http://publish.illinois.edu/jgrn/ GEARS Laboratory], Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.<br /> # Bob Basques, Saint Paul, Mn., GIS Systems Developer for the City of Saint Paul Public Works, Technical Director for SharedGeo.<br /> # [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maning Maning Sambale], OSGeo Charter Member<br /> # [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Pcav Paolo Cavallini], QGIS PSC<br /> # [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Dr Phillip Davis], Member OSGeo Geo For All education advisory board, Director @ GeoAcademy<br /> # [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Nbozon Nicolas Bozon], [http://zoo-project.org ZOO-Project PSC], OSGeo Charter Member<br /> # [http://www.linkedin.com/in/ruslanrainis Ruslan Rainis], Professor, Director, [http://www.research.usm.my/default.asp?tag=36 Centre for Research Initiatives in Liberal Arts &amp; Social Sciences](CRI-LASS). Open GeoInformation for a Sustainable Tomorrow and the Bottom Billions.<br /> # [[User:Silli|Silvia Franceschi]], [http://www.hydrologis.com HydroloGIS], OSGeo Charter member, Environmental Engineer Open Source GIS power user, HydroloGIS co-founder.<br /> # Oscar Martinez Rubi [http://esciencecenter.nl Netherlands eScience Center] eScience engineer.<br /> # Werner Macho, QGIS team member. Committed to open data standards for education and research.<br /> # Giuseppe Patti, Geologist and Freelance Geospatial Advisor, GFOSS supporter.<br /> # [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Drappo Daniel Rappo], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, School of Business and Engineering Vaud.<br /> # [[User:nachouve|Juan Ignacio Varela]], Freelance Geospatial Advisor and OSGeo Local Chapter Member.<br /> # [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]], President at [http://mapgears.com Mapgears], OSGeo Charter member.<br /> <br /> =Background=<br /> ==About LiDAR==<br /> <br /> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar LiDAR] (Light Detection And Ranging) is a form of high precision range measurement, much like a radar system, that uses laser light instead of electromagnetic waves. The standard LiDAR product is a 3D point cloud that can be conceptualized as a series of point measurements representing distance between the sensor to a returned emission.<br /> <br /> For over a decade (since 2003), there has been a common format for storing LiDAR data, the [http://www.asprs.org/Committee-General/LASer-LAS-File-Format-Exchange-Activities.html “LAS” format], and open source libraries have been developed to read, write and process these LAS files: [http://live.osgeo.org/en/overview/liblas_overview.html libLAS] and [http://github.com/LASlib/LASlib LASlib]. These libraries have been incorporated within many LiDAR applications, allowing read/write access to a common exchange format, and resulting in full interoperability between the applications. There is also an open source compression algorithm for the LAS format called [http://laszip.org LASzip] that many LiDAR data portals use to compress LAS into smaller LAZ files for faster download. Many LiDAR software packages have added [http://laszip.org/#software-with-native-laz-support native support] for these compressed LAZ files.<br /> <br /> <br /> ==LAS Limitations==<br /> <br /> Quoting [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars/ Paul Ramsey]:<br /> <br /> : LAS format is not without its drawbacks:<br /> <br /> :* While it is a binary format and does not waste any space unnecessarily, neither does it apply any compression to the data it stores. That’s not good for archival use.<br /> :* Also, LAS stores points in scan order, so accessing any particular chunk of points involves reading the whole file. That’s not good for random access.<br /> : Clearly there is a little more work to be done. Can LAS be improved? In fact, it already has been:<br /> :* An open source compression library, LASzip can apply 20''':'''1 lossless compression to LAS files, making them great for archival purposes.<br /> :* Other LAS users have experimented with re-ordering points in a LAS or LASzip file to allow random access to internal chunks of the LIDAR point cloud.<br /> : Basically, making LAS smaller and faster is not rocket science, and if the work were incorporated into libLAS then the whole LIDAR community could leverage it together, and the user community would only have one file type to interchange.<br /> <br /> <br /> ==&quot;Optimized LAS&quot; A ''' ''Proprietary'' ESRI Format'''==<br /> ESRI has announced the release of an [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214 &quot;Optimized LAS&quot;] format which is claimed to provide faster access and smaller file sizes (similar to the open [http://laszip.org LASzip] format). This announcement created a outburst of vocal protest in the LiDAR community [[http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ 1] [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars/ 2] [http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/2014/01/15/las-laz-lazzip-zlas-and-you/ 3] [http://www.northrivergeographic.com/archives/lidar-software 4] [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars-2/ 5] [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/02/lidar-format-wars-3/ 6]].<br /> <br /> The &quot;Optimized LAS&quot; format is neither published, nor available under any open license, which provides both technical as well as legal barriers for other applications reading and/or writing to this proprietary format. This creates a vendor lock-in scenario which is contrary to the principles of the Open Geospatial Consortium, the OSGeo Foundation, and many government IT procurement policies.<br /> <br /> One year after releasing the &quot;Optimized LAS&quot; format, ESRI released a free Windows DLL that is claimed to convert between LAS and &quot;Optimized LAS&quot;. Note there is a distinct difference between &quot;free&quot; and &quot;open&quot;. Unless the Windows DLL is released under an &quot;open&quot; license, libLAS and related products will be legally prevented from incorporating ESRI's reader/writer code into their codebase, or from fixing any underlying bugs or performance limitations which may exist in ESRI's product.<br /> <br /> <br /> ==OGC's Efforts For An ''' ''Open'' LiDAR Standard'''==<br /> <br /> The [http://www.opengeospatial.org/ Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)] has indicated their interest in developing a standard LiDAR format.<br /> <br /> Carl Reed (formerly on OGC staff) provided the following information on OGC's previous efforts to work toward enabling Open Standards in LiDAR:<br /> <br /> : &quot;Over the last 8 or so years, the OGC approached ASPRS at least twice regarding LAS and worked with ASPRS to bring LAS into the OGC for consideration as both a Best Practice and an OGC standard. OGC member Rick Pearsall worked diligently on this. Rick worked for NGA, was active in the OGC, and was also the Standards Committee chair at ASPRS. Rick and Carl tried and failed. These attempts go back to [http://www.asprs.org/a/society/divisions/ppd/ppd_meetings/2007springppdreport.pdf at least 2007]. More recently, Carl Reed had an email dialogue with Lewis Graham to bring LAS into OGC as an OGC Best Practice. Carl thought progress was being made, but then for some reason all communication stopped.&quot;<br /> <br /> [http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/organization/staff/ssimmons Scott Simmons] (Executive Director, Standards Program) has explained the OGC's continuing interest in pursuing point cloud encoding standards, including a member-initiated mechanism to extend LAS data with OGC-standard XML content.<br /> : The OGC invites interested members who wish to work on this effort to please contact Scott Simmons (Executive Director, Standards Program E-mail : ssimmons@opengeospatial.org) to register their interest and discuss details. OGC will also be holding an ad hoc session at the OGC's next [http://www.opengeospatial.org/event/1506tc Technical Committee meeting in Boulder, CO, USA in early June] to bring together all interested parties from all sectors (government, industry, academia) for this and plan next steps.<br /> <br /> <br /> ==History: LAS and ESRI's &quot;Optimized LAS&quot;==<br /> <br /> Martin Isenburg, one of the leading experts in LIDAR formats, and creator of [http://rapidlasso.com/LASzip LASzip], [http://rapidlasso.com/LAStools LAStools] and [http://rapidlasso.com/PulseWaves PulseWaves], explains the history of LAS and &quot;Optimized LAS&quot;:<br /> <br /> : '''Summary:'''<br /> <br /> :* The LAS format has been used successfully for over a decade.<br /> :* Within last couple of years, ESRI has added native LAS support into ESRI products.<br /> :* ESRI discussed embracing the open [http://laszip.org LAZ] format and simultaneously developed a proprietary &quot;Optimized LAS&quot; format.<br /> :* The open geospatial community offered, on numerous occasions, to work with ESRI to avoid format fragmentation.<br /> :* ESRI's proprietary &quot;Optimized LAS&quot; format is very similar in design and performance to the open [http://laszip.org LASzip] format.<br /> <br /> : '''1998: Original LAS format definition'''<br /> <br /> : The original development of the LAS format started in 1998 according to [http://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/lasroom/zKqchDj1JL4/discussion Lewis Graham]. The effort was at first led by pioneers of the LiDAR industry until the format was donated to the [http://www.asprs.org/Committee-General/LASer-LAS-File-Format-Exchange-Activities.html ASPRS]. Since then ASPRS's [http://www.asprs.org/LD-Division/LAS-Working-Group.html LAS Working Group (LWG)] has been maintaining the LAS format, guiding it from the initial LAS 1.0 version until today's LAS 1.4 version. This effort successfully created an open data exchange format for discrete LiDAR points that is currently supported by practically every LiDAR-related software program.<br /> <br /> : '''2011: ESRI joins LAS Working Group'''<br /> <br /> : ESRI did not join the LWG of the ASPRS until rather late, the 24th of August in 2011. At that time ESRI was not a significant &quot;player&quot; in the LiDAR market given they did not have much support for LiDAR in any of their products. That was to change soon as they were planning to add LAS as a native data type in ArcGIS 10.1.<br /> <br /> : Shortly before that, in June 2011, Martin Isenburg received a personal message from the ESRI development team: &quot;I have a question about LAS compression. I’m evaluating some potential enhancements and support for [LAS and] LAZ is one of them. Compression time and amount is impressive.&quot; When inquiring two months later about the status of [http://laszip.org LAZ] integration Martin was told: &quot;We’re in beta and working to finish the current release. I very much doubt LAZ will make it in because it’s too big a change at this time. So, we’ll be considering, for the following release, [for] what we want to do regarding compression and spatial indexing.&quot;<br /> <br /> : '''June 2012: ArcGIS 10.1 includes [proprietary] LAS Dataset file'''<br /> <br /> : In June 2012 ESRI released ArcGIS 10.1 and introduced the proprietary &quot;LAS Dataset file (*.lasd)&quot; that groups collections of files into one logical unit. This format of this useful LAS container file was not shared with others despite several private and eventually [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/jwHpi0efUgA/discussion public] requests.<br /> <br /> : '''2012/2013: Collaboration Discussions'''<br /> <br /> : There were encouraging follow-ups from the ESRI team about adopting the open LAZ format in January 2012: &quot;I would be interested in having a more in depth meeting with you to better understand the great work you are doing with LAS and how we can possibly better partner on this.&quot; and again in December 2012: &quot;If you have time, I'd like to set some time aside Tuesday afternoon to meet with &lt;an important person&gt; at the ESRI booth. Does 2pm sound okay?&quot; The meeting went well and it looked as if ESRI was going to embrace the LAZ format because shortly after the meeting Martin got word that: &quot;I hear from &lt;an important person&gt; that it was a success and that he had a good meeting with you. I wanted to see if we can have a telephone discussion on Wednesday or Thursday this week related to the potential of incorporating LAZ into ArcGIS.&quot;<br /> <br /> : Then the first signs of hesitation showed. First there were legal issues raised in February 2013: &quot;Currently the legal aspects are being reviewed. They were having some issues separating the LPGL aspects from LASzip from the remainder of LAStools etc.&quot; and then in April 2013 concerns about the code were made: &quot;We have started to look into the integration of LAZ, but came across some issues. We don’t want to copy files from the other package, mix and match or hack around. We were hoping for an API to stream points out of a LAZ file as well as write LAZ files. There should be a simple code sample for that?&quot; and - following up on that - in June 2013 Martin was told &quot;I see value in LASzip becoming a de-facto standard that provides compression to the LAS format. If this is to happen then it needs to be bundled together with appropriate reference implementations, examples and documentation as a standard and so ensure that issues as defined earlier in email do not occur.&quot;<br /> <br /> : '''June 2013: ESRI asked to sponsor clean LASzip DLL'''<br /> <br /> : At that time [http://laszip.org LASzip] was an open source project without sponsorship. The original funding from [http://www.erdc.usace.army.mil/Locations/ColdRegionsResearchandEngineeringLaboratory.aspx USACE] that had turned [http://laszip.org LASzip] from an academic prototype into an industry strength compression engine had long run out. So Martin asked ESRI to become a sponsor to create the clean [http://laszip.org LASzip] API that ESRI was after. The answer was: &quot;ESRI often helps in the financing of Open Source projects and I could foresee ESRI possibly helping in LASzip. [...] If you are interested in promoting LASzip as such a standard and doing the required work then I would recommend you put together a proposal and I can look to get ESRI as a sponsor.&quot;<br /> <br /> : Immediately Martin proposed to ESRI: &quot;I hereby propose to write an easy to use open source DLL wrapper for LASzip that will make it easier to integrate LASzip in a standardized manner into other software products such as ArcGIS, LP 360, or Terrasolid. This will come with example code on how to use the DLL for reading and writing LAZ files and include a few compressed example files. I hereby ask ESRI to provide funding for this effort without imposing any limitations on the produced DLL API.&quot;<br /> <br /> : '''July 2013: ArcGIS 10.2 includes [proprietary] LAS indexing '''<br /> <br /> : With the release of ArcGIS 10.2 in July 2013, ESRI introduced spatial indexing to speed up area-of-interest queries. The new proprietary *.lasx files with seemingly identical functionality to the open *.lax files that had been [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/j0qA8NBMHJs/discussion announced] in May 2011 and were [http://rapidlasso.com/2012/12/03/lasindex-spatial-indexing-of-lidar-data/ presented] at ELMF in November 2012.<br /> <br /> : '''July 2013: Open LASzip API released'''<br /> <br /> : After more requests for an easier interface to [http://laszip.org LASzip] (in particular for [http://forsys.cfr.washington.edu/fusion/fusionlatest.html USDA's FUSION]), Martin [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/oplsDhhnhDQ/discussion released] a clean, well-documented, and easy-to-use LASzip DLL (without ESRI funding). Martin expected that developers at ESRI would now use it to add read and write support for [http://laszip.org LAZ] to their next release of ArcGIS.<br /> <br /> : '''December 2013 : ESRI discovered to be secretly developing proprietary LAS format'''<br /> <br /> : In December of 2013, several LAStools users contacted Martin with suspicions that ESRI may be creating a proprietary LAS compression. Martin [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ broke the news] as soon as it became evident that ESRI had used the time it needed to resolve &quot;legal issues&quot; and &quot;code problems&quot; to put together their own proprietary compressed format with near-identical performance and functionality to [http://laszip.org LASzip]. A few days later ESRI released an [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214/ official FAQ] to confirming this was the case. <br /> <br /> : From day one, Martin has worked with stakeholders, including ESRI, to avoid format fragmentation. Martin's core argument for resolving this to everybody's benefit was that - coincidentally - a natural break was happening in the LAS format with the introduction of the new LAS 1.4 point types. Martin outlined a detailed plan for how a joint development of [http://laszip.org LASzip] for LAS 1.4 between rapidlasso and ESRI could exploit this natural break in the LAS format to accomplish two things at once:<br /> :# Add the unspecified technical additions that ESRI had hinted at desiring, and <br /> :# Extend the [http://laszip.org LASzip] compression scheme to handle the new point types introduced with the LAS 1.4 specification. As there was no pressing need at the time to handle LAS 1.4 Martin had delayed the extension of [http://laszip.org LASzip] to the new LAS 1.4 point types to make sure a cooperation with ESRI would remain a viable option.<br /> <br /> : '''1 April 2014: Positive reception to &quot;Optimized LAS&quot; / LASzip collaboration April Fools announcement'''<br /> <br /> : In an attempt to convince ESRI management of the community desire for an open standard, Martin released an April Fools' Day [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ prank press release] pretending that ESRI had already agreed to the envisioned collaboration to develop a joint LiDAR compressor. Community [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ jubilant reactions (see comments)] left no doubt about the sentiment on this issue within the LiDAR community.<br /> <br /> : '''October 2014: Announcement of [open] LAS Compatibility mode'''<br /> <br /> : [http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/ Digital Coast, NOAA Coastal Services Center] became a Gold Sponsor of [http://laszip.org LASzip] for the development of the [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ LAS 1.4 compatibility mode] that was [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/nUFMkKSz53g/discussion beta-released] in November 2014. This allowed support for the new point types in [http://laszip.org LASzip] without closing the door on a potential cooperation with ESRI for a joint LAS 1.4 compressor. <br /> <br /> : '''November 2014: ESRI announces proprietary extension to LAS 1.4'''<br /> <br /> : In November 2014 [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated ESRI announced] that they had added their [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated own extension] for the new LAS 1.4 point types to &quot;Optimized LAS&quot;, dismissing the opportunity to develop a joint compressor and avoid format fragmentation by exploiting this &quot;natural break&quot; in the LAS format as Martin had suggested.<br /> <br /> : Since then, ESRI has been [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ promoting] &quot;Optimized LAS&quot;. By including the term &quot;LAS&quot; in &quot;Optimized LAS&quot; and &quot;zLAS&quot;, the distinction between the open LAS format and proprietary format is blurred. This is likely to mislead novice and future users, thereby endangering many years of standardization work. To date, [April 2014], the [http://www.asprs.org/a/society/committees/standards/LAS_1_4_r13.pdf custodians of the LAS format], the LAS Working Group (LWG) of the ASPRS has [http://rapidlasso.com/2015/02/22/lidar-las-asprs-esri-and-the-laz-clone/ yet to make an official statement] regarding use of the &quot;LAS&quot; name in promoting a proprietary LiDAR format.<br /> <br /> <br /> =Value of Standards=<br /> <br /> The importance of Open Standards is described in most government IT policies. For instance, the United Kingdom policy states:<br /> : … Government assets should be interoperable and open for re-use in order to maximise return on investment, avoid technological or supplier lock-in, reduce operational risk in ICT projects and provide responsive services for citizens and business. This should also lower barriers to entry for more diverse sources of IT services, including citizens and SMEs. &lt;ref&gt;All about Open Source – An Introduction to Open Source Software for Government IT, Version 2.0, United Kingdom Cabinet Office https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78959/All_About_Open_Source_v2_0.pdf&lt;/ref&gt;<br /> <br /> The value of Open Standards has been described in numerous national studies on the effects of standards on economic growth.<br /> <br /> : ... the national studies demonstrate that standards have a positive influence on economic growth due to the resulting improved diffusion of knowledge. The contribution of standards to the growth rate in each country is equivalent to 0.9% in Germany, 0.8% in 0.3% in the UK and 0.2% in Canada. &lt;ref&gt;Prof. Dr. Knut Blind, Prof. Dr. Andre Jungmittag, Dr. Axel Mangelsdorf [http://www.din.de/sixcms_upload/media/2896/DIN_GNN_2011_engl_akt_neu.pdf &quot;The Economic Benefits of Standardization&quot;], ''DINN, 2000''. Retrieved March 2015.&lt;/ref&gt;<br /> <br /> =Further Reading=<br /> <br /> # Paul Ramsey provides background to LAS vs Optimised LAS, http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars/<br /> # Running commentary by Martin Isenburg, author of LASlib, http://rapidlasso.com/2015/02/22/lidar-las-asprs-esri-and-the-laz-clone/<br /> # Earlier comment from Martin Isenburg, http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/<br /> # First call-to-action by Martin Isenburg, http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/<br /> # ESRI Announces &quot;Optimised LAS&quot;, http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression/<br /> # ESRI description of &quot;Optimised LAS&quot;, http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214<br /> # Discussion background on this topic at Geo for All list , http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/ica-osgeo-labs/2015-March/001225.html<br /> <br /> =References=<br /> <br /> &lt;references /&gt;</div>

