OSGeo - User contributions [en]

FOSS4G 2009 Lessons Learned

2009-11-08T02:20:58Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* Computers */

''See also: [[FOSS4G2007_Lessons_Learned]] and [[FOSS4G2008_Lessons_Learned]]''

=Bidding=

* Find your local tourist bureau to help you bid. The [http://www.scvb.com.au/ Sydney Convention and Visitors Bureau] helped us significantly, providing all the statistics and photos you need to promote your city. It is boiler plate stuff for them.
* Plan ahead. FOSS4G moves around the world to give everyone a chance to attend locally.
** Bidding cities should take a long term strategy. If you don't win one year, keep submitting until you do.
** The bid committee should suggest regions they would like to move to in the near future which will encourage cities in that region to bid.
** Feedback to unsuccessful bids should include targeted feedback, including rankings, to help cities refine their bid.
** Cities should engage the local conference industry. They are likely to provide their services for free in order to secure the conference.
* Network locally. A large, diverse team is attractive to selectors.
* Be open in your bidding process. While it may allow competing cities to gain advantage, you will demonstrate your strength and openness to the OSGeo bid committee.
* Talk up your city and local involvement at FOSS4G the previous year. Tim Bowden talked up Sydney's intention to bid for 2009 at FOSS4G 2007 and no other city decided to bid for that year.

Reference: [http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com/2008/02/international-conference-delivered-to.html International Conference delivered to your doorstep] by Cameron Shorter

Commercial In Confidence Documentation:
* Open Source developers often expect that all FOSS4G documentation will be Open. Unfortunately, the Professional Conference Organisor (PCO) industry seems to protect all their processes and documentation very closely. Consider this when dealing with them. Request up front for documentation to be made available publicly. Some documents, like Bid Proposals will probably remain Commercial In Confidence, and you need to ensure participants are aware of this.

= Contract =
* Make sure that all documents created by the PCO (logos, sponsorship documents etc) are provided to you in source format. You will almost certainly want to update them later based on feedback, and you want don't want to have to pay a designer to make a simple tweak. We had a designer create a beautiful sponsorship prospectus (provided as pdf), but sometime simple and easy for us to change would have been cheaper and easier to change.

=PCO Selection=
* Select your Professional Conference Organisor (PCO) earlier rather than later, preferably before you put your proposal in. The PCO should help you put your budget together, and if they put the budget together for the bid, they should be well advanced when you win.
* Instead of using a PCO, consider using a non-profit organisation like [http://gita.org.au/ GITA] or [http://www.spatialsciences.org.au/ SSI]. These organisations often have expertise in organising spatial conferences, have contacts in the spatial industry, and are not out to make a profit from your conference. We naively expected our PCO to convert our potential sponsors list into sponsors, but almost all sponsors needed to be invited by a member of the Organising Committee.

==Technically Savy==
Our PCO required training to become familiar with Geek communication practices. In particular, the PCO preferred telephone conferences over email lists, wikis and IRC and was unfamiliar with email voting. This required training and negotiation with the PCO.

Lesson:
* Ensure PCOs have realistic expectations regarding our communication habits up front by describing them in our PCO tender documents. In PCO selection, include familiarity with email lists, wikis as one of the selection criteria.

==Conflicts of Interest==
Our PCO offered provided many of the conference services in house. This provides a financial incentive for the PCO to upsell services (like a professionally produced Prospectus which we couldn't edit later without being charged extra), and being over charged for items - eg. We were charged for communication which included the use of email.

Lesson:
* The PCO should not get to provide services for line items in the budget.

=Decision making=
* Collaborative decision making is good, but make sure each committee has a chair-person with the mandate and authority to make decisions on behalf of the committee. (The chairperson should consult the committee and aggregate comments). This should make the committee significantly more effective.

=Sponsorship=
* Make sure you have access to, and can edit the source format of the prospectus. We found we needed to pay our PCO every time we needed to tweak our prospectus, and FOSS4G has no shortage of competent geeks who can do most things.
* Make sure you distinguish between the different sponsorship levels. If a sponsor pays more, then should get more. Development companies will likely want a keynote presentation slot.
One potential sponsor wrote:
> We've been discussing sponsorships options, but can't really identify any significant
> advantages that justify the difference in price between the gold, silver and bronze
> sponsorships. Could one of you explain in more detail OUR benefits/advantages of
> chosing one of these options as opposed to an other, e.g. gold vs. silver or silver
> vs. bronze?
* Possible Marketable benefits:
** Guaranteed presentation slot (for Gold or above)
** Plenary lightening talk (only if the company has something really useful to say)
** First dibs on session chair slots (platinum get the plenary session chair slots). Sponsor can project their slide as people file in, and while doing their first introduction. Also get an opportunity to introduce yourself and your company, and maybe advertise a presentation you will be giving later.
** Logo on website and in conference book (for all sponsors)
** Access to list of attendees (without emails) to all delegates
** Access to all delegates who tick "allow my email details to be shared with sponsors" box on registration form. Silver sponsor and above.
* We used a password protected Google Docs speadsheet to manage the list of potential sponsors. This worked particularly well and I encourage others to do the same.
* As host/funder/coordinator of the event, treat OSGeo similar to a primary sponsor - due to all rights, privileges and opportunities that other sponsors receive. This does not mean calling OSGeo a sponsor, but remembering to make sure logos are well represented and that booth space, keynotes, and other promotional benefits are included. Liaison with OSGeo Marketing or directly with Tyler or the Board.

= Contra deals =
* We set up contra deals with the Australian Computer Society and the Spatial Sciences Institute, offering a 5% discount to members and sharing a stand at the conference, in return for publicity. Afterwards, we hardly got any members make use of this discount. This implies that the marketing from these organisations was not as effective as other channels.
* Recommendation: where possible, tie conference benefits (especially ones that cost the conference like a stand) to the contra deal sponsor. Ie, if the sponsor is able to attract X delegates, they will get a free stand at the conference.

=Venue booking & Conference dates=
* During proposal development, the bid team selected two venues for the conference:
** The University of NSW
*** Pro: Has accademic ties
*** Pro: Has cheap university accommodation for 500 near by (share bathrooms)
*** Pro: 10 mins bus to beach
*** Pro: Cheaper, by ~ $50/delegate
*** Con: High end accommodation is 20 mins by bus (in city)
*** Con: Would need to bus delegates to the city harbour for an impressive dinner
** Sydney Convention and Exhibition Center
*** Pro: Professional, classy center
*** Pro: Right on harbor, so easy to ship delegates to dinner location is style
*** Pro: Wide range of accommodation near by.
* We postponed venue selection till after we won the bid, and consequently SCEC did not hold our preferred date for us.
* Despite the initial analysis of the dates to be avoided (e.g. due to conflict with cultural or religious holidays, other conferences, etc.), As of early September 2008 we had still not booked a venue and it appeared that the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Center (SCEC) was only available on dates that overlapped with the USA thanksgiving weekend (which is in late November). We were able to salvage the situation by booking the SCEC for dates in October rather than November, however the availability was limited, and restricted our options.

ALBERT Kelly wrote:
> Hey guys,
>
> I know I've mentioned that the end of September is a killer time to get US Gov't
> people to come to a conference because their Funding year ends on 30 Sep. So, thank you for not
> putting the conference on the last week of Sep!!!

Lessons:
* Ensure that an early decision is made regarding the Venue, and the dates. If a venue can be booked for 'the entire week', the fine tuning of the actual days and rooms required can be done later, but being able to know 'the week' allows for marketing of the event, such as at the prior year's FOSS4G conference.
* In terms of communication the critical nature of the date should have been better communicated by the Organising Committee to the PCO.
* When considering cost/delegate, be mindful that international delegates will likely be paying thousands of dollars on travel, accommodation and lost income. $50 price difference in the conference will not effect them much. (It will effect local delegates more).
* Pick a date that doesn't conflict with national holidays of key markets.
* Find out when related national and international conferences are being held and make sure you don't clash. FOSS4G 2008 was on at the same time as Europe's biggest Geospatial fair, Intergeo. Here are this list of conferences we watched for 2009: [[FOSS4G_2009_Marketing_Plan#Related_Conferences]].
* Be aware that PCOs can reduce costs substantially by adjusting the number of rooms used, or using rooms off site for workshops or code sprints.
* Some venues may have higher public liability insurance requirements than others - this will affect '''exhibitors requiring insurance''' and potentially require a substantial increase in exhibitors costs if they do not already have massive coverage (e.g. one quote in 2009 was for around $700 for the 4 day show) and increases the barrier for attracting exhibitors. It was also a bit of a surprise for at least one exhibitor - and should be clear up front or at least as a warning.
** 2009 event exhibitors, at the SCEC venue, required proof of $10 million public liability coverage '''to be allowed to exhibit'''. A 3rd party company was referred to for exhibitors that needed help but a tighter relationship would have helped earlier on, especially since many exhibitors are 'small'. (Tyler looked into getting coverage from several Canadian brokers and was unable to do so for that high of coverage.)

=Facilities=
OSGeo attendees want access to local facilities and these should be researched before hand, and details provided on the website.

For some things, like printing and CD burning, it helps to set up an account with a trusted local source (as was done for FOSS4G 2008). See [[FOSS4G_2008_Media_Facilities]].

Attendees want:
* CD/DVD printing
* Paper printing (for workshops)
* hire of general IT services, computers, projectors, etc.
* An address to ship materials/equipment to ahead of time.

=Internet=
* Internet was one of our success stories, and one that we were worried about after hearing lessons from the last two years where delegates overloaded the wireless internet.
* AARNET, the internet provider for Australian Academic institutions provided very fat internet pipe into the Conference Centre for free (as we were an Open Source conference).
* Steve Walsh, a Systems Administrator who also helps set up Linux Australia conferences set up the internet for us and negotiated getting the internet into both the Conference Centre and UTS for the code sprint.
* We had a number of comments from delegates who were very impressed with the speed of the network.
* Steve: Can you please fill in some of the technical details here.

=Website=
Note that some of the issues related to the website for 2009 will likely not be an issue for 2010 and beyond, because the OSGeo Conference Committee will provide the 'basic infrastructure'(e.g. DNS setup, webserver setup) for the website to the local organizing committee for 2010 and beyond. Though, a decent conference system software needs to be chosen which supports on site management of sessions (like the free [http://cdsware.cern.ch/indico/ Indico] which was successfully used for [http://www.foss4g2006.org www.foss4g2006.org]).

Lessons:
* We have spent considerable time communicating/deciding the URL - if the format of the conference URL is not standard (i.e. http://20xx.foss4g/) then make a decision early.
* If a PCO is being used and they are supplying the website then liaise as early as possible with their technical contact and set out expectations on what the site should be (and not be i.e. .ASP)
* Provide whomever is doing the website with as much reference material as possible - if they are a PCO they will not know anything about FOSS4G therefore they are at an immediate disadvantage when it comes to creating content for the website

=Budget=
# Get your budget agreed to before you sign a contract with the PCO. We found items in the budget, like accommodation for the local PCO attendees that caused us friction. It would have been better to have these sorted out before the contract was signed.
# Similar to above, make room to discuss/identify OSGeo administrative requirements early on. E.g. free booth space, how many full conference passes needed for OSGeo, and special venue requirements (eg meeting rooms). Few allowances were made in 2009 budget to accommodate the hosts needs (needs were not identified by OSGeo either until too late).

=Marketing=
==Target money==
* Sponsors want to know that they will make money by sponsoring the conference. Source speakers from big spending programs to talk. These will attract delegates interested in those programs and sponsors who want to get work from these programs.
* Feedback we got from sponsors was "We thought FOSS4G was just going to be a techie conference and wouldn't lead to sales". You need to push the Business side of FOSS4G too. Push Business Case Studies, Integration into Spatial Data Infrastructure, Spatial Government, etc.
==Press Releases==
See our press releases at: [[FOSS4G_2009_Press_Releases]], also [FOSS4G_2009_Press_Release_Process]].

Keep press releases concise. The more that is written, the less it is read. Our early press releases were too long and feedback was that people were not reading to the end of it. Keep the long winded explanation to the website.

==Press release pipeline==
On advise from 2007, as per [[FOSS4G2007_Lessons_Learned#Use_Proxies]], we built up a press release pipeline, making heavy use of Community Leaders to forward the FOSS4G press release, with a paragraph or two introduction, to their communities. Reason for using community leaders is that emails are much more likely to be read if it comes from someone you know and trust. This proved to be very effective, with Google Analytics showing that referals to our website came from a very large area from community leaders.

We built a spreadsheet of community leaders, including name, email address, and email list or publication they were a leader in. The list can be accessed by Cameron Shorter or Tyler Michel from here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pu9014gybzrd1M6FqyOzGWg&hl=en_GB . Talk to either of them if you need access for future FOSS4G conferences.

# Lesson: Build this list early.
# Lesson: Ask community leaders to CC you on emails they send out, so that you get feedback on which communities are being reached, and whether you need to find a new leader for a particular area. Assign someone to follow up to determine if the emails are going out.
# Lesson: Ask community leaders to add a personal message (see example cover emails from the Press Releases).
# Lesson: Select a schedule for press releases a publish it before hand. This helps magazines and Linked In owners to plan their releases to help you.
# Lesson: Don't send press releases just before a public holiday. We sent a release two days before Easter, and found many respondents were on leave. When they return, they will have a pile of email to attend to and your press release will likely be deleted.