Wiki-Goliadranger https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=GeoForAll_UrbanScience_CityAnalytics&diff=81972 2015-02-24T15:20:55Z

<p>Wiki-Goliadranger: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Welcome to &quot;Geo for All&quot; Urban Science and City Analytics Thematic'''<br /> <br /> Chairs: Chris Pettit (Australia) and Patrick Hogan (USA)<br /> <br /> The mail list will be geoforall-urbanscience@lists.osgeo.org<br /> <br /> With the &quot;Geo for All&quot; Urban Science and City Analytics thematic group established, the chairs of this are now the contact points for any new initiatives, ideas in this theme and the mailing list becomes the first point of contact for the new members and all members can use the list for collaborating on building subject specific collaborations.<br /> <br /> This way we can make sure it is scaleable and meets local/region requirements/needs.All ideas welcome.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> '''Who in our network is doing what related to this theme?'''<br /> * your name here<br /> ** summary of what you are doing<br /> <br /> Phillip Davis, GeoAcademy<br /> The GeoAcademy is using QGIS 2.8 to provide Massively Open Online Courses through the Canvas Network to students around the globe for free. We currently enroll 4,000 students in our March 2015 cohort.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> '''List of use cases that cities have for addressing their needs'''<br /> * use cases here (Patrick, maybe you can start this to show an example?)<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> '''Technologies in our network that are available for addressing these needs'''<br /> * NASA World Wind (Java, iOS, and Android)<br /> * GeoMoose<br /> * QGIS<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> '''Key research questions'''<br /> <br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> '''Other ideas for a network grant proposal'''<br /> * Universities and university management are like small towns. Perhaps an educational connection here is to have multiple universities work together on building platforms for managing university infrastructure? -- Charlie Schweik</div>

Wiki-Goliadranger https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=GeoForAll_North_America&diff=81941 2015-02-23T21:15:52Z

<p>Wiki-Goliadranger: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Welcome to &quot;Geo for All&quot; North America Region Thematic'''<br /> <br /> North America Region<br /> <br /> Chairs:Helena Mitasova (USA), Charles Schweik (USA), [Phillip Davis]mailto:pdavis@delmar.edu (USA)<br /> <br /> The mail list will be geoforall-northamerica@lists.osgeo.org<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> With the &quot;Geo for All&quot; the North America region wise thematic group established, the chairs of this are now the contact points for any new labs to be established in North America to contact and the mailing list becomes the first point of contact for the new members and all regional members in the region can use the list for collaborating on regional funding calls, FOSS4G local conferences etc. <br /> <br /> This way we can make sure it is scaleable and meets local/region requirements/needs.All ideas welcome.</div>

Wiki-Goliadranger https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=Certification&diff=81671 2015-02-11T19:56:24Z

<p>Wiki-Goliadranger: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Summary Report and notes on OSGeo Certification Process'''<br /> The issue of Open Source certification has been discussed vigorously by various parties over the years. Most recently, at the 2014 FOSS4G in Portland Oregon where Arnulf Christl led a presentation on his Metaspaital Institute. A group of US and EU academics has also discussed the need for OSGeo or GISCI or the QGIS Project to lead the effort. Many in the US feel the GIS Certification Institute (GISCI) is the most likely organization to design and administer the examination. Bill Hodge, executive director of GISCI is aware of the need and is willing to work with his Board of Directors and OSGeo and QGIS Project to assist them should they desire. Here is a URL of our last [webinar] on the topic: http://delmarcollege.adobeconnect.com/p8bxohhs8ds/</div>

Wiki-Goliadranger https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=FOSS4G_2014_BirdsOfAFeather&diff=79629 2014-08-27T20:40:37Z

<p>Wiki-Goliadranger: /* Your Topic Here */</p> <hr /> <div>= Introduction =<br /> During the [http://2014.foss4g.org/ FOSS4G2014 conference] in Portland, USA, there will be a number of spaces for people to hold Birds of a Feather sessions.<br /> <br /> Birds of a Feather sessions are unstructured timeslots where people can self organise themselves to discuss topics of interest.<br /> <br /> <br /> ==Organising Contact==<br /> * BOF: FOSS4G Educators: Phillip Davis (pdavis@delmar.edu 832-779-6372cell)<br /> <br /> ==Timeslots Available==<br /> <br /> ''Please check this page regularly before your session since some times/locations may change.''<br /> <br /> BOF: FOSS4G Educators: Conference Exhibit Hall 4:30-6:30pm PACIFIC Wednesday September 10th, 2014<br /> <br /> = Birds of a feather organization =<br /> <br /> If you would like to suggest a Birds of a Feather session, follow these guidelines:<br /> * create a section below for your 'BOF'<br /> * have people edit this page to indicate they will be attending<br /> * you must provide a contact person who can manage the meeting<br /> * also make your description as clear as possible, for many attendees it will be the only thing they read before choosing one<br /> <br /> = BOF sessions =<br /> <br /> <br /> == Your Topic Here ==<br /> <br /> * Description: FOSS4G Educators<br /> <br /> * When/Where: Wednesday September 10 4:30-6:30pm Conference Exhibit Hall<br /> <br /> Who is coming:<br /> * Phillip Davis<br /> <br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> * More information on other Birds of a Feather sessions will be added here before the event.<br /> * See [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_BirdsOfAFeather FOSS4G 2009 Birds of a Feather] for inspiration!<br /> <br /> [[Category:FOSS4G]]<br /> [[Category:FOSS4G2014]]</div>

Wiki-Goliadranger https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=FOSS4G_2014_BirdsOfAFeather&diff=79628 2014-08-27T20:39:30Z

<p>Wiki-Goliadranger: /* Timeslots Available */</p> <hr /> <div>= Introduction =<br /> During the [http://2014.foss4g.org/ FOSS4G2014 conference] in Portland, USA, there will be a number of spaces for people to hold Birds of a Feather sessions.<br /> <br /> Birds of a Feather sessions are unstructured timeslots where people can self organise themselves to discuss topics of interest.<br /> <br /> <br /> ==Organising Contact==<br /> * BOF: FOSS4G Educators: Phillip Davis (pdavis@delmar.edu 832-779-6372cell)<br /> <br /> ==Timeslots Available==<br /> <br /> ''Please check this page regularly before your session since some times/locations may change.''<br /> <br /> BOF: FOSS4G Educators: Conference Exhibit Hall 4:30-6:30pm PACIFIC Wednesday September 10th, 2014<br /> <br /> = Birds of a feather organization =<br /> <br /> If you would like to suggest a Birds of a Feather session, follow these guidelines:<br /> * create a section below for your 'BOF'<br /> * have people edit this page to indicate they will be attending<br /> * you must provide a contact person who can manage the meeting<br /> * also make your description as clear as possible, for many attendees it will be the only thing they read before choosing one<br /> <br /> = BOF sessions =<br /> <br /> <br /> == Your Topic Here ==<br /> <br /> * Description: <br /> <br /> * When/Where: <br /> <br /> Who is coming:<br /> * your name here<br /> <br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> * More information on other Birds of a Feather sessions will be added here before the event.<br /> * See [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_BirdsOfAFeather FOSS4G 2009 Birds of a Feather] for inspiration!<br /> <br /> [[Category:FOSS4G]]<br /> [[Category:FOSS4G2014]]</div>

Wiki-Goliadranger https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=FOSS4G_2014_BirdsOfAFeather&diff=79627 2014-08-27T20:37:48Z

<p>Wiki-Goliadranger: /* Organising Contact */</p> <hr /> <div>= Introduction =<br /> During the [http://2014.foss4g.org/ FOSS4G2014 conference] in Portland, USA, there will be a number of spaces for people to hold Birds of a Feather sessions.<br /> <br /> Birds of a Feather sessions are unstructured timeslots where people can self organise themselves to discuss topics of interest.<br /> <br /> <br /> ==Organising Contact==<br /> * BOF: FOSS4G Educators: Phillip Davis (pdavis@delmar.edu 832-779-6372cell)<br /> <br /> ==Timeslots Available==<br /> <br /> ''Please check this page regularly before your session since some times/locations may change.''<br /> <br /> = Birds of a feather organization =<br /> <br /> If you would like to suggest a Birds of a Feather session, follow these guidelines:<br /> * create a section below for your 'BOF'<br /> * have people edit this page to indicate they will be attending<br /> * you must provide a contact person who can manage the meeting<br /> * also make your description as clear as possible, for many attendees it will be the only thing they read before choosing one<br /> <br /> = BOF sessions =<br /> <br /> <br /> == Your Topic Here ==<br /> <br /> * Description: <br /> <br /> * When/Where: <br /> <br /> Who is coming:<br /> * your name here<br /> <br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> * More information on other Birds of a Feather sessions will be added here before the event.<br /> * See [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_BirdsOfAFeather FOSS4G 2009 Birds of a Feather] for inspiration!<br /> <br /> [[Category:FOSS4G]]<br /> [[Category:FOSS4G2014]]</div>

Wiki-Goliadranger https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=FOSS4G_2014_BirdsOfAFeather&diff=79626 2014-08-27T20:37:24Z

<p>Wiki-Goliadranger: /* Timeslots Available */</p> <hr /> <div>= Introduction =<br /> During the [http://2014.foss4g.org/ FOSS4G2014 conference] in Portland, USA, there will be a number of spaces for people to hold Birds of a Feather sessions.<br /> <br /> Birds of a Feather sessions are unstructured timeslots where people can self organise themselves to discuss topics of interest.<br /> <br /> <br /> ==Organising Contact==<br /> * BOF: FOSS4G Educators<br /> <br /> ==Timeslots Available==<br /> <br /> ''Please check this page regularly before your session since some times/locations may change.''<br /> <br /> = Birds of a feather organization =<br /> <br /> If you would like to suggest a Birds of a Feather session, follow these guidelines:<br /> * create a section below for your 'BOF'<br /> * have people edit this page to indicate they will be attending<br /> * you must provide a contact person who can manage the meeting<br /> * also make your description as clear as possible, for many attendees it will be the only thing they read before choosing one<br /> <br /> = BOF sessions =<br /> <br /> <br /> == Your Topic Here ==<br /> <br /> * Description: <br /> <br /> * When/Where: <br /> <br /> Who is coming:<br /> * your name here<br /> <br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> * More information on other Birds of a Feather sessions will be added here before the event.<br /> * See [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_BirdsOfAFeather FOSS4G 2009 Birds of a Feather] for inspiration!<br /> <br /> [[Category:FOSS4G]]<br /> [[Category:FOSS4G2014]]</div>

Wiki-Goliadranger https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=FOSS4G_2014_BirdsOfAFeather&diff=79625 2014-08-27T20:37:15Z

<p>Wiki-Goliadranger: /* Organising Contact */</p> <hr /> <div>= Introduction =<br /> During the [http://2014.foss4g.org/ FOSS4G2014 conference] in Portland, USA, there will be a number of spaces for people to hold Birds of a Feather sessions.<br /> <br /> Birds of a Feather sessions are unstructured timeslots where people can self organise themselves to discuss topics of interest.<br /> <br /> <br /> ==Organising Contact==<br /> * BOF: FOSS4G Educators<br /> <br /> ==Timeslots Available==<br /> <br /> ''Please check this page regularly before your session since some times/locations may change.''<br /> <br /> <br /> = Birds of a feather organization =<br /> <br /> If you would like to suggest a Birds of a Feather session, follow these guidelines:<br /> * create a section below for your 'BOF'<br /> * have people edit this page to indicate they will be attending<br /> * you must provide a contact person who can manage the meeting<br /> * also make your description as clear as possible, for many attendees it will be the only thing they read before choosing one<br /> <br /> = BOF sessions =<br /> <br /> <br /> == Your Topic Here ==<br /> <br /> * Description: <br /> <br /> * When/Where: <br /> <br /> Who is coming:<br /> * your name here<br /> <br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> * More information on other Birds of a Feather sessions will be added here before the event.<br /> * See [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_BirdsOfAFeather FOSS4G 2009 Birds of a Feather] for inspiration!<br /> <br /> [[Category:FOSS4G]]<br /> [[Category:FOSS4G2014]]</div>

Wiki-Goliadranger https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=Annual_General_Meeting_2014&diff=77953 2014-05-14T17:18:26Z

<p>Wiki-Goliadranger: </p> <hr /> <div>== Venue / Timing ==<br /> * To be determined. At end the of an afternoon session, during [https://2014.foss4g.org/ FOSS4G Portland]<br /> * 1 hour long (can go later if necessary)<br /> <br /> == Description ==<br /> The Annual General Meeting for OSGeo is open to everybody. The goal is to share details of the activities of the foundation, from committees and local chapters all around the world.<br /> <br /> Possible format:<br /> <br /> The AGM itself will be a succession of lightning talks (presentations limited to three or four minutes) given by you in your role as Local Chapter representative, Chair of a committee, representative of a software project, OSGeo director or administrator or whatever else makes up OSGeo. If you feel like you have to say something please add yourself to the list. <br /> <br /> === Lightning Talks ===<br /> <br /> * [[Jeff McKenna]] - OSGeo overview<br /> * [[Helena Mitasova]] - Geo for all initiative and ICA-OSGeo network<br /> * [[Phillip Davis]] - National FOSS4G Curriculum Development and Deployment<br /> <br /> == Open Q&amp;A from OSGeo Members (and anybody interested) ==<br /> <br /> * ''add your name and question''<br /> <br /> [[Category: FOSS4G]]<br /> [[Category: FOSS4G2014]]</div>

Wiki-Goliadranger https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=Edu_current_initiatives&diff=76739 2014-02-18T05:16:12Z