== Email Lists ==
We obtained a spam list of foss4g potential delegates from previous events, which we added to with a number of local lists we found. This was copied into foss4g-2009-announce email list. In retrospect, we should have had two lists, one spam list for potential delegates that you only want to hit with major announcements to encourage the people to register. And then a second announcement list that people self subscribe to which you can email more regularly with gossip, buzz, and ideas for how people can further get involved in foss4g.

We also had: foss4g-2009-private, for discussing sensitive (financial) matters amongst the organising committee, and foss4g-2009 for all other organisational stuff.

==Translations==
We had community volunteers translate the website and press releases. The theory is that local translations will reach into local communities and demonstrates the international roots of the conference. Examples: http://2009.foss4g.org and http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_Press_Release_7_Translations . A list of translators is also available at: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pu9014gybzrd1M6FqyOzGWg&hl=en_GB

=Tutorials=
* See http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G2008_Lessons_Learned#Laptop_Based_Workshops
* Many tutorials were overbooked, with people spilling out the door outside the room. (I wonder whether this was because tutorials were free, but contained much of the same content as workshops).
* We had water jugs and glasses on the table. With a crowded room, people were nervous taking their computers out when there is water on the desk.
* One of the tutorials was run from a Virtual Machine. Unfortunately, 1/3 of the computers in the room didn't have enough RAM to run the virtual machine.

=Workshops=

==Submissions==
* Provide a range of options for user level (Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced) and category (User, Developer) and provide '''strict definitions''' of what these terms mean. Use examples.
* Read previous [[FOSS4G2007_Lessons_Learned#Format_of_the_Call lessons learned]] so you don't have to learn all this yourself.
* Having people fill out document templates and submit worked, but was a pain to juggle. A web form would be much easier, would eliminate some of the stylistic issues that I will need to sort out before getting things into the program and can enforce the word limits and the use of the correct template.
* 100 words may be enough for a single instructor biography, but it's entirely insufficient when there are several. We had one submission that hit 500 for three instructors, and it would have been great to print that.
* We put word limits on everything that would be published, and some things that wouldn't (such as Instructor Experience that was only used for assessment). We should have indicated explicitly what was for publication and what was strictly evaluation. No word limits need to be imposed on the evaluation only, but then you'll have to read it.
* Having a separate submission path for tutorials than workshops allowed specific information to be captured for each. It likely cost us tutorial submissions where simply having a ''Workshop'', ''Tutorial'', ''Both'' selection would have made it trivial to submit both.
* A number of people didn't realise there were templates for submitting workshop and tutorial details. The web form would solve this, and I don't really know how to make it clearer within the OCS system. Ideally a submission wouldn't be able to move further until a document was uploaded. Two submissions failed due to not submitting the doc.
* Review the submissions early. I saved a couple of people by pointing out that the files they uploaded were not the correct templates, or they hadn't provided anything at all.
* Review often too. In the final week, when most submissions arrived, I reviewed as soon as I received notice of a submission. Then I could get after them while they still had it on their minds.

There's a hard lesson I've learned, and I'm still not sure how it should be handled differently. We have a tradition of open selection of stuff. Workshops have always been less open, but we still involve community input. What I've found this year is that the only people offering this input were those with workshops or tutorials in. This means that the more people in your org that volunteer to review the higher your chance of getting in. To some extent this is fine. I think at worst we had three from one org, out of eleven, and one didn't complete his input. But in the end we lost some great presentations because they weren't there pushing for them. One in particular fit with the goals of the conference perfectly but wasn't selected because of the advanced content. Somebody else got their advanced content in instead, though I don't recall who. It was part of the recommendation to weight for beginner themes.

If I were to do this again, I think I might try the following. First, I wouldn't submit anything myself. I did have concerns over perceived conflict of interest, which was one big reason I pushed for the community selection. Second, I would refine the selection criteria much more than I did this year. Make sure it made it into the press release, was published on the wiki and on the submission form. I would then perform the selection myself. IIRC, the original reason for community involvement in the selection was not to be inclusive, warm and fuzzy, it's because it's a hell of a lot of work. Workshops are doable by a single person, especially once the selection criteria are explicit. Frankly, those that are interested in helping with this sort of work are generally not our target audience anyway. Presentations are different. They're closer to the event for one. We're more organised by then. And there's simply too many for one person, or even a small group, to handle in isolation with any kind of efficiency. I wouldn't expect this to go well with the community. It defies convention. In my case at least, simply not submitting my own workshop wouldn't really eliminate the spectre of conflict as others in my org had submissions in. I'm not completely convinced this is the correct solution, but it's what I've come up with.

==Setup==

* Get lists of software needed by presenters early. I started asking two weeks before I needed to set them up, and everyone managed to work out dependencies among themselves quite well, but I would have loved to have time to do a test install to eliminate collisions in the registry.
* Make sure you get access to machines the day before workshops. That day was attended by all but two workshop presenters (those presenting using live dvds) and solved many problems.
* Getting things printed was not difficult, but half the workshops chose not to provide printed material. This makes alot of sense, provided materials can be provided for download. Having a handful of cd's to hand out would have gone a long way as well.

==General==

* Of 401 conference delegates we had 188 workshop registrations; more workshops would have been appropriate.
* One bit of feedback I heard a lot of during the conference is that people would like to have been able to attend more workshops.
* Our market is fairly immature, but more workshops over more days would have gone over very well.

= WMS Shootout =
The WMS Shootout is a presentation comparing different WMS (and WFS?) implementations.
* It was proposed as a Abstract, and was ranked by the community as the most popular presentation, and so was moved to the closing plenary session (in front of everyone, instead of within one of the steams).
* While the Shootout was mentioned in early marketing, hoping that it would indeed be presented again in 2009, it would have been better to plan for the Shootout much earlier. Ideally this should become a permanent fixture of FOSS4G events, with a carry over of experience from year to year. This will allow it to be included more prominently in early FOSS4G marketing material as a FOSS4G drawcard. It can also be slotted into the program right from the start.

= Abstract Selection =
* Make it a criteria of Abstract Submission that submitters accept a license to have their slides from the presentation, and a video of their presentation made available via Creative Commons. (It is messy to have to collect this afterwards).
* The Abstract submission form supported only one presenter, but sometimes there's more than one presenter. Make it possible to submit detailed information about several authors.
* Save the date when presentation was submitted. (It is useful to see when abstracts are being submitted.)
* It would have been useful to profile reviewers, so that we could weight reviewers against expected attendees. In particular, I would have liked to collect:
# Geographic Location.
# Sector: Development, Academic, Government, Utilities, Private, other
# Position: Developer, User, Manager, CIO, Decision Maker
* It would have been useful to have a "Comments" field for reviewers to add comments as to why someone was or was not reviewed high/low.
* In reviewing abstracts from our community, some abstracts received 40 votes for just their abstract. This may have been encouraged by our press release, which encouraged abstracts authors to get their friends to vote for their abstracts. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_Press_Release_17. Lesson is that we should encourage people to promote the conference, but not vote for just one abstract. We should also check the votes to verify people are not rigging the voting.
* Having the community rank the abstracts was very successful. We did not get anyone challenging our selection choice, which was an issue in previous years. It also made it much easier for the abstract selection committee, as we had so many good abstracts to choose from.

= Recommendations to Abstract Authors =
* The following advice should be provided to abstract authors
** Mention key themes of the conference and how your abstract is addressing them. Some 2009 abstracts did not mention Open Source or Open Standards.
** Describing "vapour-ware", an idea that you would like to implement is not very compelling. Presentations should focus on specific technologies that already exist, or how you have used these technologies.
** If presenting case studies, make sure you include "the positives and negatives encountered in your approach".
** Be specific about what you will be talking about. "I will be talking about how Open Source can be deployed on Proprietary" is not enough for a reviewer to determine what will be talked about.
* Comparison presentations were ranked very highly. Eg: "WMS Shootout", "Comparison between PostGIS, Oracle Spatial and MySQL".

= Schedule =
* Make sure you have backup presenters. We had (Harley to confirm) over 10 speakers drop out before the conference.
* Make sure you have back up presenters for keynotes and lightening talks. (These will likely be one of your other presenters).
* Tell each presenter what time they are presenting. Through mis-communication one of our keynotes got the day wrong, and we had to do last minute juggling to the program to fit him in.
* Make sure all speakers, tutorial presenters and workshop presenters have registered for the conference. We discovered at the last minute that some of the tutorial presenters were not registered.
* When collecting personal details from presenters, ensure to collect an email address or similar which can be linked back to the registration list so you can cross check registrations. We had to do this manually, which was difficult.
* One (Government Manager) wished to see an overview presentation at the start of the conference, so that he could decide which presentations should be viewed through the rest of the conference. This could be a very compelling, plenary presentation: "FOSS4G themes in a nutshell".
== Birds of a Feather ==
* We had one official "Birds of a Feather" session on Thursday afternoon. We had a wiki page for people to sign up for the Birds of a Feather before hand, but this wasn't used much. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_BirdsOfAFeather
* We also had sign up sheets at the OSGeo stand, and that was used. We had many people wanting to go to a number of the sessions, and a couple of sessions were moved to different timeslots.
* The description "Birds of a Feather" was not understood by many people and they needed to have the term explained to them. This is an issue for people looking at the program before hand and wanting to determine whether they should come to the session or not. Maybe use "Interest Groups" instead.
* I, Cameron Shorter, organised 5 meetings of like minded people over dinner, breakfast and during the code sprint. (Meetings around Defence, Water, SDI implementers, GeoSpatial Businesses, OSGeo Marketing). I had the advantage of having access to the registration list, and hence could invite people individually. Even so, my skim over the lists was rushed and I'm sure I missed half the people who should have been at these gatherings. These meetings were very successful, with almost everyone invited attending, and I had many thank me for inviting them and noting that they found the meetings very valuable. So lessons for next year:
** Provide a list of local restaurants beforehand, and invite delegates to set up "Interest Group" meetings at these restaurants for breakfast and dinner during the conference.
** Someone with access to the delegate list should go through and email delegates individually and suggest meetings they may be interested in. (I used email domain names and my personal knowledge of delegate affiliations to identify likely interest). Someone also suggested that we could do some smart analysis of how people vote for abstracts. Alternatively, we could ask delegates to tick areas of interest when the register.
** Note that the size of the group effects its effectiveness. A group of 8 allows people to talk with each other. If you have a group of 20, then you will want to give people a chance to move around. (For a dinner group of 25, we had people mingle while having drinks before dinner, then invited delegates to change seats between dinner and desert).
== Installfest ==

=Tools=

== Google Analytics ==

We are successfully using google analytics to monitor the foss4g website traffic. Using the geographic breakup of the traffic we can understand which regions of the world require more aggressive marketing.

We created a generic gmail account for foss4g@gmail.com. This was done by Shoaib Burq and the password was shared with other committee members.

On 1st of March we had been using Google Analytics for about 2 weeks during which period only 2 hits to the site were from China.

We are looking to ramp up the Asian marketing.

== Google Docs ==

Google docs proved to be quite successful for collaborative editing of documents and for creating draft conference time tables

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Lessons Learned

2009-11-08T01:45:10Z

Wiki-Mleslie: Adding some sub-headings

''See also: [[FOSS4G2007_Lessons_Learned]] and [[FOSS4G2008_Lessons_Learned]]''

=Bidding=

* Find your local tourist bureau to help you bid. The [http://www.scvb.com.au/ Sydney Convention and Visitors Bureau] helped us significantly, providing all the statistics and photos you need to promote your city. It is boiler plate stuff for them.
* Plan ahead. FOSS4G moves around the world to give everyone a chance to attend locally.
** Bidding cities should take a long term strategy. If you don't win one year, keep submitting until you do.
** The bid committee should suggest regions they would like to move to in the near future which will encourage cities in that region to bid.
** Feedback to unsuccessful bids should include targeted feedback, including rankings, to help cities refine their bid.
** Cities should engage the local conference industry. They are likely to provide their services for free in order to secure the conference.
* Network locally. A large, diverse team is attractive to selectors.
* Be open in your bidding process. While it may allow competing cities to gain advantage, you will demonstrate your strength and openness to the OSGeo bid committee.
* Talk up your city and local involvement at FOSS4G the previous year. Tim Bowden talked up Sydney's intention to bid for 2009 at FOSS4G 2007 and no other city decided to bid for that year.

Reference: [http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com/2008/02/international-conference-delivered-to.html International Conference delivered to your doorstep] by Cameron Shorter

Commercial In Confidence Documentation:
* Open Source developers often expect that all FOSS4G documentation will be Open. Unfortunately, the Professional Conference Organisor (PCO) industry seems to protect all their processes and documentation very closely. Consider this when dealing with them. Request up front for documentation to be made available publicly. Some documents, like Bid Proposals will probably remain Commercial In Confidence, and you need to ensure participants are aware of this.

= Contract =
* Make sure that all documents created by the PCO (logos, sponsorship documents etc) are provided to you in source format. You will almost certainly want to update them later based on feedback, and you want don't want to have to pay a designer to make a simple tweak. We had a designer create a beautiful sponsorship prospectus (provided as pdf), but sometime simple and easy for us to change would have been cheaper and easier to change.

=PCO Selection=
* Select your Professional Conference Organisor (PCO) earlier rather than later, preferably before you put your proposal in. The PCO should help you put your budget together, and if they put the budget together for the bid, they should be well advanced when you win.
* Instead of using a PCO, consider using a non-profit organisation like [http://gita.org.au/ GITA] or [http://www.spatialsciences.org.au/ SSI]. These organisations often have expertise in organising spatial conferences, have contacts in the spatial industry, and are not out to make a profit from your conference. We naively expected our PCO to convert our potential sponsors list into sponsors, but almost all sponsors needed to be invited by a member of the Organising Committee.

==Technically Savy==
Our PCO required training to become familiar with Geek communication practices. In particular, the PCO preferred telephone conferences over email lists, wikis and IRC and was unfamiliar with email voting. This required training and negotiation with the PCO.

Lesson:
* Ensure PCOs have realistic expectations regarding our communication habits up front by describing them in our PCO tender documents. In PCO selection, include familiarity with email lists, wikis as one of the selection criteria.

==Conflicts of Interest==
Our PCO offered provided many of the conference services in house. This provides a financial incentive for the PCO to upsell services (like a professionally produced Prospectus which we couldn't edit later without being charged extra), and being over charged for items - eg. We were charged for communication which included the use of email.

Lesson:
* The PCO should not get to provide services for line items in the budget.

=Decision making=
* Collaborative decision making is good, but make sure each committee has a chair-person with the mandate and authority to make decisions on behalf of the committee. (The chairperson should consult the committee and aggregate comments). This should make the committee significantly more effective.

=Sponsorship=
* Make sure you have access to, and can edit the source format of the prospectus. We found we needed to pay our PCO every time we needed to tweak our prospectus, and FOSS4G has no shortage of competent geeks who can do most things.
* Make sure you distinguish between the different sponsorship levels. If a sponsor pays more, then should get more. Development companies will likely want a keynote presentation slot.
One potential sponsor wrote:
> We've been discussing sponsorships options, but can't really identify any significant
> advantages that justify the difference in price between the gold, silver and bronze
> sponsorships. Could one of you explain in more detail OUR benefits/advantages of
> chosing one of these options as opposed to an other, e.g. gold vs. silver or silver
> vs. bronze?
* Possible Marketable benefits:
** Guaranteed presentation slot (for Gold or above)
** Plenary lightening talk (only if the company has something really useful to say)
** First dibs on session chair slots (platinum get the plenary session chair slots). Sponsor can project their slide as people file in, and while doing their first introduction. Also get an opportunity to introduce yourself and your company, and maybe advertise a presentation you will be giving later.
** Logo on website and in conference book (for all sponsors)
** Access to list of attendees (without emails) to all delegates
** Access to all delegates who tick "allow my email details to be shared with sponsors" box on registration form. Silver sponsor and above.
* We used a password protected Google Docs speadsheet to manage the list of potential sponsors. This worked particularly well and I encourage others to do the same.
* As host/funder/coordinator of the event, treat OSGeo similar to a primary sponsor - due to all rights, privileges and opportunities that other sponsors receive. This does not mean calling OSGeo a sponsor, but remembering to make sure logos are well represented and that booth space, keynotes, and other promotional benefits are included. Liaison with OSGeo Marketing or directly with Tyler or the Board.

= Contra deals =
* We set up contra deals with the Australian Computer Society and the Spatial Sciences Institute, offering a 5% discount to members and sharing a stand at the conference, in return for publicity. Afterwards, we hardly got any members make use of this discount. This implies that the marketing from these organisations was not as effective as other channels.
* Recommendation: where possible, tie conference benefits (especially ones that cost the conference like a stand) to the contra deal sponsor. Ie, if the sponsor is able to attract X delegates, they will get a free stand at the conference.

=Venue booking & Conference dates=
* During proposal development, the bid team selected two venues for the conference:
** The University of NSW
*** Pro: Has accademic ties
*** Pro: Has cheap university accommodation for 500 near by (share bathrooms)
*** Pro: 10 mins bus to beach
*** Pro: Cheaper, by ~ $50/delegate
*** Con: High end accommodation is 20 mins by bus (in city)
*** Con: Would need to bus delegates to the city harbour for an impressive dinner
** Sydney Convention and Exhibition Center
*** Pro: Professional, classy center
*** Pro: Right on harbor, so easy to ship delegates to dinner location is style
*** Pro: Wide range of accommodation near by.
* We postponed venue selection till after we won the bid, and consequently SCEC did not hold our preferred date for us.
* Despite the initial analysis of the dates to be avoided (e.g. due to conflict with cultural or religious holidays, other conferences, etc.), As of early September 2008 we had still not booked a venue and it appeared that the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Center (SCEC) was only available on dates that overlapped with the USA thanksgiving weekend (which is in late November). We were able to salvage the situation by booking the SCEC for dates in October rather than November, however the availability was limited, and restricted our options.

ALBERT Kelly wrote:
> Hey guys,
>
> I know I've mentioned that the end of September is a killer time to get US Gov't
> people to come to a conference because their Funding year ends on 30 Sep. So, thank you for not
> putting the conference on the last week of Sep!!!

Lessons:
* Ensure that an early decision is made regarding the Venue, and the dates. If a venue can be booked for 'the entire week', the fine tuning of the actual days and rooms required can be done later, but being able to know 'the week' allows for marketing of the event, such as at the prior year's FOSS4G conference.
* In terms of communication the critical nature of the date should have been better communicated by the Organising Committee to the PCO.
* When considering cost/delegate, be mindful that international delegates will likely be paying thousands of dollars on travel, accommodation and lost income. $50 price difference in the conference will not effect them much. (It will effect local delegates more).
* Pick a date that doesn't conflict with national holidays of key markets.
* Find out when related national and international conferences are being held and make sure you don't clash. FOSS4G 2008 was on at the same time as Europe's biggest Geospatial fair, Intergeo. Here are this list of conferences we watched for 2009: [[FOSS4G_2009_Marketing_Plan#Related_Conferences]].
* Be aware that PCOs can reduce costs substantially by adjusting the number of rooms used, or using rooms off site for workshops or code sprints.
* Some venues may have higher public liability insurance requirements than others - this will affect '''exhibitors requiring insurance''' and potentially require a substantial increase in exhibitors costs if they do not already have massive coverage (e.g. one quote in 2009 was for around $700 for the 4 day show) and increases the barrier for attracting exhibitors. It was also a bit of a surprise for at least one exhibitor - and should be clear up front or at least as a warning.
** 2009 event exhibitors, at the SCEC venue, required proof of $10 million public liability coverage '''to be allowed to exhibit'''. A 3rd party company was referred to for exhibitors that needed help but a tighter relationship would have helped earlier on, especially since many exhibitors are 'small'. (Tyler looked into getting coverage from several Canadian brokers and was unable to do so for that high of coverage.)

=Facilities=
OSGeo attendees want access to local facilities and these should be researched before hand, and details provided on the website.

For some things, like printing and CD burning, it helps to set up an account with a trusted local source (as was done for FOSS4G 2008). See [[FOSS4G_2008_Media_Facilities]].

Attendees want:
* CD/DVD printing
* Paper printing (for workshops)
* hire of general IT services, computers, projectors, etc.
* An address to ship materials/equipment to ahead of time.

=Internet=
* Internet was one of our success stories, and one that we were worried about after hearing lessons from the last two years where delegates overloaded the wireless internet.
* AARNET, the internet provider for Australian Academic institutions provided very fat internet pipe into the Conference Centre for free (as we were an Open Source conference).
* Steve Walsh, a Systems Administrator who also helps set up Linux Australia conferences set up the internet for us and negotiated getting the internet into both the Conference Centre and UTS for the code sprint.
* We had a number of comments from delegates who were very impressed with the speed of the network.
* Steve: Can you please fill in some of the technical details here.

=Website=
Note that some of the issues related to the website for 2009 will likely not be an issue for 2010 and beyond, because the OSGeo Conference Committee will provide the 'basic infrastructure'(e.g. DNS setup, webserver setup) for the website to the local organizing committee for 2010 and beyond. Though, a decent conference system software needs to be chosen which supports on site management of sessions (like the free [http://cdsware.cern.ch/indico/ Indico] which was successfully used for [http://www.foss4g2006.org www.foss4g2006.org]).

Lessons:
* We have spent considerable time communicating/deciding the URL - if the format of the conference URL is not standard (i.e. http://20xx.foss4g/) then make a decision early.
* If a PCO is being used and they are supplying the website then liaise as early as possible with their technical contact and set out expectations on what the site should be (and not be i.e. .ASP)
* Provide whomever is doing the website with as much reference material as possible - if they are a PCO they will not know anything about FOSS4G therefore they are at an immediate disadvantage when it comes to creating content for the website

=Budget=
# Get your budget agreed to before you sign a contract with the PCO. We found items in the budget, like accommodation for the local PCO attendees that caused us friction. It would have been better to have these sorted out before the contract was signed.
# Similar to above, make room to discuss/identify OSGeo administrative requirements early on. E.g. free booth space, how many full conference passes needed for OSGeo, and special venue requirements (eg meeting rooms). Few allowances were made in 2009 budget to accommodate the hosts needs (needs were not identified by OSGeo either until too late).

=Marketing=
==Target money==
* Sponsors want to know that they will make money by sponsoring the conference. Source speakers from big spending programs to talk. These will attract delegates interested in those programs and sponsors who want to get work from these programs.
* Feedback we got from sponsors was "We thought FOSS4G was just going to be a techie conference and wouldn't lead to sales". You need to push the Business side of FOSS4G too. Push Business Case Studies, Integration into Spatial Data Infrastructure, Spatial Government, etc.
==Press Releases==
See our press releases at: [[FOSS4G_2009_Press_Releases]], also [FOSS4G_2009_Press_Release_Process]].

Keep press releases concise. The more that is written, the less it is read. Our early press releases were too long and feedback was that people were not reading to the end of it. Keep the long winded explanation to the website.

==Press release pipeline==
On advise from 2007, as per [[FOSS4G2007_Lessons_Learned#Use_Proxies]], we built up a press release pipeline, making heavy use of Community Leaders to forward the FOSS4G press release, with a paragraph or two introduction, to their communities. Reason for using community leaders is that emails are much more likely to be read if it comes from someone you know and trust. This proved to be very effective, with Google Analytics showing that referals to our website came from a very large area from community leaders.

We built a spreadsheet of community leaders, including name, email address, and email list or publication they were a leader in. The list can be accessed by Cameron Shorter or Tyler Michel from here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pu9014gybzrd1M6FqyOzGWg&hl=en_GB . Talk to either of them if you need access for future FOSS4G conferences.

# Lesson: Build this list early.
# Lesson: Ask community leaders to CC you on emails they send out, so that you get feedback on which communities are being reached, and whether you need to find a new leader for a particular area. Assign someone to follow up to determine if the emails are going out.
# Lesson: Ask community leaders to add a personal message (see example cover emails from the Press Releases).
# Lesson: Select a schedule for press releases a publish it before hand. This helps magazines and Linked In owners to plan their releases to help you.
# Lesson: Don't send press releases just before a public holiday. We sent a release two days before Easter, and found many respondents were on leave. When they return, they will have a pile of email to attend to and your press release will likely be deleted.

== Email Lists ==
We obtained a spam list of foss4g potential delegates from previous events, which we added to with a number of local lists we found. This was copied into foss4g-2009-announce email list. In retrospect, we should have had two lists, one spam list for potential delegates that you only want to hit with major announcements to encourage the people to register. And then a second announcement list that people self subscribe to which you can email more regularly with gossip, buzz, and ideas for how people can further get involved in foss4g.

We also had: foss4g-2009-private, for discussing sensitive (financial) matters amongst the organising committee, and foss4g-2009 for all other organisational stuff.

==Translations==
We had community volunteers translate the website and press releases. The theory is that local translations will reach into local communities and demonstrates the international roots of the conference. Examples: http://2009.foss4g.org and http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_Press_Release_7_Translations . A list of translators is also available at: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pu9014gybzrd1M6FqyOzGWg&hl=en_GB

=Tutorials=
* See http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G2008_Lessons_Learned#Laptop_Based_Workshops
* Many tutorials were overbooked, with people spilling out the door outside the room. (I wonder whether this was because tutorials were free, but contained much of the same content as workshops).
* We had water jugs and glasses on the table. With a crowded room, people were nervous taking their computers out when there is water on the desk.
* One of the tutorials was run from a Virtual Machine. Unfortunately, 1/3 of the computers in the room didn't have enough RAM to run the virtual machine.