<p>Wiki-Goliadranger: /* 2) Continue to expand the ICA-OSGeo Network */</p> <hr /> <div>== 2013-2014 OSGeo Education and Curriculum Current Initiatives ==<br /> <br /> '''The official website is online at ''http://www.geoforall.org'''''<br /> <br /> === 1) Continue to build up our educational material federated content databases ===<br /> <br /> [http://www.osgeo.org/educational_content OSGeo edu's educational content metadatabase] -- a place for metadata and links to external material we are posting on our own websites&lt;br&gt;<br /> [http://elogeo.nottingham.ac.uk/xmlui/ University of Nottingham's educational content database] (ELOGeo) -- a place for us to store education content (the source code) to share<br /> <br /> [[Webinar Series ]]<br /> <br /> ===2) Continue to expand the ICA-OSGeo Network ===<br /> <br /> This effort is led by Suchith Anand at the University of Nottingham, UK.<br /> <br /> In September 2011, the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) and the International Cartographic Association (ICA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the aim of developing on a global basis collaboration opportunities for academia, industry and government organizations in open source GIS software and data. The MoU aims to provide expertise and support for the establishment of Open Source Geospatial Laboratories and Research Centres across the world for supporting development of open-source geospatial software technologies, training and expertise. It also aims to provide support for building-up and supporting development of open source GIS teaching and training materials, joint organization of open source GIS events, workshops through the ICA network for wider participation globally etc. Details at [[MOU_ICA]].<br /> <br /> &lt;!--<br /> [http://gis.ncsu.edu/osgeorel/index.php#labsmap Updated Leaflet Map of the ICA-OSGeo Network Nodes by Vasek and Anna]<br /> <br /> [http://lucadelu.org/ica-osgeo-lab/ Leaflet Map of the ICA-OSGeo Network Nodes by Luca Delucchi, June 2013],<br /> and the related <br /> [http://lucadelu.org/ica-osgeo-lab/ica-osgeo-lab.tar.gz application] <br /> <br /> [http://conlibre.org/osgeolabs/ Visit the ICA-OSGeo Network website]<br /> [https://mapsengine.google.com/map/embed?mid=z4Nmc5_-QPhA.kBqA02Uh9xoc Google Map of the ICA-OSGeo Network Nodes],<br /> [https://maps.google.de/maps/ms?msid=217919488281947849251.0004da7def3b647f010c4&amp;msa=0&amp;ll=-27.332735,-43.330078&amp;spn=18.234488,25.158691 The first Google Map of the ICA-OSGeo Network Nodes](thanks to Franz-Josef) <br /> --&gt;<br /> It is really good to see our rapidly expanding global spread.<br /> <br /> Feel free to join the mailing list http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ica-osgeo-labs to follow the discussions among the participants of this initiative.<br /> <br /> The current members of the ICA-OSGeo Network are (please add '''WGS84 decimal coordinates longitude,latitude''', if you don't add the coordinate following this simple rules your institution will not show on the ICA-OSGeo Map) : <br /> <br /> {|class=&quot;wikitable sortable&quot; border=&quot;2&quot; cellspacing=&quot;0&quot; cellpadding=&quot;6&quot; rules=&quot;all&quot; style=&quot;margin:1em 1em 1em 0; border:solid 1px #AAAAAAAA; border-collapse:collapse; background-color:#edf9c7; font-size:95%; empty-cells:show;&quot; <br /> !<br /> ! Laboratory name and institution<br /> ! City<br /> ! Country<br /> ! Continent<br /> ! Coordinates (longitude, latitude)<br /> ! Application recieved / Announced<br /> ! Notes (collaborations, etc)<br /> ! Contact names<br /> ! Contact emails<br /> |-<br /> | 1.<br /> | [http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ngi/research/geospatial-science/geospatial-science.aspx University of Nottingham]<br /> | Nottingham<br /> | UK<br /> | Europe<br /> | -1.250296, 52.831497<br /> |<br /> |<br /> | Jeremy Morley<br /> | Jeremy dot Morley at nottingham.ac.uk<br /> |-<br /> | 2.<br /> | [http://www.sigte.udg.edu/ University of Girona]<br /> | Girona<br /> | Spain<br /> | Europe<br /> | 2.837305, 41.967426<br /> | 2012-09-10<br /> |<br /> | Lluís Vicens <br /> | lluis at sigte.udg.edu<br /> |-<br /> | 3.<br /> | [http://www.osgl.soton.ac.uk/ University of Southampton]<br /> | Southampton<br /> | UK<br /> | Europe<br /> | -1.396873, 50.936974<br /> | 2013-04-30<br /> | <br /> | Jason Sadler<br /> | osgl at geodata.soton.ac.uk<br /> |-<br /> | 4.<br /> | [http://geo.fsv.cvut.cz/gwiki/osgeorel Czech Technical University in Prague]<br /> | Prague<br /> | Czech Republic<br /> | Europe<br /> | 14.390363, 50.10183<br /> | 2012-11-23<br /> |<br /> | Martin Landa<br /> | martin.landa at fsv.cvut.cz<br /> |-<br /> | 5.<br /> | [http://research.ncl.ac.uk/osgeolab/ Newcastle University]<br /> | Newcastle<br /> | UK<br /> | Europe<br /> | -1.611536, 54.980656<br /> | 2013-01-17<br /> |<br /> | Philip James<br /> | philip.james at ncl.ac.uk (please use subject: OSGeoLab)<br /> |-<br /> | 6.<br /> | [http://geomatica.como.polimi.it/ Politecnico di Milano - Polo Territoriale di Como]<br /> | Como<br /> | Italy<br /> | Europe<br /> | 9.095939, 45.803516<br /> | 2013-02-25<br /> |<br /> | Maria Brovelli<br /> | geowb at geomatica.como.polimi.it<br /> |-<br /> | 7.<br /> | [http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/lifesci/research/facilities/geolab/ University of Warwick]<br /> | Warwick<br /> | UK<br /> | Europe<br /> | -1.56273, 52.380531<br /> | 2013-03-23<br /> |<br /> | Nataliya Tkachenko<br /> | geolab at warwick.ac.uk<br /> |-<br /> | 8.<br /> | [http://www.gridw.pl UNEP/GRID-Warsaw Centre]<br /> | Warsaw<br /> | Poland<br /> | Europe<br /> | 21.039473, 52.198849<br /> | 2013-03-18<br /> |<br /> | Ela Woloszynska-Wisniewska<br /> | ela at gridw.pl<br /> |-<br /> | 9.<br /> | [http://www.supsi.ch/ist_en/settori-attivita/geomatica.html University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland] (SUPSI)<br /> | Lugano<br /> | Switzerland<br /> | Europe<br /> | 8.961098, 46.028362<br /> | 2013-09-03<br /> | Institute of Earth Sciences<br /> | Massimiliano Cannata <br /> | geomatica at supsi.ch<br /> |-<br /> | 10.<br /> | [http://karlinapp.ethz.ch/osgl/ ETH Zurich]<br /> | Zurich<br /> | Switzerland<br /> | Europe<br /> | 8.5481, 47.3764<br /> | 2013-09-20<br /> | [http://www.ikg.ethz.ch/about/index_EN Institute of Cartography and Geoinformation, ETH Zurich]<br /> | Ionu? Iosifescu<br /> | iosifescu at ethz.ch<br /> |-<br /> | 11.<br /> | University of Molise<br /> | Molise<br /> | Italy<br /> | Europe<br /> | 14.493651, 41.630815<br /> |<br /> | in process of being established<br /> | Rosella Nocera<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | 12.<br /> | [http://www.igik.edu.pl/en Institute of Geodesy and Cartography] (IGiK)<br /> | Warsaw<br /> | Poland<br /> | Europe<br /> | 52.178478, 21.013407<br /> |<br /> | in process of being established<br /> | Agata Ciołkosz-Styk<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | 13.<br /> | [http://opengis.unibuc.ro/ Faculty of Geography, University of Bucharest]<br /> | Bucharest<br /> | Romania<br /> | Europe<br /> | 26.103889, 44.432500<br /> |<br /> | new website under development<br /> | Andreea Marin<br /> | andreea dot marin09 at yahoo dot com<br /> |-<br /> | 14.<br /> | [http://www.geo.info.hu/english/index.php Faculty of Geoinformatics,University of West Hungary]<br /> | Székesfehérvár<br /> | Hungary<br /> | Europe<br /> | 18.418833, 47.188778<br /> |<br /> | in process of being established<br /> | Andrea Podör <br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | 15.<br /> | [http://www.hft-stuttgart.de/Studienbereiche/Vermessung/Master-Photogrammetry-Geoinformatics/Labs/ICA-OSGeo-Labor/index.html/en Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences]<br /> | Stuttgart<br /> | Germany<br /> | Europe<br /> | 9.17370, 48.77996<br /> | 2013-10-14<br /> | <br /> | Franz-Josef Behr<br /> | franz-josef.behr at hft-stuttgart.de<br /> |-<br /> | 16.<br /> | [http://www.geomatica.ufpr.br/index.html Federal University of Paraná]<br /> | Paraná<br /> | Brazil<br /> | South America<br /> | -49.26141, -25.427074<br /> | 2012-05-23<br /> |<br /> | Silvana Camboim<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | 17.<br /> | [http://www.unesp.br/ São Paulo State University] (UNESP)<br /> | São Paulo<br /> | Brazil<br /> | South America<br /> | -46.654129, -23.576574<br /> |<br /> |<br /> |<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | 18.<br /> | National Amazonian University of Madre de Dios (UNAMAD)<br /> | Puerto Maldonado<br /> | Peru<br /> | South America<br /> | -73.245789, -3.745845<br /> | 2013-02-01<br /> | in process of being established<br /> | Andrea Birgit Chavez <br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | 19.<br /> | [http://ltaat.fcien.edu.uy Universidad de la República]<br /> | Montevideo<br /> | Uruguay<br /> | South America<br /> | -56.176441, -34.902405<br /> | 2013-03-01<br /> | new website under development<br /> | Virginia Fernandez<br /> | vfernandez at presidencia.gub.uy<br /> |-<br /> | 20.<br /> | University of Campinas<br /> | Campinas<br /> | Brazil<br /> | South America<br /> | -47.063239, -22.907105<br /> |<br /> | in process of being established<br /> |<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | 21.<br /> | Federal University of Alagoas<br /> | Maceió<br /> | Brazil<br /> | South America<br /> | -35.735098, -9.666251<br /> |<br /> | in process of being established<br /> |<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | 22.<br /> | [http://gis.ncsu.edu/osgeorel/ Center for Earth Observation, North Carolina State University]<br /> | Raleigh, NC<br /> | USA<br /> | North America<br /> | -78.6764, 35.7818<br /> | 2012-10-18<br /> |<br /> | Helena Mitasova<br /> | hmitaso at ncsu.edu<br /> |-<br /> | 23.<br /> | [http://www.umass.edu/opensource University of Massachusetts Amherst]<br /> | Amherst<br /> | USA<br /> | North America<br /> | -72.524696, 42.393578<br /> | 2012-10-18<br /> | <br /> | Charlie Schweik<br /> | cschweik at pubpol dot umass dot edu<br /> |-<br /> | 24.<br /> | [https://sites.google.com/site/foss4gku/ University of Kansas]<br /> | Lawrence, KS<br /> | USA<br /> | North America<br /> | -95.251311, 38.958578<br /> | 2013-08-23<br /> | <br /> | Xingong Li<br /> | lixi at ku.edu<br /> |-<br /> | 25.<br /> | [https://geospatial.ucdavis.edu/resources/open-source University of California, Davis]<br /> | Davis<br /> | USA<br /> | North America<br /> | -121.766945, 38.548801<br /> | 2013-02-04<br /> | in process of being established<br /> | Alex Mandel<br /> | aimandel at ucdavis.edu<br /> |-<br /> | 26.<br /> | [http://www.cozcyt.gob.mx/labsol/ Laboratorio de Software Libre]<br /> | Zacatecas<br /> | Mexico<br /> | North America<br /> | -102.5791, 22.7608<br /> | 2013-04-05<br /> | in process of being established<br /> | Manual Haro<br /> | manuel.haro at zacatecas.gob.mx<br /> |-<br /> | 27.<br /> | Kent State University<br /> | Kent, Ohio<br /> | USA<br /> | North America<br /> | -81.357886,41.153667<br /> | 2013-08-30<br /> |<br /> | Xinyue Ye<br /> | xye5 at kent.edu<br /> |-<br /> | 28.<br /> | [https://gis.uncc.edu/osgl Center for Applied GIScience, University of North Carolina, Charlotte ]<br /> | Charlotte, NC<br /> | USA<br /> | North America<br /> | -80.730000, 35.306944<br /> | 2013-09-05<br /> | <br /> | Wenwu Tang<br /> | WenwuTang at uncc.edu<br /> |-<br /> | 29.<br /> | [http://www.nottingham.edu.my/Geography/Newsitems/Establishing-Open-Source-Geospatial-Lab.aspx University of Nottingham, Malaysia campus]<br /> | Semenyih<br /> | Malaysia<br /> | Asia<br /> | 101.721298, 3.172932<br /> | 2012-01-09<br /> | website in development<br /> | Tuong Thuy Vu<br /> | Tuongthuy.Vu at nottingham.edu.my<br /> |-<br /> | 30.<br /> | [http://www.utm.my/ Universiti Teknologi Malaysia] (UTM)<br /> | Johor Bahru<br /> | Malaysia<br /> | Asia<br /> | 101.874222, 2.943748<br /> |<br /> | in process of being established<br /> |<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | 31.<br /> | National College of Public Administration and Governance(NCPAG), University of the Philippines<br /> | Manila<br /> | Philippines<br /> | Asia<br /> | 121.059875, 14.656005<br /> |<br /> | in process of being established<br /> | Noriel Christopher Tiglao<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | 32.<br /> | Environmental Science for Social Change (ESSC)<br /> | Quezon City<br /> | Philippines<br /> | Asia<br /> | 121.062241, 14.64372<br /> |<br /> | in process of being established<br /> | Maning Sambale <br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | 33.<br /> | [http://lsi.iiit.ac.in/labinfo/ Lab for Spatial Informatics], IIIT Hyderabad<br /> | Hyderabad<br /> | India<br /> | Asia<br /> | 78.3503, 17.4454<br /> | 2011-08-22<br /> | <br /> | Dr K S Rajan<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | 34.<br /> | [http://grel.ist.edu.pk/ Geospatial Research and Education Lab](GREL), Institute of Space Technology (IST)<br /> | Islamabad<br /> | Pakistan <br /> | Asia<br /> | 73.175045, 33.520060<br /> |<br /> | <br /> |Rizwan Bulbul<br /> |bulbul(dot)rizwan(at)gmail(dot)com <br /> |-<br /> | 35.