=Workshops=

==Submissions==
* Provide a range of options for user level (Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced) and category (User, Developer) and provide '''strict definitions''' of what these terms mean. Use examples.
* Read previous [[FOSS4G2007_Lessons_Learned#Format_of_the_Call lessons learned]] so you don't have to learn all this yourself.
* Having people fill out document templates and submit worked, but was a pain to juggle. A web form would be much easier, would eliminate some of the stylistic issues that I will need to sort out before getting things into the program and can enforce the word limits and the use of the correct template.
* 100 words may be enough for a single instructor biography, but it's entirely insufficient when there are several. We had one submission that hit 500 for three instructors, and it would have been great to print that.
* We put word limits on everything that would be published, and some things that wouldn't (such as Instructor Experience that was only used for assessment). We should have indicated explicitly what was for publication and what was strictly evaluation. No word limits need to be imposed on the evaluation only, but then you'll have to read it.
* Having a separate submission path for tutorials than workshops allowed specific information to be captured for each. It likely cost us tutorial submissions where simply having a ''Workshop'', ''Tutorial'', ''Both'' selection would have made it trivial to submit both.
* A number of people didn't realise there were templates for submitting workshop and tutorial details. The web form would solve this, and I don't really know how to make it clearer within the OCS system. Ideally a submission wouldn't be able to move further until a document was uploaded. Two submissions failed due to not submitting the doc.
* Review the submissions early. I saved a couple of people by pointing out that the files they uploaded were not the correct templates, or they hadn't provided anything at all.
* Review often too. In the final week, when most submissions arrived, I reviewed as soon as I received notice of a submission. Then I could get after them while they still had it on their minds.

There's a hard lesson I've learned, and I'm still not sure how it should be handled differently. We have a tradition of open selection of stuff. Workshops have always been less open, but we still involve community input. What I've found this year is that the only people offering this input were those with workshops or tutorials in. This means that the more people in your org that volunteer to review the higher your chance of getting in. To some extent this is fine. I think at worst we had three from one org, out of eleven, and one didn't complete his input. But in the end we lost some great presentations because they weren't there pushing for them. One in particular fit with the goals of the conference perfectly but wasn't selected because of the advanced content. Somebody else got their advanced content in instead, though I don't recall who. It was part of the recommendation to weight for beginner themes.

If I were to do this again, I think I might try the following. First, I wouldn't submit anything myself. I did have concerns over perceived conflict of interest, which was one big reason I pushed for the community selection. Second, I would refine the selection criteria much more than I did this year. Make sure it made it into the press release, was published on the wiki and on the submission form. I would then perform the selection myself. IIRC, the original reason for community involvement in the selection was not to be inclusive, warm and fuzzy, it's because it's a hell of a lot of work. Workshops are doable by a single person, especially once the selection criteria are explicit. Frankly, those that are interested in helping with this sort of work are generally not our target audience anyway. Presentations are different. They're closer to the event for one. We're more organised by then. And there's simply too many for one person, or even a small group, to handle in isolation with any kind of efficiency. I wouldn't expect this to go well with the community. It defies convention. In my case at least, simply not submitting my own workshop wouldn't really eliminate the spectre of conflict as others in my org had submissions in. I'm not completely convinced this is the correct solution, but it's what I've come up with.

==Computers==

= WMS Shootout =
The WMS Shootout is a presentation comparing different WMS (and WFS?) implementations.
* It was proposed as a Abstract, and was ranked by the community as the most popular presentation, and so was moved to the closing plenary session (in front of everyone, instead of within one of the steams).
* While the Shootout was mentioned in early marketing, hoping that it would indeed be presented again in 2009, it would have been better to plan for the Shootout much earlier. Ideally this should become a permanent fixture of FOSS4G events, with a carry over of experience from year to year. This will allow it to be included more prominently in early FOSS4G marketing material as a FOSS4G drawcard. It can also be slotted into the program right from the start.

= Abstract Selection =
* Make it a criteria of Abstract Submission that submitters accept a license to have their slides from the presentation, and a video of their presentation made available via Creative Commons. (It is messy to have to collect this afterwards).
* The Abstract submission form supported only one presenter, but sometimes there's more than one presenter. Make it possible to submit detailed information about several authors.
* Save the date when presentation was submitted. (It is useful to see when abstracts are being submitted.)
* It would have been useful to profile reviewers, so that we could weight reviewers against expected attendees. In particular, I would have liked to collect:
# Geographic Location.
# Sector: Development, Academic, Government, Utilities, Private, other
# Position: Developer, User, Manager, CIO, Decision Maker
* It would have been useful to have a "Comments" field for reviewers to add comments as to why someone was or was not reviewed high/low.
* In reviewing abstracts from our community, some abstracts received 40 votes for just their abstract. This may have been encouraged by our press release, which encouraged abstracts authors to get their friends to vote for their abstracts. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_Press_Release_17. Lesson is that we should encourage people to promote the conference, but not vote for just one abstract. We should also check the votes to verify people are not rigging the voting.
* Having the community rank the abstracts was very successful. We did not get anyone challenging our selection choice, which was an issue in previous years. It also made it much easier for the abstract selection committee, as we had so many good abstracts to choose from.

= Recommendations to Abstract Authors =
* The following advice should be provided to abstract authors
** Mention key themes of the conference and how your abstract is addressing them. Some 2009 abstracts did not mention Open Source or Open Standards.
** Describing "vapour-ware", an idea that you would like to implement is not very compelling. Presentations should focus on specific technologies that already exist, or how you have used these technologies.
** If presenting case studies, make sure you include "the positives and negatives encountered in your approach".
** Be specific about what you will be talking about. "I will be talking about how Open Source can be deployed on Proprietary" is not enough for a reviewer to determine what will be talked about.
* Comparison presentations were ranked very highly. Eg: "WMS Shootout", "Comparison between PostGIS, Oracle Spatial and MySQL".

= Schedule =
* Make sure you have backup presenters. We had (Harley to confirm) over 10 speakers drop out before the conference.
* Make sure you have back up presenters for keynotes and lightening talks. (These will likely be one of your other presenters).
* Tell each presenter what time they are presenting. Through mis-communication one of our keynotes got the day wrong, and we had to do last minute juggling to the program to fit him in.
* Make sure all speakers, tutorial presenters and workshop presenters have registered for the conference. We discovered at the last minute that some of the tutorial presenters were not registered.
* When collecting personal details from presenters, ensure to collect an email address or similar which can be linked back to the registration list so you can cross check registrations. We had to do this manually, which was difficult.
* One (Government Manager) wished to see an overview presentation at the start of the conference, so that he could decide which presentations should be viewed through the rest of the conference. This could be a very compelling, plenary presentation: "FOSS4G themes in a nutshell".
== Birds of a Feather ==
* We had one official "Birds of a Feather" session on Thursday afternoon. We had a wiki page for people to sign up for the Birds of a Feather before hand, but this wasn't used much. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_BirdsOfAFeather
* We also had sign up sheets at the OSGeo stand, and that was used. We had many people wanting to go to a number of the sessions, and a couple of sessions were moved to different timeslots.
* The description "Birds of a Feather" was not understood by many people and they needed to have the term explained to them. This is an issue for people looking at the program before hand and wanting to determine whether they should come to the session or not. Maybe use "Interest Groups" instead.
* I, Cameron Shorter, organised 5 meetings of like minded people over dinner, breakfast and during the code sprint. (Meetings around Defence, Water, SDI implementers, GeoSpatial Businesses, OSGeo Marketing). I had the advantage of having access to the registration list, and hence could invite people individually. Even so, my skim over the lists was rushed and I'm sure I missed half the people who should have been at these gatherings. These meetings were very successful, with almost everyone invited attending, and I had many thank me for inviting them and noting that they found the meetings very valuable. So lessons for next year:
** Provide a list of local restaurants beforehand, and invite delegates to set up "Interest Group" meetings at these restaurants for breakfast and dinner during the conference.
** Someone with access to the delegate list should go through and email delegates individually and suggest meetings they may be interested in. (I used email domain names and my personal knowledge of delegate affiliations to identify likely interest). Someone also suggested that we could do some smart analysis of how people vote for abstracts. Alternatively, we could ask delegates to tick areas of interest when the register.
** Note that the size of the group effects its effectiveness. A group of 8 allows people to talk with each other. If you have a group of 20, then you will want to give people a chance to move around. (For a dinner group of 25, we had people mingle while having drinks before dinner, then invited delegates to change seats between dinner and desert).
== Installfest ==

=Tools=

== Google Analytics ==

We are successfully using google analytics to monitor the foss4g website traffic. Using the geographic breakup of the traffic we can understand which regions of the world require more aggressive marketing.

We created a generic gmail account for foss4g@gmail.com. This was done by Shoaib Burq and the password was shared with other committee members.

On 1st of March we had been using Google Analytics for about 2 weeks during which period only 2 hits to the site were from China.

We are looking to ramp up the Asian marketing.

== Google Docs ==

Google docs proved to be quite successful for collaborative editing of documents and for creating draft conference time tables

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Workshop Scheduling

2009-09-29T00:58:10Z

Wiki-Mleslie: Adding a missing presenter

* all workshops will be held at the conference venue [http://www.scec.com.au/ (SCEC)]
* workshops are 3 hours in length
* the following timetable is a '''DRAFT''' (i.e. not official)

<TABLE>

<TR>
<TH WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=17 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=MIDDLE BGCOLOR="#CCCCCC">Room</TH>
<TH WIDTH=350 HEIGHT=17 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=MIDDLE BGCOLOR="#CCCCCC">8:00-12:00 Tuesday 20th October</TH>
<TH WIDTH=350 HEIGHT=17 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=MIDDLE BGCOLOR="#CCCCCC">13:00-16:00 Tuesday 20th October</TH>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH=200 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=MIDDLE BGCOLOR="#EEEEEE">Parkside G01 [http://www.scec.com.au/rooms/fact_sheet.cfm?ObjectID=146 (fact sheet)]</TD>
<TD WIDTH=350 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=MIDDLE BGCOLOR="#FFFF99">[http://2009.foss4g.org/workshops/#workshop_02 Getting Started with MapServer] - Jeff McKenna, Pericles Nacionales, Tyler Mitchell CODE: workshop_02</TD>
<TD WIDTH=350 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=MIDDLE BGCOLOR="#FFCC33">[http://2009.foss4g.org/workshops/#workshop_09 Practical introduction to MapFish, the web 2.0 mapping application framework]- Claude Philipona, Cédric Moullet, Eric Lemoine CODE: workshop_09</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH=200 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=MIDDLE BGCOLOR="#EEEEEE">Parkside G02 [http://www.scec.com.au/rooms/fact_sheet.cfm?ObjectID=147 (fact sheet)]</TD>
<TD WIDTH=350 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=MIDDLE BGCOLOR="#FFFF99">[http://2009.foss4g.org/workshops/#workshop_10 Working with GeoServer] - Justin Deoliveira, Andrea Aime CODE: workshop_10</TD>
<TD WIDTH=350 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=MIDDLE BGCOLOR="#FFCC33">[http://2009.foss4g.org/workshops/#workshop_05 Performance Tuning and Tile Caching] - Arne Kepp, Jim Groffen CODE: workshop_05</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH=200 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=MIDDLE BGCOLOR="#EEEEEE">Parkside G03 [http://www.scec.com.au/rooms/fact_sheet.cfm?ObjectID=148 (fact sheet)]</TD>
<TD WIDTH=350 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=MIDDLE BGCOLOR="#FFFF99">[http://2009.foss4g.org/workshops/#workshop_06 OpenLayers - Your Foundation for Browser Based Mapping] - Tim Schaub, Roald de Wit CODE: workshop_06</TD>
<TD WIDTH=350 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=MIDDLE BGCOLOR="#FFCC33">[http://2009.foss4g.org/workshops/#workshop_07 Organizing your geospatial data and services using GeoNetwork opensource] - Jeroen Ticheler, François Prunayre CODE: workshop_07</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH=200 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=MIDDLE BGCOLOR="#EEEEEE">Parkside G04 [http://www.scec.com.au/rooms/fact_sheet.cfm?ObjectID=128 (fact sheet)]</TD>
<TD WIDTH=350 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=MIDDLE BGCOLOR="#FFFF99">[http://2009.foss4g.org/workshops/#workshop_03 Introduction to PostGIS] - Paul Ramsey, Mark Leslie, Mike Pumphrey CODE: workshop_03</TD>
<TD WIDTH=350 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=MIDDLE BGCOLOR="#FFCC33">[http://2009.foss4g.org/workshops/#workshop_04 Introduction to the OpenGeo Stack: PostGIS, GeoServer, GeoWebCache, and OpenLayers] - Justin Deoliveira, Andrea Aime, Paul Ramsey, Tim Schaub CODE: workshop_04</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH=200 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=MIDDLE BGCOLOR="#EEEEEE">Parkside G05 [http://www.scec.com.au/rooms/fact_sheet.cfm?ObjectID=143 (fact sheet)]</TD>
<TD WIDTH=350 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=MIDDLE BGCOLOR="#FFFF99">[http://2009.foss4g.org/workshops/#workshop_01 Geospatial BI with FOSS: an introduction to GeoMondrian and Spatialytics] - Thierry Badard, Etienne Dubé CODE: workshop_01</TD>
<TD WIDTH=350 ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=MIDDLE BGCOLOR="#FFCC33">[http://2009.foss4g.org/workshops/#workshop_08 Practical Introduction to GRASS] - Paolo Zatelli, Marco Ciolli, Clara Tattoni CODE: workshop_08</TD>
</TR>

</TABLE>

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Organising Committee Meetings

2009-09-02T00:28:55Z

Wiki-Mleslie: Adding an agenda for todays meeting.

Back to [[FOSS4G 2009]]...

== Introduction ==
Actions from meetings are being managed in this google docs spreadsheet: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pu9014gybzrdbXehN8JAJfg&hl=en

The FOSS4G 2009 Organising Committee is responsible for the organization of the conference. More information can be found on the [[FOSS4G_2009_Governance]] page.

All wiki pages for FOSS4G 2009 meetings are listed under the [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Category:Meetings Meetings category]

== Calendar ==
* Upcoming meetings: [http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=s30qso7ccahgboia9smhfcofuo%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=Australia/Sydney Google Calendar]
== Next Meeting ==

=== 2009/09/16 arinex / Organising Committee ===
* Time: 1pm, 16 September 2009, Sydney time. http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/meetingdetails.html?year=2009&month=7&day=1&hour=3&min=0&sec=0&p1=240

== Current Meeting ==
=== 2009/09/02 Updated Meeting ===

* Agenda
** Action Items Review
** Workshop Items
*** Timeline for image machine installation.
*** Remote access to workshop presenters.
** Tutorial uploads (to be handled the same as presentations)

== Prior Organising Committee Meetings ==
=== 2009/08/19 arinex / Organising Committee ===
*Agenda
**Sponsorship & Exhibition
***Update (ARX / OC)
**Registration
***Update (ARX)
**Program
***Program Update (SH)
***Session Chairperson and Speaker Briefing Notes (ARX)
***Program Book (ARX)
***CD Rom (ARX)
**Other Business
***Code Sprint Venue Status (CS)
***Delegate Satchels (ARX / OC)
***Conference Dinner Menus (ARX / OC)
**Next Meeting
***Wednesday 16th September 2009, 1300 - 1400

'''Action Notes:'''
*Registration
**ACTION – OC to follow up with SSSI and ACRS to ensure the Conference information is reaching these members. ARX to monitor discounted registrations over the next few weeks.
**ACTION – ARX is updating the current column of the budget and will work on a projected total of 400 delegates as this is projected to be achievable based on current registrations.
**ACTION – ARX to send the OC a registration list showing all early bird registrations - '''DONE'''. OC is to then cross check this list with the Conference speakers to ensure they have all registered.

*Program
**ACTION – ARX to email SB & SH and ask for poster information to be updated on the Conference website - '''DONE'''
**ACTION – CS to send press release promoting the poster submission date of 21st September.
**ACTION – HP and SH to send the finalised program to ARX by 14th September for inclusion in the program book.
**ACTION – ARX to speak to IT and find out if Open Office can be installed on the Conference laptops that will be used onsite - '''In Progress'''
**ACTION – ARX to ensure that there is an FTP section on the FOSS4G website so speakers can upload their presentations prior to the Conference. Uploading rules and size limits will need to be advertised.
**ACTION – ARX to provide generic presentation formatting guidelines to be put on the FOSS4G website.
**ACTION – ARX to send HP an example of speaker presentation guidelines and he will update them to include live demo instructions.
**ACTION – ARX to provide costs for a Speaker Preparation Room, and consider possibility of using some of the unsold exhibition space - '''In Progress'''
**ACTION – OC to send out speaker and chair briefing notes 5 - 4 weeks prior to Conference.
**ACTION – ARX to confirm what the intellectual property rules are on arinex developed documents, such as the chairperson and speaker briefing notes, being used for future Conferences.
**ACTION – ARX to check whether or not we have a copy of the 2007 program book. If not, ARX are to advise CS and he will send one over – '''DONE - ARX have a copy'''

*Code Sprint Venue Status
**ACTION – CS to send ARX an estimate of the accommodation and flight costs for Steve Walsh. ARX to add these costs to the budget, in addition to the two complimentary registrations for Ultimo Tafe staff.
**ACTION – ARX to copy Steve Walsh into all emails to Ultimo Tafe in regards to the Code Sprint.

*Delegate Satchels
**ACTION – ARX to reduce the satchel unit cost to $4.50 in the budget as this will be the maximum satchel cost per delegate.

*Conference Dinner
**ACTION – ARX to discuss having an alternate main meal and/or side dishes available to ensure delegates are not left hungry – '''DONE - Menu confirmed by OC via email'''

*Program
**ACTION – ARX to discuss workshop computer imaging dates with IT and respond to OC.
**ACTION – ARX to copy Steve Walsh into related emails, as he is heavily involved in AARNET.

=== 2009/07/15 CCIP status ===
Present:
* Raj Singh, OGC
* Greg Buehler, OGC
* Bastian Schaffer, 52North
* Cameron Shorter, Lisasoft, FOSS4G

Notes:
* CCIP call for participation press release went out today: http://www.opengeospatial.org/pressroom/pressreleases/1072
* Bastian wishes to add a few points to the scenario
* '''Action:''' Bastian to coordinate with Bruce Bannerman, and update scenario in wiki.
* '''Action:''' Cameron to suggest potential interested parties to Raj, and Raj to follow up.

=== 2009/07/15 arinex / Organising Committee ===

*Agenda
**Social Program
***Conference Dinner (arinex/OC)
**Registration and Marketing
***Update on Registration (arinex)
***Marketing - Next Press Release (arinex / OC)
**Program
***Program Update - Program on website (SH)
***Ultimo Tafe Meeting Update (CS)
***CCIP Meeting Update (CS / arinex)
**Other Business
***Floral Arrangements
**Next Meeting
***Wednesday 19th August 2009, 1300 – 1400

Action Notes:
*Social Programme - Conference Dinner
**ACTION – arinex advised that two vessels are currently on hold for the Conference Dinner. The vessel will be confirmed as the Conference gets closer and we have a better indication of guest numbers.
**ACTION – arinex will print a map on the back of the dinner tickets so delegates can easily find Jetty 9, King Street Wharf.
**ACTION – CS to confirm closer to the day if he will make a speech at the Conference dinner.
**ACTION – arinex will send menu options and provide recommendations to the OC in August.
**ACTION – OC confirmed that delegates attending the dinner will want to network so any music played is to be background music only.

*Registration and Marketing
**ACTION – OC confirmed that earlybird deadline has been extended to 7th August. OC advised that the press release advising this is currently with the translators and also on the wiki.
**ACTION – Simon to update the website with extended earlybird deadline and also new company logos
**ACTION – CS advised that Microsoft may come on board as a sponsor. SH confirmed that he will be the contact for Microsoft. CS to forward SH copies of previous discussions had with Microsoft and also contact details.

*Program
*''Update''
**ACTION – SH advised that he and HP are currently finalising the abstract submissions.
**ACTION – OC would like the selected abstracts to be allocated space into program before the main program is put on the website.
**ACTION – SH to put a program at a glance on the website by 20th July.
**ACTION – OC confirmed that once presenter confirmations are sent to authors, another press release is to be sent out advising delegates to visit the website to view the abstracts and programme at a glance.

*''Ultimo Tafe''
**ACTION - arinex to touch base with Ultimo Tafe in August as they were positive about offering the venue for the code sprint.

*Other Business
*''Venue''
**ACTION - OC confirmed no floral arrangements are necessary in the plenary session room.

*''Sponsorship''
**ACTION – OC confirmed that the gold sponsorship package should include a complimentary 3m x 2m exhibition booth. OC also suggested offering silver sponsors a complimentary 3m x 1m booth.
**ACTION – arinex to update the gold sponsorship package and sell accordingly.
**ACTION – arinex to look at 2007 sponsorship selling document and confirm that the gold and silver sponsors received complimentary exhibition booths.
**ACTION – arinex to check the budget and costings before offering silver sponsors a complimentary exhibition booth.

*''Poster Boards''
**ACTION – OC confirmed that they would like arinex to add the cost of the poster boards back into the budget.

*''Lightning Talks''
**ACTION – PR to send his lighting talk recommendations to the private list.
**ACTION – SH to update the OC on lightening talks acceptances as invitees respond.

*''Next Meeting''
**ACTION – CS to send the OC a list of tasks that need to be done next week while he is away. CS to allocate these tasks to specific OC members to complete.
**ACTION – CS to send SH the updated text for the front page of the website. SH to upload new text and clean up the front page.

=== 2009/07/14 CCIP: OGC / Organising Committee ===
* Boston: 6:15pm Mon 13 July
* Sydney: 8:15am Tue 14 July
* Paris: 12:15am Tue 14 July
* http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/meetingdetails.html?year=2009&month=7&day=13&hour=22&min=15&sec=0&p1=43&p2=240&p3=195

Present:
* Kirsty O'Brien (Tour Hosts)
* Julia Vernon (Tour Hosts)
* Bruce Bannerman (BOM, FOSS4G)
* Cameron Shorter (LISAsoft, FOSS4G)
* Greg Bueler (OGC)
* Raj Singh (OGC)
* Brian Hamlin (OGGeo)
* Bastian Schaffer (52North)
Apologies:
* Louis Hecht (OGC, on sick leave)

Agenda:
* x:15 CCIP sponsorship review (OGC/OC)
* x:25 Budget review. Who is paying for what.
* x:40 Request for Participation (RFP) review (OGC)
* Potential Participant review
* Review of CCIP proceedings and offerings http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_Schedule
* Next meetings

Notes:
* Price was agreed for OGC's CCIP booth + services. Cost emailed to foss4g-private list.
* Louis on sick leave, will chase sponsors again when back
* Server info
* Schedule
* SOS client + Server
* Data - free, check license
Scenario:
* Raj notes we need to keep scenario tight for the CCIP box and keep CCIP achievable, but participants can use their external services for other scenarios if they wish.
* Bastian is interested in Sensor Observation Services, server + client. Needs hydrology data. Bruce/Bastian to discuss requirement via email to determine if suitable data can be sourced.

Next Meeting:
* Next meetings will be weekly at the same time. All interested parties in CCIP welcome.
* Send skype details to Raj, who will coordinate the next meeting.
* Boston: 6:15pm Mon 20 July
* Sydney: 8:15am Tue 21 July
* Paris: 12:15am Tue 21 July
* http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/meetingdetails.html?year=2009&month=7&day=20&hour=22&min=15&sec=0&p1=43&p2=240&p3=195

=== 2009/07/01 arinex / Organising Committee ===

*Agenda
**Sponsorship and Exhibition
***Update (arinex)
**Registration and Marketing
***Update on Registration (arinex)
***Update on Marketing (OC)
***Early Bird Registration Deadline (arinex/OC)
**Program
***Program Update (SH)
***Speakers (OC)
***Venue (arinex/OC)
**Other Business
***Volunteers (arinex/OC)
***Conference Dinner (arinex/OC)
***Delegate Satchels (arinex/OC)
**Next Meeting
***Wednesday 15th July 2009, 1300 – 1400

Action Notes:

*Sponsorship and Exhibition
**ACTION - BB and Ben Searle (BS) to look through the potential sponsorship list again and note any companies that have not yet responded but are worth following up with. BB and BS to then arrange a meeting with arinex to discuss. This will allow a more targeted approach for sponsorship - '''IN PROGRESS'''
**ACTION - arinex to touch base with OpenGeo from time to time as CS believes they are working on organising sponsorship internally.
**ACTION - CS to send Paul Pettigrew a sponsorship proposal. Once discussions have moved forward, CS will introduce arinex to take over the organisation of sponsorship - '''IN PROGRESS'''

*Registration and Marketing
**ACTION - OC will include a reminder about the early bird registration cut off date with the author confirmations that will be sent out on the 20th July. This will provide delegates approximately 10 days to register prior to early bird cut off.
**ACTION - SH or HP to send arinex the draft press release for the early bird deadline reminder so any additional information arinex has can be added.
**ACTION - SH and HP confirmed that the draft press release will be ready by 8th July.
**ACTION - arinex to explain the complimentary registration process via email and send to CS - '''DONE''' CS will distribute this information to the relevant people (active OC members, speakers and workshop presenters).
**ACTION - Ross Johnson (RJ) to follow up and see if SSSI press release has been sent out yet.
**ACTION - RJ to take over the organisation of the SSSI and ACS contra deal arrangements. RJ to follow up with these companies to see how the marketing part of the arrangements are going and ensure that it is followed through to completion.
**ACTION - Simon to provide the private list with a Google Analytics report of the traffic to and around the website.
**ACTION – SB to provide arinex with a log in so arinex can access the analytics website.
**ACTION - OC to keep working on translated press releases to send to Asia.