<br /> | [http://www.up.ac.za/cgis University of Pretoria]<br /> | Pretoria<br /> | South Africa<br /> | Africa<br /> | 28.22847, -25.75429<br /> | 2012-05-15<br /> |<br /> | Serena Coetzee<br /> | serena dot coetzee at up dot ac dot za<br /> |-<br /> | 36.<br /> | [http://www.rcmrd.org/ Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development] (RCMRD)<br /> | Nairobi <br /> | Kenya<br /> | Africa<br /> | 36.858574, -1.249038<br /> |<br /> | in process of being established<br /> | Hussein Farah<br /> | farah at rcmrd.org<br /> |-<br /> | 37.<br /> | University of Ghana<br /> | Accra<br /> | Ghana<br /> | Africa<br /> | -0.191617, 5.650366<br /> |<br /> | in process of being established<br /> | Foster Mensah<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | 38.<br /> | The University of Melbourne<br /> | Melbourne<br /> | Australia<br /> | Australia<br /> | 144.962006, -37.797932<br /> | 2013-07-22<br /> |<br /> | Chris Pettit<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | 39.<br /> | [http://gisc.tamucc.edu Texas A&amp;M University]<br /> | Corpus Christi<br /> | USA<br /> | North America<br /> | -97.328799, 27.714506<br /> | 2013-09-09<br /> | in process of being established<br /> | Rick Smith<br /> | Richard.Smith at tamucc.edu<br /> |- <br /> | 40.<br /> | [http://www.geomaticsindia-cept.org/ CEPT University]<br /> | Ahmedabad<br /> | India<br /> | Asia<br /> | 72.566004,23.039568<br /> | 2012-07-18<br /> | in process of being established<br /> | Prof. Anjana Vyas &amp; Ms. Darshana Rawal<br /> | anjanavyas at cept.ac.in rawalnet at cept.ac.in<br /> |- <br /> | 41.<br /> | National University of San Juan<br /> | San Juan<br /> | Argentina<br /> | South America<br /> | -68.521408, -31.527273<br /> | 2012-06-15<br /> | in process of being established<br /> | Agustin Arroqui<br /> | aarroqui at unsj.edu.ar<br /> |- <br /> | 42.<br /> | [http://geodacenter.asu.edu GeoDa Center for Geospatial Analysis and Computation, Arizona State University]<br /> | Tempe, AZ<br /> | USA<br /> | North America<br /> | -111.940005, 33.425510<br /> | 2013-09-27<br /> | Spatial econometrics, geocomputation, spatial optimization - [https://geodacenter.asu.edu/software/downloads GeoDa], [http://pysal.org PySAL], [https://geodacenter.asu.edu/software/downloads/geodaspace GeoDaSpace]<br /> | [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luc_Anselin Luc Anselin]<br /> | geodacenter at asu.edu<br /> |- <br /> | 43.<br /> | National Technical University of Athens<br /> | Athens<br /> | Greece<br /> | Europe<br /> | 23.729310, 37.983716<br /> | 2013-09-26<br /> | in process of being established<br /> |<br /> |<br /> |- <br /> | 44.<br /> | IGN- France<br /> | Paris<br /> | France<br /> | Europe<br /> | 2.352222, 48.856614<br /> | 2013-09-26<br /> | in process of being established<br /> | Benedicte Bucher<br /> |<br /> |- <br /> | 45.<br /> | Universitat Oberta de Catalunya<br /> | Barcelona<br /> | Spain<br /> | Europe<br /> | 2.173403, 41.385064<br /> | 2013-09-27<br /> | in process of being established<br /> | Dr. Antoni Pérez Navarro<br /> | aperezn at uoc.edu<br /> |-<br /> | 46.<br /> | [http://www.isric.org ISRIC - World Soil Information foundation]<br /> | Wageningen<br /> | The Netherlands<br /> | Europe<br /> | 5.665662,51.9875<br /> |2013-10-02<br /> |website in construction<br /> | Jorge de Jesus<br /> | jorge.mendesdejesus at wur.nl<br /> |-<br /> | 47.<br /> | Universidade da Coruña <br /> | A Coruña (España)<br /> | Spain<br /> | Europe<br /> | -8.411540, 43.362344<br /> | 2013-10-15<br /> | in process of being established<br /> | Alberto Varela García<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | 48.<br /> | Universiti Sains Malaysia<br /> | Penang <br /> | Malaysia<br /> | Asia<br /> | 100.484623, 5.263234<br /> |2013-10-16<br /> |in process of being established<br /> | Ruslan Rainis<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | 49.<br /> | Kathmandu University<br /> | Dhulikhel <br /> | Nepal<br /> | Asia<br /> | 85.550000, 27.616667<br /> |2012-12-24<br /> |https://sites.google.com/a/ku.edu.np/opensourcegeospatial/<br /> | Shashish Maharjan<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | 50<br /> | [http://gis.cri.fmach.it/ GIS and Remote Sensing Unit, Fondazione Edmund Mach ]<br /> | San Michele all'Adige (Trento)<br /> | Italy <br /> | Europe<br /> | 11.133042,46.187865<br /> |2013-10-16<br /> |<br /> | Luca Delucchi <br /> | luca.delucchi at fmach.it<br /> |-<br /> | 51.<br /> | [http://gis.research.southwales.ac.uk/ University of South Wales ]<br /> | Cardiff <br /> | United Kingdom<br /> | Europe<br /> | -3.179090,51.481581<br /> |2013-10-31<br /> |<br /> | Dr Mark Ware<br /> | mark.ware at southwales.ac.uk<br /> |-<br /> | 52.<br /> | Portland State University<br /> | Portland, Oregon <br /> | USA<br /> | North America<br /> | -122.676207,45.523452<br /> | 2013-10-22<br /> | In process of being established<br /> | David Percy <br /> | percy at pdx.edu<br /> |-<br /> | 53.<br /> | [http://www.icpac.net/ IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Center]<br /> | Nairobi<br /> | Kenya<br /> | Africa<br /> | 36.821946,-1.292066<br /> | 2013-10-29<br /> | In process of being established<br /> | Muyambi Fortunate <br /> | fbenda at icpac.net<br /> |-<br /> |-<br /> | 54.<br /> | [http://www.labocart.ufc.br/ Federal University of Ceará ]<br /> | Ceará<br /> | Brazil<br /> | South America<br /> | -38.543395,-3.718394<br /> | 2013-10-29<br /> | In process of being established<br /> | Prof. Dr. Adryane Gorayeb <br /> | adryanegorayeb at yahoo dot com dot br<br /> |-<br /> | 55.<br /> | [http://geospecial.wordpress.com/ University of Gloucestershire ]<br /> | Gloucester and Cheltenham<br /> | United Kingdom<br /> | Europe<br /> | -2.223409, 51.872215<br /> | 2013-11-06<br /> | In process of being established<br /> | Dr Robert Berry<br /> | rberry at glos.ac.uk<br /> |-<br /> | 56.<br /> | [http://mrt.ac.lk/foa/ University of Moratuwa ]<br /> | Moratuwa<br /> | Sri Lanka<br /> | Asia<br /> | 79.9008, 6.7964<br /> | 2013-11-11<br /> | [http://www.mrt.ac.lk/tcp/osgeosl.html OSGeoSL ]<br /> | Aruna Wickramasinghe<br /> | toaruna at gmail.com<br /> |-<br /> | 57.<br /> | [http://www.fudan.edu.cn/ Fudan University]<br /> | Shanghai<br /> | China<br /> | Asia<br /> | 121.452, 31.198<br /> | 2013-11-14<br /> | [http://lab.osstat.org/ Open Source STATistics]<br /> | Zhijie Zhang<br /> | epistat at gmail.com<br /> |-<br /> | 58.<br /> | Haskell Indian Nations University<br /> | Lawrence, Kansas<br /> | USA<br /> | North America<br /> | -95.230691, 38.938859<br /> | 2013-11-22<br /> | [https://sites.google.com/site/dtmcdermott/home/haskell-cartography-class/ Haskell Indian Nations University]<br /> | Dave McDermott<br /> | dmcdermott at haskell.edu<br /> |-<br /> | 59.<br /> | [http://www.geof.unizg.hr/mod/book/view.php?id=1165&amp;chapterid=110&amp;lang=en University of Zagreb, Faculty of Geodesy]<br /> | Zagreb<br /> | Croatia<br /> | Europe<br /> | 15.963888, 45.808500<br /> | 2013-11-25<br /> | <br /> | Dražen Tutic<br /> | dtutic at geof.hr<br /> |-<br /> | 60.<br /> | [http://www.geo.gob.bo/ GeoBolivia-Vice-presidency of the State ]<br /> | La Paz<br /> | Bolivia<br /> | South America<br /> | -68.1547, -16.4949<br /> | 2013-11-24<br /> | In process of being established <br /> | Raul Fernando Molina Rodriguez<br /> | rafemoro at gmail.com rmolina@geo.gob.bo<br /> |-<br /> | 61.<br /> | Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering, University of New Brunswick<br /> | Fredericton, NB <br /> | Canada<br /> | North America<br /> | -66.641474, 45.950252<br /> | 2013-12-10<br /> | In process of being established<br /> | Emmanuel Stefanakis<br /> | emmanuel.stefanakis at gmail.com <br /> |-<br /> | 62.<br /> | [http://geo.sab.ac.lk/ Faculty of Geomatics, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka]<br /> | Belihuloya, Sabaragamuwa <br /> | Sri Lanka<br /> | Asia<br /> | 80.78995, 6.7102<br /> | 2013-12-12<br /> | In process of being established<br /> | Thilantha Dammalage<br /> | thilantha9 at gmail.com <br /> |-<br /> | 63.<br /> | [http://www.sliit.lk/index.php/sliit/departments/department-of-information-technology Dpt of IT, Faculty of Computing, Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology]<br /> | Malabe<br /> | Sri Lanka<br /> | Asia<br /> | 79.973166667, 6.914866667<br /> | 2013-12-13<br /> | [http://osgeolab.sliit.lk/ OSGeoSLIIT]<br /> | Nimalika Fernando<br /> | nimalikaf at gmail.com <br /> |-<br /> | 64.<br /> | [http://www.unige.ch/environnement University of Geneva - Institute for Environmental Sciences]<br /> | Geneva<br /> | Switzerland<br /> | Europe<br /> | 6.1487, 46.2253<br /> | 2013-12-19<br /> | In process of being established<br /> | Gregory Giuliani<br /> | gregory.giuliani at unige.ch<br /> |-<br /> | 65.<br /> | [http://www.ifs.hsr.ch/Geometa-Lab.12520.0.html?&amp;L=4 Geometa Lab at HSR - University of Applied Sciences Rapperswil]<br /> | Rapperswil<br /> | Switzerland<br /> | Europe<br /> | 8.81690, 47.22341 <br /> | 2014-01-26<br /> | (published 2014-02-05)<br /> | Prof. Stefan Keller<br /> | sfkeller at hsr.ch (and/or at gmail.ch)<br /> |-<br /> | 66.<br /> | National University of &quot;Kyiv-Mohyla Academy&quot;, Ecology Faculty<br /> | Kyiv <br /> | Ukraine<br /> | Europe<br /> | 50.456936, 30.515647 <br /> | 2014-02-16<br /> | In proess of being established<br /> | Tetyana Kuchma<br /> | tanyakuchma at yahoo.com <br /> |-<br /> | 67.<br /> | Centre for Research and Technology Hellas - Hellenic Institute of Transport<br /> | Thessaloniki<br /> | Greece<br /> | Europe<br /> | 40.567811, 22.996707<br /> | 2014-02-17<br /> | In process of being established<br /> | Dr. Evangelos Mitsakis<br /> | emit at certh.gr <br /> |-<br /> | 68.<br /> | Centre for Spatial Information Science(CSIS), University of Tokyo<br /> | Kashiwa-shi, Chiba<br /> | Japan<br /> | Asia<br /> | 139.938952, 35.902681<br /> | 2014-02-18<br /> | In process of being established<br /> | Taichi FURUHASHI<br /> | taichi at csis.u-tokyo.ac.jp <br /> |-<br /> | 69.<br /> |[http://foss4geo.org FOSS4Geo Academy @ Del Mar College National Open Geospatial Technology Consortium]<br /> | Corpus Christi, Republic of Texas<br /> | USA<br /> | North America<br /> | 27.764053,-97.407096<br /> | 2014-02-18<br /> | Active<br /> | Dr. Phillip Davis<br /> | pdavis at delmar.edu<br /> |-<br /> |}<br /> <br /> == Interested in adding your own node into the ICA-OSGeo Labs network? ==<br /> <br /> <br /> As the lab network is expanding fast ,we have also setup nodal contacts for each regions <br /> <br /> # Anne Ghisla - Asia &amp; Australia <br /> # Helena Mitasova - North America<br /> # Charlie Schweik - South America<br /> # Suchith Anand - Europe &amp; Africa<br /> <br /> <br /> Email Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk and cc Helena Mitasova ‎[hmitaso at ncsu.edu]‎, Charlie Schweik ‎[cschweik at pubpol.umass.edu]‎, Anne Ghisla [a.ghisla at gmail.com] to start the conversation and they will be happy to discuss details and guide you through the process.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> The key requirements for establishing a local OSGL are:<br /> <br /> (A) Both parties should work for the vision of the [[MOU_ICA|ICA-OSGeo MoU]] to develop collaboration opportunities for academia, industry and government organizations in open source GIS software and data in the future.<br /> <br /> (B) Someone at your institution or organization should have a strong Geospatial knowledge and vision to lead this activity and build a team of people, locally.<br /> <br /> (C) There should be a website established for your Open Source Geospatial Laboratory listing current research, people, and training information. This web presence will allow the other nodes in the network and others to understand and promote your local efforts around research and teaching of open source geospatial technologies and approaches.<br /> <br /> From our end, we will promote the initiative widely through both OSGeo and ICA channels to help build up collaboration opportunities for the future. We will also do a joint press release to announce the initiative and start building collaborations. A primary collaborative initiative continues to be the creation and maintenance of shared open access educational resources (for example [http://elogeo.nottingham.ac.uk/ the ELOGeo platform]). We will also add the info of all labs in the Open Geospatial Lab network node site within OSGeo website so that all participating labs urls are added and linked.<br /> <br /> We especially welcome applications from universities, educational institutes, government organisations in developing countries to help develop capacity building in geospatial education by establishing Open Source Geo Labs.<br /> <br /> == Meetings ==<br /> ; Next meeting:<br /> * '''[[ICA OSGeo Lab Network 2013-09-05]] 18.00 UTC'''<br /> <br /> ; Past Meetings:<br /> * [[ICA OSGeo Lab Network 2013-07-29]] 14.00 UTC<br /> * [[ICA OSGeo Lab Network 2013-05-02]] 14.00 UTC<br /> * [[ICA OSGeo Lab Network 2013-06-06]] 14.00 UTC<br /> <br /> == ISC OSGeo Lab Network Research and Teaching Areas ==<br /> <br /> [[ICA_OSGeo_Lab_Research_areas]]<br /> &lt;br&gt;<br /> [[ICA_OSGeo_Lab_Teaching_areas]]<br /> <br /> [[Category: Education]]<br /> [[Category: ICA OSGeo Lab Network]]</div>

Wiki-Goliadranger https://wiki.osgeo.org/w/index.php?title=Geoservices_REST_API&diff=71060 2013-05-13T02:57:53Z

<p>Wiki-Goliadranger: </p> <hr /> <div>This wiki page aims to collate community concerns related to the adoption of the &quot;Geoservices REST API&quot; document as a standard of the [http://www.opengeospatial.org/ Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)]. The page is being collaboratively edited, targeting completion by Wednesday 15 May 2013, after which it will be delivered by the board of the [http://osgeo.org OSGeo Foundation (OSGeo)] to the OGC and OGC voting members.<br /> <br /> = Cover Letter from the OSGeo Board =<br /> ''Please don't edit this &quot;Cover Letter&quot; statement, which has been approved by the OSGeo Board.'' <br /> <br /> The board of the [http://osgeo.org Open Source Geospatial Foundation] (OSGeo) is presenting this letter to the OGC. It highlights concerns about the &quot;GeoServices REST API&quot; from many people within the OSGeo community. As always, if there is anything the OSGeo board can do to help, then please let us know.<br /> <br /> Signed: Jeff McKenna (OSGeo president), <br /> Peter Batty,<br /> Jáchym Čepický,<br /> Michael Gerlek,<br /> Anne Ghisla,<br /> Mark Lucas,<br /> Daniel Morissette,<br /> Cameron Shorter,<br /> Frank Warmerdam<br /> <br /> = Open Letter to OGC and voting members =<br /> <br /> ''Please don't edit this &quot;Open Letter&quot; statement, comments and discussion should go in the &quot;Further Concerns&quot; section below.'' <br /> <br /> May 2013<br /> <br /> We, the undersigned, have concerns that approving the &quot;Geoservices REST API&quot; as an OGC standard, would have detrimental impacts on interoperability within the spatial industry.<br /> <br /> We strongly urge that the proposed &quot;Geoservices REST API&quot;, as it stands in May 2013, be rejected as an OGC standard.<br /> <br /> People have listed different reasons for concern. They are described below.<br /> <br /> == Signed ==<br /> ''Please add your name here if you agree with the above statement. Include name, work title (if appropriate), very brief title/involvement in OSGeo if appropriate. (Link to OSGeo profile if appropriate). You may sign as a group, such as the Project Steering Committee of XXX project if you wish, or as Your Name on behalf of YYY company.''<br /> <br /> # [[User:camerons|Cameron Shorter]], Geospatial Solutions Director at [http://lisasoft.com LISAsoft], core contributor &amp; coordinator of [http://live.osgeo.org OSGeo-Live], OSGeo Board member<br /> # [[Mark Lucas]], Founding member and board of directors for OSGeo foundation, Principal Scientist for RadiantBlue Technologies Inc.<br /> # [[User:Woodbri|Stephen Woodbridge]], Director of [http://imaptools.com iMaptools.com], Contributor and/or PSC of [http://mapserver.org Mapserver], [http://pgrouting.org/ pgRouting], [http://www.pagcgeo.org/ PAGC], and [http://www.postgis.org/ PostGIS]<br /> # [[User:rouault|Even Rouault]], Geospatial developer, OSGeo Charter Member, core contributor and PSC member of [http://gdal.org GDAL/OGR], contributor of [http://mapserver.org Mapserver], [http://trac.osgeo.org/proj/ PROJ.4], [http://trac.osgeo.org/geotiff/ libgeotiff], [http://shapelib.maptools.org/ shapelib], [http://www.remotesensing.org/libtiff/ libtiff]<br /> # Gerhard Triebnig, Managing Director at [http://eox.at EOX IT Services GmbH]<br /> # [[User:pcreso|Brent Wood]], Environmental Information Delivery Programme Leader, NIWA, New Zealand. OGC member, Aust/NZ OSGEO chapter member, NZOSS Council member<br /> # [[User:Schpidi|Stephan Meissl]], CTO at [http://eox.at EOX IT Services GmbH], contributor to [http://mapserver.org Mapserver], PSC chair of [http://eoxserver.org EOxServer]<br /> # [[User:ticheler|Jeroen Ticheler]], Director of [http://geocat.net GeoCat], project founder and PSC chair of [http://geonetwork-opensource.org GeoNetwork opensource]<br /> # [[User:Just|Just van den Broecke]], Director at [http://www.justobjects.nl Just Objects], contributor to [http://heron-mc.org Heron Mapping Client], secretary of [http://osgeo.nl OSGeo Dutch Local Chapter], member at [http://www.opengeogroep.nl OpenGeoGroep]<br /> # [[User:milovanderlinden|Milo van der Linden]], member at [http://www.opengeogroep.nl OpenGeoGroep]<br /> # [[User:surveyor|Landon Blake]], GIS Department Manager/Land Surveyor at [http://www.ksninc.com KSN], OSGeo California Chapter Board Representative.<br /> # [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]], President at [http://mapgears.com/ Mapgears], core contributor and PSC member of [http://mapserver.org Mapserver] and [http://gdal.org GDAL/OGR]. Former OGC TC member and involved in the implementation of several OGC WxS services specs in MapServer.<br /> # [[User:blammo|Bob Basques]], GIS Systems Developer at the City of Saint Paul, MN. [http://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us Public Works GIS (GISmo)], Technical Director at [http://www.sharedgeo.org SharedGeo], OSGeo Charter Member, OSGeo TCMUG local chapter member, Co-founder and PSC member of [http://www.geomoose.org GeoMoose] project.<br /> # [[User:vehrka|Pedro-Juan Ferrer Matoses]], PM at Omnium Strategic Intelligence, Spain, OSGeo Charter Member, OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter Liaison officer.<br /> # Bevan Rudge, Director Lucion Limited, IT Advisor at Conservation Strategy Fund, Esri client<br /> # [[User:Delawen|María Arias de Reyna]], software engineer at [http://geocat.net GeoCat], Spain, member of OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter.<br /> # [[User:Aghisla|Anne Ghisla]], OSGeo Board Member, Italy, member of OSGeo Italian Local Chapter.<br /> # [[User:Michogar|Micho Garcia]], Freelance and member of [http://geomati.co geomati.co], Spain, member of Spanish Local Chapter<br /> # [[User:Madi|Margherita Di Leo]], OSGeo Charter Member, Post-doctoral researcher at the European Commission, JRC, Italy<br /> # [[Jorge Sanz]], GIS Consultant at [http://www.prodevelop.es Prodevelop], OSGeo Charter Member, OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter Member, Spain<br /> # [[Pablo Sanxiao]], CTO and co-founder at [http://www.icarto.es iCarto], OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter Member, Spain<br /> # [[User:Fsteggink|Frank Steggink]], GIS software developer at [http://www.vicrea.nl Vicrea], The Netherlands, member of the Dutch Local Chapter<br /> # [[User:Olivier.courtin|Olivier Courtin]], [http://www.oslandia.com Oslandia] co-founder, core contributor or/and PSC member of [http://mapserver.org Mapserver] and [http://www.postgis.org/ PostGIS]. OGC TC member.<br /> # [[User:Bolosig|Wladimir Szczerban]], OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter Member, Spain<br /> # [[User:AnitaGraser|Anita Graser]], GIS specialist with AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, OSGeo Charter member and QGIS team member.<br /> # [[User:Vmische|Volker Mische]], geospatial software engineer, creator of GeoCouch<br /> # [[User:Ivansanchez|Iván Sánchez]], OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter Member, head of [http://www.openstreetmap.es OpenStreetMap Spain], [http://osmfoundation.org OpenStreetMap Foundation] member, [http://hot.openstreetmap.org/ Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team] member, [http://www.idee.es/ Spanish SDI working group] member<br /> # [[User:Gabi|Gabriel Carrión]], Strategy Manager at [http://www.gvsig.com gvSIG association]<br /> # [http://strk.keybit.net Sandro Santilli], OSGeo Charter Member, [http://postgis.net PostGIS] and [http://trac.osgeo.org/geos GEOS] PSC member and core hacker.<br /> # [[User:Javiarch|Javier Diaz]], member of Geoinquietos Bs As [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Category:Geoinquietos_Buenos_Aires], member of the Organizing Committee FOSS4G Bs As 2013 [http://www.foss4g-ba.org/]<br /> # [[User: JoCook|Jo Cook]], Consultant at [http://isharemaps.com| Astun Technology], former Director of OSGeo, Charter Member, founder of UK Local Chapter, Deputy Chair of [http://2013.foss4g.org| FOSS4G 2013]<br /> # [[User: Fpenarru | Francisco José Peñarrubia]], CTO and co-founder at [http://www.scolab.es SCOLAB]. Members of [http://www.gvsig.com gvSIG Association]<br /> # [[User: Ganesh|Shanmugam Ganeshkumar]], Director of [http://www.geoicon.com GeoICON], member OSGeo Malaysia Chapter<br /> # [[User:Barryrowlingson|Barry Rowlingson]], Senior Researcher, Lancaster University and Software Sustainability Institute Fellow<br /> # [[User: Sfkeller|Stefan Keller]], University of Applied Sciences, Rapperswil (Switzerland), Member of Swiss OSM (SOSM) and QGIS association and of organizing committees of pgConf.DE and FOSSGIS 2013, and member of eCH (e-government standards of Switzerland)<br /> # [[User: AndyBMapMan|Andrew Bailey]], OSGeo member, Astun Technology<br /> # [[User: Sanand|Suchith Anand]], OSGeo Charter member, OSGeo Education member, FOSS4G 2013 LOC member<br /> # [[User: krefftc|Carlos Krefft]], GIS software developer at [http://www.cstars.miami.edu CSTARS - University of Miami], OGC and OSGeo Member.<br /> # [[User:Steko|Stefano Costa]], OSGeo member, GFOSS.it member and former board member, Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali (Italy)<br /> # [[User:pebau|Peter Baumann]], [http://www.jacobs-university.de/lsis Jacobs University], OGC member, WCS.SWG chair, editor of 10+ specs (disclaimer: this is an expression of my personal opinion and not in any way endorsed by OGC)<br /> # [[User:pmbatty|Peter Batty]], CTO of Geospatial Division at [http://www.ubisense.net Ubisense], OSGeo board member, former CTO of [http://intergraph.com Intergraph] and [http://www.gedigitalenergy.com/gis.htm GE Smallworld], Technical Committee member of OGC in its formative years c 1995-97<br /> # [[User: BarendKobben | Barend K&amp;ouml;bben]], OSGEO Chartered Member, OSGeo.nl Dutch chapter treasurer, Senior Lecturer at [http://www.itc.nl ITC-University of Twente]<br /> # [[User: pcav | Paolo Cavallini]], [http://www.faunalia.it Faunalia], OSGeo member, GFOSS.it member and former president, QGIS-PSC<br /> # [[User: fthamura| FRans Thamura]], [http://www.osgeo.or.id Indonesia], OSGeo Indonesia, organizer]<br /> # [[User: Endofcap| Sanghee Shin]], Founder and CEO of [http://www.gaia3d.com Gaia3D], OSGeo Charter Member, Representative of [http://www.osgeo.kr OSGeo Korean Chapter], Chairman of Open Source GIS Alliance Korea<br /> # [[User: rentairo| Benni Purwonegoro]],Indonesia, IT-Spatial Engineer @ Geospatial Information Agency .