*Program
**ACTION - SH advised that VM needs to look through the abstract voting results to make sure there were no repeat voters. Once this has been done, SH and HP will begin selecting abstracts for inclusion in the program from the correct voting results.
**ACTION - HP and SH to confirm the process they will undertake for the selection of abstracts. OC to be advised of this process by the end of the week.
**ACTION - OC confirmed that 6 speakers are to receive complimentary registrations.
**ACTION - arinex to contact these speakers and speak to them about their complimentary registration. CS to send arinex the speakers email addresses so this can be done – '''IN PROGRESS'''
**ACTION - OC confirmed not to offer sponsors any additional benefits unless they specifically ask for something. If this happens, each request will be treated on a case by case basis.
**ACTION - SH to list his top 10 speakers for the lightning talks and send to the private list for comments.
**ACTION - After the upcoming meeting with Ultimo TAFE, CS to advise arinex about the discussions had and the possibility of the TAFE hosting the code sprint.
**ACTION - arinex agreed that the speaker preparation room can be added back into the budget if registrations increase significantly after the early bird cut off date.

*Other Business
*''Volunteers''
**ACTION - arinex to view SH’s resource plan list on Google Docs.
**ACTION - OC advised that in 2007 the OC asked people to nominate themselves as chairpersons and volunteers. OC would like to do this again in 2009 and would like to begin this process soon.

*''Conference Dinner''
**ACTION - arinex will distribute the proposed event orders and menus to OC for consideration within the coming month.
**ACTION - CS confirmed that speakers will not be offered complimentary tickets to attend the dinner.

*''Satchels''
**ACTION - arinex to compile some different satchel options and present to the OC for comment.
**ACTION - OC would like to offer delegates a Conference t-shirt. OC decided to wait to see if delegate numbers increase after the early bird registration cut off and then make a decision on whether or not to produce a FOSS4G t-shirt. If so, an email will be sent out to already registered delegates to advise them of this and ask their size. An additional field will also be added to the online registration form.

*''Internet at Conference''
**ACTION - arinex to contact AARNET and advise that their name will be put on the Conference website as internet sponsor
**ACTION - arinex to send CS the costing of SCEC to connect up the internet that AARNET will be providing.
**ACTION - arinex to update the budget and distribute to CS.
**ACTION - CS advised that there is an upcoming OGS Meeting about the CCIP and the OC concerns. CS would like arinex to be in attendance at this meeting. CS to send through meeting details.

=== 2009/06/30 CCIP: OGC, BOM, Organising Committee===
* Tuesday 30 June 2009
Present:
* Louis Hecht, OGC
* Raj Singh, OGC
* Bruce Bannerman, FOSS4G, BOM
* Simon Hope, FOSS4G
* Cameron, FOSS4G, Lisasoft

Discussion:

Raj:
* Call for sponsors is out (see OGC press release)
* A technical specification and call for participation coming out, soon, planned by next week.

Simon:
* Note that the CCIP is needing clear direction and project management. (Ie coordinating who is doing the work etc)
* Techies who have been setting up the servers in Sydney need specific technical direction and coordination
* The project needs a specific schedule with milestones so everyone knows what to expect and when

Raj:
* Noted that prior OGC commitments are complete and OGC are now assigning resources to the CCIP.

'''Action:''' OGC to present a clear schedule and project manager

Bruce:
* Suggested the OGC process be more participatory (picking up on Open Source processes). Reference email thread from Adrian Custer ~ 15 May.

'''Action:''' Raj agreed. Expect to open up proposals to the list for review.

Louis:
* Discussed sponsor options and expects to have more details over the next week
* Wants CCIP to cover:
** Keep it Simple
** Focus on WCS, and maybe WPS
** Need to ensure the CCIP has good presentation material at the end
* '''Action:''' Will forward through details about "Environmental Information for Decision Making" to Bruce (can you CC list too?)

Next CCIP meeting:
* In two weeks
* Boston: 6:15pm Mon 13 July
* Sydney: 8:15am Tue 14 July
* Paris: 12:15am Tue 14 July
* http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/meetingdetails.html?year=2009&month=7&day=13&hour=22&min=15&sec=0&p1=43&p2=240&p3=195

Raj:
* The OGC have committed to setting up services for all OGC reference implementations. This is very closely aligned to the CCIP, and resources should be able to be shared. Greg is coordinating.

=== 2009/05/20 Tour Hosts / Organising Committee===
* Wednesday 20th May 2009, 1300 - 1400 (Sydney Time) http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?day=20&month=5&year=2009&hour=13&min=0&sec=0&p1=240

*Agenda:
**Sponsorship and Exhibition update - Total money pledged 28K (TH)
***Autodesk – Gold Sponsor – 15K
***Mapgears, Geocat, Lat Lon – Bronze Sponsors – 1K each
***LISAsoft – Charging Station Sponsor - 4K
***Google Exhibition space – 3.5K
***Numaps Exhibition space - 2.5K
** Opportunities for sponsorship from Government: (CS) See participants from: http://email.nuovon.com.au/ch/1hfjs5k/707006/3a360mpb0.pdf . Need to write invitations to each of these agencies.
**Registrations (TH)
**Program Update (SH)
***Session Chairpersons (OC)
**Website (TH/OC)
***Workshops/program/speakers
**Other Business (TH)
***Discounted Registration and Marketing – SSI/ACS
***AV Requirements
***Security Requirements
***Signage
***Photography
**Next Meeting
***Wednesday 17th June 2009, 1300 – 1400

Minutes:
* Sponsorship and Exhibition
**ACTION: TH follow up letter to Arnold Wong, ASIBA and Landgate.
**ACTION: TH to put together offer to say that FOSS4G would like endorsement from GITA and would like GITA to send information about the conference to their mailing list, and in return we will promote GITA on our website and offer them a logo in the program book.
**ACTION: CS to provide contact details for appropriate person in these organisations: NSW Department of Lands, City of Sydney Metro, AGL, Telstra, Railcorp, Sydney Water, RTA, Department of Primary Industries, Department of Commerce, Optus
**ACTION: TH create invitation template and forward to private list. Members of private list to insert specific industry information to tailor the letters to above organisations. Deadline of Wednesday 27th May.
**ACTION: Simon to follow up with OGC as to who is committed to the CCIP and arrange to have these logos placed on website.
**ACTION: Simon/Shoaib to follow up on placing Auto Desk’s logo on the website as a Gold Sponsor.
**ACTION: CS to speak to Ross Johnson to take on responsibility of SSI contra deal regarding discounted registration and drafting press release. Andrew Bashfield to provide contact details of who to liaise with at SSI.
**ACTION: BB to distribute discounted registration link to ACS members.

*Program
**ACTION: CS, SH and HP to review press release about reminder for paper submission deadline. Press release to be sent 25th May. CS to include paragraph on session chairs.
**ACTION: TH to note on the wiki press release schedule the major milestones that should require a press release.
**ACTION: SH/HP to put together a program at a glance to place on the website with as much information as possible including workshops/tutorials/session topics.

*Website
**ACTION: ML to send through the bios and photos of the workshop presenters to Shoaib for the website
**ACTION: Shoaib to fix link on bottom of tutorial page
**ACTION: Shoaib to create an ‘Latest News’ section on top of home page and link that Keynote Speakers are now confirmed

*AV Requirements
**ACTION: OC confirmed AV requirements for session rooms are standard. Q&A mics required in plenary room only.
**ACTION: OC would like to record all sessions. TH to liaise with SCEC about whether recording equipment can be brought into the Convention centre and the charges involved. CS to send details of Andrew Ross.

===2009/04/25 OSGeo Board Approves Budget===
0600 Sydney time.

Present:
* Cameron Shorter
* OSGeo Board ...

The OSGeo Board approved the Conference conference budget, version 10.

The board also approved that the FOSS4G 2009 conference chair can approve items from the budget on behalf of OSGeo.

=== 2009/04/16 Tour Hosts / Organising Committee===
* Thursday 16th April 2009, 1300 - 1400 (Sydney Time) http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?year=2009&month=3&day=18&hour=3&min=0&sec=0&p1=195&p2=240&p3=179

*Agenda:
**Budget
***Budget Discussion (OC/TH)
**Program
***Program Update (SH)
**Name Badges
***Name Badge Mock Ups (OC/TH)
**Next Meeting
***Wednesday 20th May 2009, 1300 – 1400

Present:
* Cameron
* Tyler
* Shoaib
* Kirsty, TH
* Julia, TH
* Daniel, TH
* Bruce Bannerman
* Andrew Bashfield
* Harley

Minutes:
* Budget:
** Organising committee agreed to increase price of conference by $100 per delegate.
** Organising committee also agreed to increase price of conference by a further 5%. We will then offer a 5% discount to members of specific organisations in return for their promotion of the event. In particular, we will provide this discount to Spatial Science Institution (SSI) and Australian Computer Society (ACS).
** Action: TH to update budget by COB Fri 17 April.
** Action: Andrew to follow up with SSI re endorsement, and getting education credits assigned to the conference
** Action: Bruce to follow up with ACS
** Action: Tyler to endevour to get OSGeo board to sign off on budget ASAP, as we can't open the conference for registration until this is cleared up.
** Action: TH to add another sign up page for organistions receiving a discount.

* Program
** Andrew Bashfield has secured Warrick Watkins, head of ANZLIC and NSW Dept Lands, as a speaker.
** Action: Andrew to liaise with Simon re adjusting the program

* Promotion:
** Andrew suggested promoting at: http://www.seassic.com.au/default.asp
** Action: Andrew to determine if SSI has booth or similar that Cameron Shorter can stand at to promote FOSS4G/OSGeo.

* Website
** Action: Harley and Shoaib to update website content to be more business focused and less techie focused. In particular, the front page and sponsorship page.
** Action: Shoaib to chase workshop and tutorial presenters for a bio for the website, and update website

* Press releases
** Call for registration to go out ideally on 27 April, assuming budget is finalised. The press release should include a reminder about submitting papers, asking potential presenters to enter their details so we can send them reminders.
** Action: Harley to draft press release. (Should be able to mostly cut and paste from previous releases). Note, the press release should be completed one week early, to give time for translation.

=== 2009/03/25 Marketing into Asia/Pacific ===

'''Agenda:'''
Our aim today is:
* To engage organisations currently marketing into Asia/Pacific to advise and help with FOSS4G marketing FOSS4G.
* open lines of communication
* identify ideas from the group - to be followed up via email

:00 Introductions, including listing your contacts and ideas for connecting into Asia

:10 Open for questions and discussion

:40 Meeting close

Time: http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/meetingdetails.html?year=2009&month=3&day=25&hour=0&min=0&sec=0&p1=240&p2=196&p3=248&p4=256

'''Attendees:'''
* Arnold Wong, Director of Landgate International, selling Landgate's SDI into Asia and Middle East.
* Venka Raghavan, prominent, well respected and well connectd OSGeo evangelist in Asia, based in Japan, with strong links in particular in China, Vietnam, Thailand, ...
* Mike Ridout, Coorporative Research Center for Spatial Information (CRCSI). The CRCSI has been building relationships in Asia, notably in China.
* Geoff Zeiss, Autodesk evangelist. Regular presenter, networker and blogger at International Geospatial conferences. Has strong connections into Indonesia.
* Harley Prowse, Director of GeoBiz in New Zealand, connected in New Zealand, and on the FOSS4G Organising Committee
* Andrew Bashfield, has years of Geospatial Experience and contacts in Australia.
* Julia Vernon, Tour Hosts, our conference organisor
* Melbourne University School of Geomatics, working with Global SDI and Asia Pacific SDI, including email lists for these communities:
** Abbas Rajabifard, (sends his apologies)
* OGC: Leading the "Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest" at FOSS4G and networking at an international level.
** Greg Buehler
* OSGeo
** Jeff McKenna (OSGeo conference committee chair)
** Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo head)

'''Notes:'''
* Venka asks "FOSS4G local committees want to know what they should be doing to get involved".
* Arnold notes that feedback he has received is that FOSS4G is perceived to be a techie conference and doesn't target the Business decision makers.
** Cameron noted that our aim is to target both the techies, and management, by providing business drivers for Open Source.
** Action: We need to adjust our marketing to highlight our focus on business drivers.
* Suggestion that we invite government ministers, both Australian and from our region to present.
* Geoff notes that Indonesia and Malaysia have made OSGeo a government initiative.
* Discussion will continue on http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/www_international-discuss

=== 2009/03/18 Tour Hosts / Organising Committee===
* Wednesday 18th March 2009, 1300 - 1400 (Sydney Time) http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?year=2009&month=3&day=18&hour=3&min=0&sec=0&p1=195&p2=240&p3=179

* Attendees, skypeid:
** Cameron Shorter, cameronshorter
** Simon Hope, sihope
** <strike>Volker Mische, volkermische</strike>
** Mark Leslie, mark.s.leslie
** Andrew Bashfield
** Bruce Bannermann (temporarily)
** Stephen Lead
** Tour Hosts

*Agenda:
**Sponsorship and Exhibition
***Update (TH)
**Program - Current Program: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pm1bvJQodiW3WBYGU7MM0Og&hl=en_GB
***Workshop & tutorial submissions update (ML)
***Number of abstract submissions received so far (SH)
***Poster Submissions (SH) - online submission?
***Logistics Schedule (SH)
***Ignite Spatial (OC)
**Speakers
***Speakers from Asia (JM)
***Invited Speakers (TH/OC)
**Marketing
***Postcards (TH/OC)
***Expressions of Interest (TH)
***Satchel Insert (HP)
**Other Business
***Venue (TH)
***Code Sprint Venue (TH)
***Name Badge Requirements (TH/OC)
***Delegate List (TH/OC)
**Next Meeting
***Wednesday 15th April 2009, 1300 – 1400

==== 2009/03/18 Action Notes from OC Meeting with Tour Hosts====
'''1. Sponsorship and Exhibition'''

ACTION – TH to follow up with GEO Cat in regards to the sponsorship of pens.

ACTION – CS to contact BB, Andrew Bashfield (AB) and Geoff Zeiss and ask them to become more involved with sourcing sponsorship. – '''In Progress'''

ACTION - TH to send the updated leads list to AB. AB to add any specific contact details he has so TH can contact directly.

ACTION – CS to set up teleconference with Andrew Wong to discuss Landgate involvement.

'''2. Marketing'''

ACTION – AB, PR and GZ to discuss FOSS4G promotional ideas for the GEOtech Conference in Vancouver, Canada in June 2009.

ACTION – ML to contact those presenters from the Netherlands who entered workshop submissions and ask if they will be attending the upcoming GSDI 11 World Conference in the Netherlands in June 2009. If so, ML to discuss ways in which they can help market the FOSS4G Conference while they are in attendance.

ACTION – SH to send TH contact details for Joe Cook (JC) in the UK. TH to investigate if JC will be attending the Open Source GIS Conference taking place in the UK and if so, would he have the ability to take some postcards along to hand out to delegates.

ACTION – BB to follow up with the contacts that he knows to ensure they received the prospectus and advise that if they have any questions to contact TH.

ACTION – OC to look at the current leads list and advise which OC members can contact specific people on the list to follow up personally.

ACTION – BB, AB and GZ to confirm contact details for the listed international companies/contacts.

ACTION – TH to organise a teleconference with BB and AB to discuss the leads list and contact details.

ACTION – TH to follow up with BB regarding the OGC proposal and division of CCIP monies.

ACTION - TH to send the email addresses of those people who have expressed their interest through the Conference website to the FOSS4G private list.

ACTION – TH to contact HP offline to discuss the cost of a satchel insert at the upcoming not-for-profit Conference in New Zealand

'''3. Programme'''

ACTION – OC confirmed that they have received enough workshop and tutorial submissions to fill the allocated spaces in the programme.

ACTION – TM to write up a complete list of all workshop and tutorial submissions and send to the OC for approval. Once these submissions are approved, ML will allocate each of them space in the programme. ML advised that they will still be advising presenters of their acceptance on 30th March 2009. – '''Done'''

ACTION - SH confirmed that he will accept up to 32 poster submissions to ensure they will fit in the Parkside Ground Foyer area. SH also confirmed that there will be one poster per board and each poster will be A0 size.

ACTION – VM to process poster submissions and when the time comes, advise presenters of the poster dimensions in the acceptance letters.

ACTION – SH to add another page to the existing programme on the wiki that will be the logistics schedule detailing areas that still need to be actioned, ie: where volunteers are needed, who will arrange them.

ACTION – OC confirmed that Ignite Spatial (public event) will take place on the evening of Wednesday 21st October at SCEC. Guests to arrive and mingle from 1730 with the event starting at 1830 and concluding at 2000. TH to speak to Stephen Lead (SL) offline about details and requirements.

ACTION – SL offered to do some cross promotion with his Ignite spatial mailing list. SL to advise that this year Ignite Spatial is affiliated with FOSS4G 2009 in an effort to prompt his contacts to attend the Conference.

ACTION – OC to discuss offline who should organise the sponsorship for Ignite Spatial and which companies should be approached for this sponsorship.

'''4. Speakers'''

ACTION – CS to contact PR and ask him to use his contacts to follow up with the Asian communities.

ACTION – CS to confirm the marketing group who is to target Asia – '''Done'''

'''5. Other Business'''

ACTION – CS to follow up with his contacts at TAFE NSW and explain what the rooms are needed for and whether there is the possibility of using their internet.

ACTION – TH to forward the different venue prices to CS for comparison.

ACTION – TH to keep the room at SCEC on hold for Saturday and advise CS of the room hire fee.

ACTION – SH to send to TH a copy of the 2007 name badge template.

ACTION – TH to mock up a name badge and send to OC for approval.

=== 2009/02/18 Tour Hosts / Organising Committee===
* Attendees (skypeid)
** Cameron Shorter (cameronshorter)
** Simon Hope (dial in only)
** Tyler Mitchell (spatialguru) likely only available for 30-45 minutes
** Harley Prowse (dial in ideally)
** Jeff McKenna (jeff_mckenna) available for 1 hour
** Tour Hosts (tour.hosts)
** Mark Leslie (mark.s.leslie)
** Bruce Bannerman (no skype access, STD call) available for 45 minutes only.
*Agenda:
**Sponsorship and Exhibition
***Update (TH)
**Program (SH) [http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pm1bvJQodiW0s8T_P6CJ-BQ&hl=en Current Program], [http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pu9014gybzrd-LlSBIG3Kag&hl=en Camerons Suggestions]
***Call for Workshops (SH) - communicate the deadline!
***Call for Abstract Preparation (SH) - open 9th March
***Workshop\Abstract Review - decision required
***Outstanding Program Items - SH to complete amendments from CS
***Schedule Publication on website - looking for assistance on this
***Speakers - Spare slot needs filling & blurb for website
***Welcome Reception (TH)
**Marketing
***eBlast (CS/TH). Volunteer needed: Need to build community leaders list as per [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G2007_Communication#E-Mail_Marketing 2007] and contact GIS calendars and related activities, asking to add FOSS4G links.
*** Marketing into Asia strategy (CS). Volunteer needed here.
***Postcards (TH)
***Spatial Sciences Institute of Australia update (CS)
**Other Business
***Online Registration Form (TH)
***Interpreting (TH)
** Next meeting: Wednesday 18th March 2009, 1300 - 1400

==== 2009/02/18 Action Notes from OC Meeting with Tour Hosts====
'''1. Sponsorship and Exhibition'''

ACTION – TM to locate the 2007 sponsor contact details list and send to TH.

ACTION – TH to contact Greg Buehler/Raj Singh from OGC directly to access potential sponsors contact list.

ACTION – BB recently added new potential contacts to the online list. TH to send the sponsorship prospectus then BB to follow up with these contacts to make sure they have received the prospectus and to provide any further information.

'''2. Programme'''

ACTION – OC to canvas the OSGeo discussion list to gather interest in Workshops as proposal submissions are low.

ACTION – SH to put together the abstract submission information/guidelines and create a standard abstract submission form for the website.

ACTION – All OC members are to subscribe to OCS and become a member (SH to provide instructions on becoming a member via email). Once everyone is a member, SH will set everyone up as reviewers. OCS software to be used for review of abstracts.

ACTION – SH to update the programme on google docs to include Cameron’s suggested programme changes.

ACTION – OSGeo to organise/manage Conference Close session including handing out any awards and announcing of the next Conference. OC confirmed that the Conference Close should be kept as 30mins in the programme.

'''3. Installfest'''

ACTION – TH to discuss with suppliers the option of using volunteers to pack down workshop computers within a 30 minute time frame. TH notes that if the supplier does not want volunteers packing down the computers there may be higher labour costs incurred as the supplier will bring in more staff to pack down within the 30 minutes.

- OC confirmed approximately 100 pax will attend the Installfest and they will require wireless or wired internet, power, tables and chairs.

'''4. Speakers'''

ACTION – Keynote speakers to have a half hour time slot in the programme. SH to adjust timings.

ACTION – BB to investigate how well Ilberto Kamaro from Brazil speaks English and advise if he would be a suitable keynote speaker.

ACTION – HP and BB to research David Hocking from ASIBA and confirm whether or not he would be a suitable speaker.

ACTION – JM to suggest and research appropriate speakers from Asia.

'''5. Other Business'''

ACTION – TH To draft a brief outline of the welcome reception for the website.

ACTION – TH to discuss with SCEC how long the session rooms can be used for each day as there is the possibility that the BOF sessions will run overtime. Additionally the delegates may want access to the wireless internet after hours.

ACTION – TH to extend the room booking on the last Conference day to 6pm for the AGM.

- JM confirmed that interpreting will not be required at this conference.

ACTION – TH to add the following to the registration form:
* Delegates longitude and latitude information that can then be plotted on google maps.
* Questions that ask for the profile of delegates/position in organisation/purchasing power.

'''6. Marketing'''

ACTION – HP to collate list of community leaders and their email addresses. TM to mentor HP on how to research this based on 2007 existing list.

ACTION – TH to advise OC of the current number of expressions of interest received so far.

ACTION – TM to set up an OSGeo email subscription list for future announcements.

ACTION – HP to investigate cost of a single page satchel insert at the upcoming not for profit Conference in New Zealand. TH/CS to then review if budget is available.

ACTION – BB to follow up with the SSI via different channels for a contra deal. CS notes that from his attempts they are still looking for a 5% registration discount for SSI members.

=== 2009/01/21 Tour Hosts / Organising Committee===
* Agenda:
**Sponsorship and Exhibition
***Update (TH)
**Program
***Call for Workshops and Abstracts (OC/TH)
***Program at a Glance (OC)
***Code Sprint (CO/TH)
**Marketing
***Mailing Lists (TH/OC)
**Other Business
***Tour Proposal (TH)
***Conference Dinner Proposal (TH)
***Accommodation (TH)
***Spatial Science Institute
** Vote to accept our [[http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_Discounts#Distributing_Conference_Profit Profit Sharing Policy]].
** Review [actions http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pu9014gybzrdbXehN8JAJfg] (Tour Hosts)
** Review [http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcd63bvv_14vzf642gg&hl=en schedule] (Tour Hosts)
** Functions and Tours report (Tour Hosts)
** Engaging SSI (Dennis Puniard, Cameron)
*** Dennis, SSI, expects to be able to draw ~ 100 delegates. SSI represent our target market.
*** SSI are holding a conference in Adelaide before ours. Advertising opportunity.
*** SSI interested to know how FOSS4G can be of benefit to SSI. Eg: 5% discount to SSI members.
** Marketing (Kirsty, Tour Hosts)
*** Marketing into Asia/Pacific
** Review Workshops (Mark)
** Review CCIP (Graham de Hoedt, Cameron)
*** Press release pending
*** Need to source data
** Keynote Speakers (Cameron)
** Review Website (Simon)
** Next meeting: Wednesday 18th February 2009, 1300 - 1400

====Meeting Notes====
* Sponsorship Propectus will be released 28 Jan
** Looking for leads local leads
** Tour Hosts wants the database so that they can track who has opened the emails etc.
** Suggest that we contact ASIBA, SSI and GITA
* Call for workshops looking good (Mark)
* OC should be putting themes into the program
* Code Sprint: Confirmed as 2 days.
* Marketing email:
** Suggest sending email to project leaders who forward onto contacts
* Press Release
** Should be plain text, linked back to the website
* Conference dinner:
** Optional function
** (OC preferred option) Captain Cook Harbour Cruise $135/person, 3 course dinner + drinks. Can take up to 300 guests.
** Darling Harbour $135 - $165/person.
** ACTION: Cameron to call SSI and offer booth space in return for an OSGeo booth at SSI conference.
** Discussed keynote speakers. Looking like:
*** Scott Power, BOM, compelling speaker to demystify Climate Change
*** Raj Singh, OGC, to introduce CCIP
*** A Google Maps speaker
*** We are still looking for a drawcard speaker, probably non-spatial, likely from Open Source community. (Mark Shuttleworth head of Ubuntu can't make it).
** ACTION: Cameron to start up "Marketing into Asia" thread.

==== 2009/01/21 Action Notes from OC Meeting with Tour Hosts====

'''1. Sponsorship and Exhibition'''

ACTION - OC to send TH all mailing lists so the Sponsorship Selling Document can be distributed to these contacts.

ACTION - CS to send the OC an email advising what was discussed in the meeting with Google.

'''2. Program – Code Sprint'''

ACTION – TH to present venue options to OC for 2 day code sprint (80 -100 pax). OC notes no registration fee and open to anyone (ie: not just conference attendees).

'''3. Marketing'''

ACTION - TH to draft a plain text email advertising the Conference, call for workshops and sponsorship opportunities. Links to the Conference website are to be included in this email. OC to then distribute to community leaders for re distribution to potential delegates.

ACTION - All press releases are to be stored in the wiki and sent through to community leaders for distribution.

ACTION - Simon to draft a call for workshops announcement.

ACTION - CS to invite all key players to form a marketing group and work out a strategy on how to target Asia.

'''4. Other Business'''

''Tours''

ACTION - OC confirmed that the TH suggested tours are appropriate and these should be added to website. TH to provide Simon with information. OC notes that tours are not to take delegates away from the workshops or code sprint.

''Conference Dinner''

ACTION - TH to confirm the dinner harbour cruise with the proposed three course dinner and 3 hour beverage package at $135.00 per person for a minimum of 150 guests.

''Accommodation''

ACTION - TH to confirm what the maximum capacity is for YHA Railway Square.

''Spatial Science Institute''

ACTION - CS to advise Dennis that a discount cannot be offered to SSI members, however, the OC is interested in swapping booth space on a contra deal arrangement. CS to confirm this arrangement as soon as possible so a booth can be allocated to SSI before they are all sold.