<br /> # [[User: jachym| Jachym Cepicky]], Czech Republic, member of OSGeo Board of Directors<br /> # [[User: cappelaere| Pat Cappelaere]], Vightel Corporation<br /> # [[User: JuergenFischer|Jürgen Fischer]], norBIT GmbH, QGIS core developer<br /> # [[User: Maria|Maria Antonia Brovelli]], OSGeo Charter member, OSGeo Education member, GIS Professor and Vice Rector for the Como Campus at [http://www.polimi.it/en Politecnico di Milano], Italy<br /> # [[User:Nachouve |Nacho Varela]], GIS Consultant, OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter Member, Spain<br /> # [[User:vasile |Vasile Craciunescu]], OSGeo Charter member, OSGeo Romania Local Chapter Leader, Researcher at Romanian National Meteorological Administration, Romania<br /> # [[User:badaveil |Abbas Abdul Wahab]], Asst. Director, Federal Department of Town &amp; Country Planning, Peninsular Malaysia<br /> # [[User:rbraam | Roy Braam]], Software Engineer @ [http://www.b3partners.nl | B3Partners]<br /> # [[User:peteris | Peteris Bruns]], Latvia, GIS Consultant &amp; Software Engineer @ [http://www.sungis.lv | SunGIS]<br /> # [[User:Lutra | Giovanni Manghi]], Portugal, [http://www.faunalia.pt Faunalia], OSGeo member, OSGeo-Portugal<br /> # [[User:Hfpmartins | Hugo Martins]], UK, [http://www.lutraconsulting.co.uk Lutra Consulting], WebGIS Developer, OSGeo-Portugal Member<br /> # [[User:Sabb | Saber Razmjooei]], UK, [http://www.lutraconsulting.co.uk Lutra Consulting], Co-Founder<br /> # [[User:Wellsp | Peter Wells]], UK, [http://www.lutraconsulting.co.uk Lutra Consulting], Co-Founder<br /> # [[User:SGijzen | Sidney Gijzen]], The Netherlands, Researcher GIS @ [http://www.wageningenur.nl/en/Expertise-Services/Research-Institutes/alterra.htm Alterra, Wageningen UR]<br /> # [[User:mfidelman | Miles Fidelman]], US, Principal, Protocol Technologies Group, LLC<br /> # [[User:punkish | Puneet Kishor]], OSGeo Charter Member; [http://www.geology.wisc.edu Geology, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison]; [http://creativecommons.org/staff#puneetkishor Creative Commons]<br /> # [[User:Toze | António José Silva]], Portugal, GIS Consultant, OSGeo-Portugal Member<br /> # [[User:AndreMano | AndreMano]], Portugal, Natural History Society - GIS Department, OSGeo-Portugal Member<br /> # [[User:maurimiranda|Mauricio Miranda]], Argentina, OSGeo Charter Member, OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter Board Member<br /> # [[User:pmachado|Paulo Machado]], Portugal, Software Engineer @ PT Inovação<br /> # [[User:alvaro|Alvaro Anguix]], Spain, General Manager at [http://www.gvsig.com gvSIG Association]<br /> # [[Santiago Higuera]], CEO at [http://Mercatorlab.com Mercatorlab], OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter Board Member, Spain<br /> # [[Alan Boudreault]], Developer at [http://mapgears.com/ Mapgears], contributor to [http://mapserver.org Mapserver] and [httpo://gdal.org GDAL/OGR].<br /> # [[User:mikesaunt|Mike Saunt]], UK, Owner at [http://astuntechnology.com Astun Technology Ltd], OSGeo sponsor<br /> # [[User:msmitherdc|Michael Smith]], OSGeo Charter Member, Physical Scientist US Army Corps of Engineers Remote Sensing GIS Center<br /> # [[User:Kalxas|Angelos Tzotsos]], OSGeo Charter Member, Researcher at National Technical University of Athens<br /> # [[User:Kimaidou|Michaël Douchin]], France, GIS consultant &amp; software engineer at [http://3liz.com/ 3liz]<br /> # [[User:PedroVenancio | Pedro Venâncio]], Portugal, GIS Analyst @ Municipality of Pinhel<br /> # [[User:Jgrocha|Jorge Gustavo Rocha]], Portugal, GIS Professor at Universidade do Minho<br /> # [[User:Danielkastl| Daniel Kastl]], Japan, [http://georepublic.info Georepublic], Founder<br /> # [[Diodata|John Callahan]], US, Research Scientist and GIS/Remote Sensing Specialist, University of Delaware<br /> # [[User:kjkalyan|Kalyan Janakiraman]], Senior Systems Analyst, Business Development Services, NSW Land and Property Information, Sydney, Australia<br /> # [[User:goliadranger|Phillip Davis]], Director, National Geospatial Technology Center of Excellence, Texas, USA<br /> <br /> = Summary =<br /> <br /> ''Please don't edit this section - it is now locked to ensure editorial review. You may send comments to Cameron Shorter AT gmail .com''<br /> <br /> The document titled &quot;GeoServices REST API&quot; is currently, in May 2013, being considered to be included as one of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards. The vote to accept the document as a standard is unusually contentious; the controversy is the cause of this page.<br /> <br /> The document was previously released for public comment and can be found [http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/89 on the request for public comment page] (though public comment has been closed for now).<br /> <br /> The document attempts to standardize a suite of web services such as a service which provides map images, a service which provides geospatial feature data, and a service which performs geospatial processing. The standard focuses on interactions via a defined hierarchy of URLs and using predominantly a particular set of JSON schemas for the exchange of geospatial data.<br /> <br /> == Criticism and Response ==<br /> <br /> The adoption of the document as an OGC Standard is contentious for a wide variety of reasons including:<br /> <br /> * the process through which the document was developed which is thought to lack sufficient flexibility to respond to input from various stakeholders, <br /> * the focus of the document on 'REST' and 'API' which is seen as not matching the ideas others have for these concepts,<br /> * the names of the standard and of the services which are seen as potentially confusing, <br /> * the functionality of the new services which are considered to duplicate that of existing services already standardized by the OGC such as WMS, WFS, WCS, and WPS,<br /> * the addition of a new set of services based on new URL patterns and new JSON exchange formats which is seen as duplicating the efforts of other working groups bringing similar ideas to the updates of existing OGC services,<br /> * the re-introduction in the new services of previously resolved interoperability issues which is seen as failing to build on the existing knowledge and experience,<br /> * the use of the particular JSON schemas which are seen as having little industry acceptance and are incompatible with other widely used schemas, and <br /> * the lack of implementation diversity which is thought to give the vendor of the one complete implementation an unusual commercial advantage on top of the vendor's already dominant position in the domain. <br /> <br /> These issues have potential impacts on the use of 'Open Standards' by governments and companies, on the interoperability of software interacting with standards compliant OGC services, on the costs to developers and users of standards compliant software, on the understanding of 'Open Standards' by the public at large, and, possibly, on the reputation of the OGC as a champion of interoperability.<br /> <br /> In particular there are concerns by some that adoption of the standard will likely result in a combination of the following:<br /> # The cost to application developers, systems integrators, testers and sponsors to support all relevant OGC standards will be substantially increased.<br /> # Consequently, organisations and/or applications may choose to only support one standard, or only support one standard fully.<br /> # Sponsors (such as governments) who require compliance with OGC standards will discover that applications don't communicate together, due to applications supporting different OGC standards that essentially do the same thing.<br /> # This will result in a diminished importance of OGC, as the &quot;OGC standards&quot; stamp of approval will not equate interoperability.<br /> # After a while, in order to solve interoperability issues, a respected international organisation or program will likely take the initiative to mandate one standard as the preferred standard for all agencies to follow. To date, the OGC has provided this leadership.<br /> # One standard taking prominance over the other will likely lead to the other being neglected or deprecated, resulting in many OGC compliant systems becoming legacy systems in the process. This should be considered an undesirable outcome for a standards organisation.<br /> <br /> In response to these issues, the authors of the Geoservices REST API document have stated that:<br /> <br /> * the process of the OGC has been followed completely,<br /> * the specification actually is RESTful and does define an API,<br /> * the name, due to the controversy, may be open for modification<br /> * the OGC does not forbid duplication of service functionality, already has duplication between the W*S and the S*S (sensor) family of standards, should not block progress in the name of 'one true way', and harmonization between the services can be considered in the future,<br /> * the JSON format exists and functions, and<br /> * there are alternative implementations for some of these services.<br /> <br /> The authors also stress that the existence of a large user base shows the service is useful, and that the standardization of the services at the OGC may encourage new implementations.<br /> <br /> = Positions on the vote =<br /> ''Please don't edit this section - it is now locked to ensure editorial review. You may send comments to Cameron Shorter AT gmail .com''<br /> <br /> The discussion raises a number of issues, many based upon complex technical concepts and implications. This makes it difficult for voting OGC members considering whether to support &quot;Geoservices REST API&quot; as a standard. The following provides one analysis of the positions on the vote, aimed to simplify and summarize key points. However, it does not necessarily represent the opinions held by all signatories above.<br /> <br /> ; The pros for accepting the &quot;Geoservices REST API&quot; document as an OGC standard:<br /> <br /> :* The OGC should be in the business of developing good standards, not in choosing which standards should be implemented.<br /> :* The proposers of the document want to make a standard and have followed all the rules of the OGC. The work of any such group of members deserves serious, good faith consideration.<br /> :* The need for an integrated suite of services using simple data, which is addressed (partially) by the document, is real. The proposed document is pushing the OGC on this issue.<br /> :* The proposed document could be useful to a number of people.<br /> :* The proposed document is not significantly more broken than the existing standards of the OGC. As one author of standards [http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2013-May/011667.html notes]: <br /> :''&quot;I know how totally impossible it is to write a good standard, so the weaknesses in the existing document seem more acceptable.&quot;''<br /> <br /> ; The cons:<br /> <br /> :* The OGC actually is, whether it should be or not, in the position of recommending interoperable standards for geospatial services. The proposed document is not good enough, not widely enough implemented, and not publicly supported enough, to be considered at the same level as existing standards.<br /> :* Adopting a standard implies a desire to maintain the standard, but OGC's desire to support this approach has been questioned by some. In particular, the lack of collaboration and willingness to accept recommendations from the community on this version of the &quot;Geoservices REST API&quot; document bodes ill for the future.<br /> :* The overlap in functionality between the proposed services and the existing services, notably with the ongoing work to modularize the existing services, is almost 100 percent. However, compatibility is low.<br /> :* There is already a published document: http://www.esri.com/library/whitepapers/pdfs/geoservices-rest-spec.pdf so there is no need for the document to be adopted as an OGC Standard merely for interoperability with the ESRI implementation.<br /> :* The document, as a new, separate effort, repeats mistakes which were made and since solved by the other services.<br /> :* The document focuses on the past (notably with backwards compatibility and use of only GET/POST) not on the future.<br /> :* The document needs a comprehensive editorial review and substantial rewriting for clarity.<br /> <br /> ; A conclusion:<br /> <br /> Both simple answers are bad.<br /> <br /> A simple acceptance of the standard would introduce a new set of 'OGC approved' open services. The OGC approval might enable governments to buy a XXXX-new-name-here-XXXX solution instead of a W*S or a S*S solution. The path forwards towards harmonizing the services is unclear. Fixing this document in addition to fixing the W*S services will be a pain.<br /> <br /> Simply rejecting the solution would be bad for the OGC. It would place the OGC in the position of picking winners and losers in the standards business. It would mean that the OGC is stuck on the project of fixing the W*S standards to meet some nebulous future functionality without having any path to get there. It would discourage innovation and progress.<br /> <br /> Is there any third way?<br /> <br /> Well, actually, there is a different way of thinking of the issue. Overall, there appears to be a shared desire for an integrated suite of geospatial services, originally focused on a simple data model, built on the exchange of well defined resources in simple formats including JSON, accessible and usable using the core HTTP verbs, and discoverable through following HTML links and patterns of URL paths. The hope is that such a suite can be designed based on the best expertise of the OGC, can be widely supported by the community, and can be implemented and tested by multiple groups. Neither the proposed document, nor the current services meet this vision. So the work, ultimately, is on improving all the services at the OGC, first to modularize them, then to enable simple implementations, and finally to link those implementations into a functional suite. Since this is the work that is already happening, perhaps the vote is an unfortunate distraction and the productive way forward is merely to redouble the efforts to create the next versions of the standards.<br /> <br /> = Issues with the document =<br /> <br /> ''Please don't edit this section - it is now locked to ensure editorial review. You may send comments to Cameron Shorter AT gmail .com''<br /> <br /> Beyond the controversy described above, there are issues with the Geoservices REST API document itself. Even if the standard deserves support, these issues could be considered blockers to the adoption of the current, May 2013, document.<br /> <br /> The critique is incomplete because it quickly falls into a full editorial review of the text, something which takes a lot of time and effort and is beyond the scope and intent of this Open Letter.<br /> <br /> The critique can be found at: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Geoservices_REST_API_critique.<br /> <br /> Note that some of these critiques hold the document to OGC's current, standards writing guidelines. The OGC has been striving to develop better standards so new standards must meet higher requirements than past standards. The lack of clarity in the proposed document is not substantially worse than many published standards but ought to be resolved in new standards.<br /> <br /> = Further Concerns =<br /> --- DRAFT ____<br /> <br /> ''Please add concerns not addressed above as bullet points below. Where appropriate, link to external web pages (such as email achieves). Try to be concise, and try not to repeat concepts which have been covered above, (less words get read by more people). Points you have previously added, which are now covered above should be removed. Words that have been struck out will be removed by Tuesday 14 May.''<br /> <br /> == Political Concerns ==<br /> <br /> * &lt;strike&gt;Adopting the standard will expose the OGC to a strong suspicion of acting as a rubber stamp organization under ESRI weight, and will be detrimental to its recognized position as a reference organization for geospatial standards.&lt;/strike&gt;<br /> * &lt;strike&gt;It is a dubious practice that a standardization organisation promotes competing standards, without explicitely obsoleting (or at least recommending) some of them. How is a newcomer to the industry supposed to select the appropriate standard if several ones share the same scope : WFS or GeoServices REST API Feature Service, WMS or GeoServices REST API Map Service, etc. ?&lt;/strike&gt;<br /> <br /> == Commercial Concerns ==<br /> <br /> * &lt;strike&gt;Promoting standards from an existing implementation made by a single vendor leads to an obvious bias in competition.&lt;/strike&gt;<br /> * &lt;strike&gt;Supporting multiple overlapping standards greatly reduces usability while it increases complexity and cost of development and maintenance.&lt;/strike&gt;<br /> * &lt;strike&gt;Many SME's have invested in supporting existing OGC standards in their products. They will be forced to choose the standards they support (and can explain), resulting in decreased interoperability, confusion and frustration for clients.&lt;/strike&gt;<br /> * &lt;strike&gt;Confusing customers with new, overlapping OGC standards will lower the credibility of companies and of OGC, reducing business opportunities.&lt;/strike&gt;<br /> <br /> == Technical Concerns ==<br /> <br /> * &lt;strike&gt;The Geoservices REST API overlaps in large proportion with existing OGC standards such as WMS, WCS, WFS, WMTS, CSW, with no effort made to reconcile with those standards.&lt;/strike&gt;<br /> * The standardization of WKT for Spatial reference systems is unfortunately currently quite weak in OGC standards. Geoservices REST API is tied with ESRI's version of WKT, which is not properly specified in the Geoservices REST API documents, and is known to be incompatible with other OGC documents, which will lead to a larger confusion. See the following [http://lists.opengeospatial.org/pipermail/requests/2012-July/000166.html comment] for more details on this issue.<br /> * &lt;strike&gt;The Geoservices REST API is not particularly RESTful - it's a thinly disguised service call, not an address space for RESTful objects that can be operated on.&lt;/strike&gt;<br /> * At least as far as &quot;imagery&quot; is concerned, OGC standards arguably are substantially more mature, powerful, flexible, and modular then the ESRI &quot;Geoservice REST API&quot; Part 6 (and some design principles suggest that scalability may be hampered as well):<br /> ** data model:<br /> *** the ESRI &quot;Geoservice REST API&quot; appears constrained to 2-D imagery, plus optional time stamps. OGC has established a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverage_data unified coverage model] which fully supports n-D spatio-temporal data. It allows use and exchange of coverages between different services, such as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Coverage_Service WCS], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Coverage_Processing_Service WCPS], WPS, and SWE.<br /> *** OGC coverages support both regular and irregular grids; the ESRI &quot;Geoservice REST API&quot; supports only regular grids, more specifically: only rectified grids with quadrilateral pixels.<br /> *** the ESRI &quot;Geoservice REST API&quot; lacks support for temporal data; it only offers timestamps, measured in milliseconds; this is inconvenient for users and immediately excludes, e.g., geological dates. OGC has established uniform handling of horizontal, vertical, and temporal coordinate reference systems (CRSs), following a deep consensus process with GIS science and backwards compatible with EPSG. The ESRI &quot;Geoservice REST API&quot; specific way of handling coordinates is not known to support this, thereby excluding appropriate timeseries handling in remote sensing, air traffic, MetOcean, etc.<br /> *** OGC coverages provide a concise, versatile model for supporting different binary formats; the ESRI &quot;Geoservice REST API&quot; supports only very few selected 2-D formats, excluding, e.g., JPEG2000, NetCDF, HDF, etc.<br /> *** the ESRI &quot;Geoservice REST API&quot; lacks a clear model of their data structures, it can be deduced only implicitly from the operation mechanics.<br /> ** service model:<br /> *** The ESRI &quot;Geoservice REST API&quot; Part 6 lacks conciseness, thereby opening up ways for implementations that are not interoperable. For developers of alternative implementations this may mean they have to acquire ESRI licenses for finding out the intended behavior.<br /> *** Functionality in the ESRI &quot;Geoservice REST API&quot; appears randomly chosen, with no clear concept visible; this burdens implementers while still leaving holes of functionality. For example, this functionality appears restricted to mapping applications and does not easily extend into other domains.<br /> *** It has been said that the ESRI &quot;Geoservice REST API&quot; can be seen as a &quot;wrapper around OGC W*S&quot; services. This is not true for WCS (and WCPS), at least: the ESRI &quot;Geoservice REST API&quot; Part 6 is too poor in functionality and too different in mechanics to accomplish this.<br /> ** In summary, the ESRI &quot;Geoservice REST API&quot; Imaging part is at a technological level where WCS departed from some 5 years ago. Inconciseness of the specification at large will make it difficult for third parties to come up with interoperable implementations. The components making up the ESRI &quot;Geoservice REST API&quot; provide natural blocks assignable to the matching SWGs. As for Part 6 of the ESRI &quot;Geoservice REST API&quot;, if to become a standard it needs to be discussed in the WCS.SWG for harmonization, clarification, and improvement.<br /> <br /> == Methodological Concerns ==<br /> <br /> # Ten months after submitting, no public response (nor private to the authors of the comments) has been made to the various comments sent on the OGC Requests mailing list in [[http://lists.opengeospatial.org/pipermail/requests/2012-July/date.html July 2012]] and [[http://lists.opengeospatial.org/pipermail/requests/2012-August/date.html August 2012]] during the 30 day public comments period.<br /> # The Geoservices REST API can not be amended (other than editorial changes in the specification document), because of a requirement of backward compatibility with ESRI implementation. Consequently, the standard is unlikely to improve, or its evolution will be only lead by ESRI.<br /> # OGC standards normally require interoperability experiments and a richer process to ratify a standard such as this one. No explanation has been forthcoming as to why a simplified process is appropriate in this case.<br /> <br /> A response (from Adrian Custer):<br /> <br /> # The OGC is working to release those documents to the public as of 9 May 2013.<br /> # Work on the next version of the document can take any perspective acceptable to those working on the document. (The OGC has no method in place in case two groups want to evolve the document in two different directions.)<br /> # That is not true, the OGC does not require interoperability experiments or some &quot;richer process&quot; for the adoption of a standard; that may be desirable but is not required.<br /> <br /> = Further Reading =<br /> ''Please add links to referenced documents, related news stories or blog posts here.''<br /> * Call for comments on GeoServices REST API: http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/89<br /> * Email archive of OSGeo discussions about GeoServices REST API: http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2013-May/thread.html<br /> * Adrian Custer's summary of technical issues (and original source of some content in this letter): http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2013-May/011667.html<br /> * &quot;Is OGC Loosing its way?&quot;, letter to OGC Voters, from OGC Interoperability Movement Team Leaders, http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2013-May/011632.html<br /> <br /> [[Category: OGC]]<br /> [[Category: Standards]]</div>

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