ACTION – At the upcoming Conference in February, Harley is to speak to ASIBA about swapping mailing lists and website links.

=== 2009/01/15 Climate Change Integration Plugfest===
Present:
* Graham de Hoedt, BOM
* Cameron Shorter, FOSS4G Organising Committee
* Greg Buehler, OGC
* Raj Singh, OGC

Decisions:
* Funding will be coordinated by OGC and disassociated from FOSS4G. (This should encourage proprietary vendors to take part). Funds can be moved from CCIP to FOSS4G by hiring conference space.
* Funding will be coordinated via cost sharing model (as per OGC testbeds) as this will encourage small vendors to participate. Cost sharing will not influence big vendors decision to participate.
* Scenario needs to be simple in order to encourage maximum participation. 'Focus on WMS/WFS.

Actions:
* BOM: look into becoming OGC member
* BOM: commit funding to CCIP. Done.
* BOM: write 1 page sponsorship proposal
* BOM: write up scenario based upon OWS4. Support from OGC
* OGC: Propose funding and sponsorship model.
* OGC: Set up a working committee for CCIP and private twiki pages
* OGC: Engage future conferences to continue CCIP. Eg: GSDI 11. GEOS Summit 2010. Aim to get a participant from these conferences engaged in CCIP to facilitate migrating CCIP to these conferences.
* 2009-01-19 OGC: Announce CCIP to OGC Planning Committee
* 2009-01-21 OGC/FOSS4G: OGC/FOSS4G Press Release for CCIP
* 2009-01-?? CCIP sponsors added to FOSS4G prospectus.
* 2009-01-28 Tour Hosts: FOSS4G prospectus released

=== 2008/12/12 Action Notes from OC Meeting with Tour Hosts===

'''1. Sponsorship and Exhibition'''

ACTION - OC to update the sponsorship leads list with sponsor contact details (names and email addresses) by close of business Wednesday 17 December 2008.

ACTION - TH to then send out an eblast informing these companies about the launch of the sponsorship prospectus.

'''2. Program Timeline'''

ACTION - SH to speak with CS’s contact and discuss the website and submission forms. There is to be one form for Call for Workshops and one form for Call for Abstracts. '''ONGOING AS OF 21-01-09'''

ACTION - SH to email delegates informing them of the submission forms opening dates.

ACTION - TH to change the abstract deadline to the beginning of June in the program timeline - '''DONE'''

ACTION - TH to send SH excel versions of the program timeline and project plan - '''DONE'''

ACTION - SH to upload these documents onto Google docs (on a private page) and create the relevant links to the wiki. - '''DONE'''

'''3. Social Program'''

''Welcome Reception''

ACTION - ML to do a site inspection at the Shelbourne Hotel.

ACTION - ML to advise JD of a suitable day so she can confirm time with the event co-ordinator.

ACTION - TH to put the level that can accommodate 200 guests on hold

''Conference Dinner''

ACTION - TH to get quotes for the following:

• A boat that takes delegates from SCEC, under the Harbour Bridge and on to Luna Park for Dinner

• A dinner cruise

• Restaurant in Cockle Bay

'''4. Tours'''

ACTION - TH to put together a tour proposal and present to OC at next meeting

'''5. Marketing'''

ACTION - TH to contact Position Magazine to get written confirmation. TH to compare entitlements in monetary value to show comparison

ACTION - OC to continually add new upcoming conferences to the Google calendar as they find out about them. - '''ONGOING'''

ACTION - OC to use the Blogosphere more often.

ACTION - OC to send TH a list of conferences that OSGeo will exhibit at to ensure that FOSS4G postcards are there.

ACTION - TH to send Tim Bowden postcards for distribution at a Conference he is attending in January in China.

ACTION - TH to send each OC member (except Simon) 50 postcards to distribute to any Conferences they attend

ACTION - TH to create a Google doc in which the OC can enter their mailing addresses

ACTION - TH to make up a PowerPoint slide for Mark to include at the end of the presentation he is giving at a Conference in February. Mark to distribute postcards at this Conference.

'''6. Program/Venue'''

ACTION - TH to confirm G07 with SCEC - '''DONE'''

ACTION - CS to sign venue matrix so TH can contract rooms - '''DONE'''

ACTION - SH to review the program and find a suitable time for the Installfest to take place. '''DONE'''

'''7. Next Meeting'''
Wednesday 21st January 2009, 1300 - 1400

=== 2008/12/12 Cameron + Tour Hosts ===
Present:
* Cameron Shorter
* Daniel Branik
* Julia Vernon
* Denisa Admova

Key notes:
* Tour Hosts agreed to exclude TH staff accommodation costs from the budget. Of note, hotels often give free rooms if there are sufficient people booking through them. It was agreed that Tour Hosts could make use of these free rooms, unless it has already been promised to FOSS4G in the proposal or contract. Action: Tour Hosts to check.
* Tour Hosts intend to use in house resources to support Workshop setup. Cameron noted that FOSS4G need to verify that Tour Hosts are not over-charging. Action: Tour Hosts to provide cost estimates and break down of costs which OSGeo can compare to alternate suppliers. OSGeo will have the option to use alternate supplies TH prove to be too expensive.
* Budget is being updated and should be put out today. Hopefully this one will be final sign off.
* Agreed to use Google Docs for review of key documents like budget. Comments from the OC can be set to strikeout font by TH once actions are addressed.

=== 2008/12/03 Organising Committee ===
* Logs at: http://logs.qgis.org/foss4g/%23foss4g.2008-12-02.log
Outstanding actions:
ACTION: Cameron to arrange with TH re to-do list/communication
* Started using Google Docs Spreadsheet at: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pu9014gybzrdbXehN8JAJfg
* Cameron needs to notify and get buy in from TH

ACTION: Budget
* Waiting on TH to accept budget review comments.

ACTION: TH: Does TH require more feedback from the OC?

ACTION - Cameron to follow up with TH re sponsorship.
* Kirsty from TH is incorporating changes, will get Cameron to review Showcase sponsorship section.
* Kirsty will circulate a sponsor/lead list for OC to fill in.

ACTION - simon to send preliminary program info to the list for discussion
* Simon: I have a meeting arranged with TH (today) at 12pm to discuss the program in more detail. I will report to the OC after this meeting.

ACTION: Make decision on workshop venue by vote.
* TH has done this and have all OC expressed preference? - Are we in position for the OC to take a decision on this - if not then what outstanding information is required - this seems a priority for tomorrow's meeting?

=== 2008/11/19 Organising Committee, plus Tour Hosts ===
* time: [http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=11&day=19&year=2008&hour=13&min=0&sec=0&p1=240 1:00 PM Sydney time] 
* location: meeting was done via Skype teleconference
* Minutes: are available on this page's [[Talk:FOSS4G_2009_Organising_Committee_Meetings|discussion page]]
* Agenda:
*# decide who will record Minutes of this meeting
*# select chair for the meeting
*# confirm date/time for next meeting(s):
*#* OC meetings
*#* meetings between OC and TH
*# items for discussion:
*## Timetable and To-Do list
*## Budget: status, next steps, timetable
*## Venues:
*### SCEC: tour results, exhibition booth space
*### Workshops venue: status
*### Other venues: Code Sprint, Social
*## Program:
*### what items have to be confirmed, and by when, to 'move forward'(e.g. with Sponsorship Prospectus)
*### Workshops/Labs
*### Conference Program:
*###* 2007 Program: [http://www.foss4g2007.org/program_overview/ http://www.foss4g2007.org/program_overview/]
*###* 2008 Program: [http://conference.osgeo.org/index.php/foss4g/2008/schedConf/schedule] and [http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p-YpIgK8cxLIjFv0ZK6R0Mg]
*### Social event(s)
*### Code Sprint
*### Technical Visits/Tours
*### Outreach Activities

=== 2008/11/12 Geospatial Integration Showcase ===
* [[FOSS4G_2009_Meeting_2008-11-12_Geospatial_Integration_Showcase|Minutes]]

=== 2008/09/10 (Program And Venue) ===
* [[FOSS4G_2009_Meeting_2008-09-10_Program_And_Venue|Minutes]]
* time: [http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=9&day=10&year=2008&hour=10&min=0&sec=0&p1=240 10:00 AM Sydney time] 
* location: meeting was via the [[Conference_Call|OSGeo Conference Call]] facilities

=== 2008/08/29 (Venue/Date selection ) ===
* [[FOSS4G_2009_Meeting_2008-08-29_(Venue/Date_selection_)|Minutes]]
* time: [http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=8&day=29&year=2008&hour=10&min=0&sec=0&p1=240 10:00 AM Sydney time] 
* location: meeting was via the [[Conference_Call|OSGeo Conference Call]] facilities
* Agenda:
# Venue and Conference Dates
## TH to table venue comparison – OC/TH to discuss
## Meeting dates to be confirmed - based on venue selection:
##* UNSW: 17 – 21 November
##* SCEC: 23 – 27 November
# Sponsorship and Exhibition
## Sponsorship hierarchy – OC to confirm
# Website
## TH/OC to discuss
# FOSS4G 2008 promotion
## TH/OC to discuss
# Budget
## TH to table budget to OC chair and Treasurer
# Next Meeting
## Discuss dates

=== 2008/07/30 (Integrating free & proprietary conferencing software) ===
* [[FOSS4G_2009_Meeting_2008-07-30_(Integrating_free_%26_proprietary_conferencing_software)|Minutes]]
* time: [http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=7&day=30&year=2008&hour=10&min=0&sec=0&p1=240 10:00 AM Sydney time] 
* location: meeting was via the [[Conference_Call|OSGeo Conference Call]] facilities

=== 2008/07/02 (Sponsorship and Exhibition Meeting) ===
* [[FOSS4G_2009_Meeting_2008-07-02_(Sponsorship_and_Exhibition_Meeting)|Action Notes]]
* time: [http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=7&day=2&year=2008&hour=10&min=0&sec=0&p1=240 10:00 AM Sydney time] 
* location: meeting was via the [[Conference_Call|OSGeo Conference Call]] facilities

=== 2008/06/06 (Tour Hosts / OSGeo Contract review) ===
* [[FOSS4G_2009_Meeting_2008-06-06_(Tour_Hosts_/_OSGeo_Contract_review)|Minutes]]
* time: [http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=6&day=6&year=2008&hour=10&min=0&sec=0&p1=240 10:00 AM Sydney time] 
* location: meeting was via the [[Conference_Call|OSGeo Conference Call]] facilities

=== 2008/05/30 (Kickoff meeting between Tour Hosts and Conference Organisors) ===
* [[FOSS4G_2009_Meeting_2008-05-30_(Kickoff_meeting_between_Tour_Hosts_and_Conference_Organisors)|Minutes]]
* time: [http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=5&day=30&year=2008&hour=10&min=0&sec=0&p1=240 10:00 AM Sydney time] 
* location: meeting was via the [[Conference_Call|OSGeo Conference Call]] facilities

[[Category:Meetings]]
[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]

FOSS4G 2009 Workshop Meeting 260809

2009-08-26T00:01:52Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* Minutes */

== Time and Place ==

[http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?year=2009&month=8&day=19&hour=23&min=0&sec=0 Thursday 20th August, 9am AEST]

The information you need to configure your IRC client are:
* Server - Pick one from [http://www.freenode.org/irc_servers.shtml Freenode Servers]
* Channel - #foss4g
* Port - 6667

== Agenda ==

None

== Minutes ==

'''In attendance''':

* Jeff McKenna (JM)
* Mark Leslie (ML)
* Jody Garnett (JG)

'''IRC Logs'''

http://logs.qgis.org/foss4g/%23foss4g.2009-08-25.log

'''Action points'''

* ML - Details from arinex: Date of availability of image machine, availability of image machine for remote testing, can we get access to the workshop rooms/machines the night before, can tutorial machines see each other within the room, specs of machines (OS inc. service pack, admin access to users, etc.)
* ML - Issue a call for volunteers to assist in tutorials.
* ML - Blog the venue.
* JM - Fill out wiki page for scheduling
* JM - Follow up on FTP site for uploads http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/407

FOSS4G 2009 Workshop Meeting 260809

2009-08-25T23:51:02Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* Minutes */

== Time and Place ==

[http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?year=2009&month=8&day=19&hour=23&min=0&sec=0 Thursday 20th August, 9am AEST]

The information you need to configure your IRC client are:
* Server - Pick one from [http://www.freenode.org/irc_servers.shtml Freenode Servers]
* Channel - #foss4g
* Port - 6667

== Agenda ==

None

== Minutes ==

'''In attendance''':

* Jeff McKenna (JM)
* Mark Leslie (ML)
* Jody Garnett (JG)

'''IRC Logs'''

http://logs.qgis.org/foss4g/%23foss4g.2009-08-25.log

'''Action points'''

* ML - Details from arinex: Date of availability of image machine, availability of image machine for remote testing, can we get access to the workshop rooms/machines the night before, can tutorial machines see each other within the room.
* ML - Issue a call for volunteers to assist in tutorials.
* ML - Blog the venue.
* JM - Fill out wiki page for scheduling
* JM - Follow up on FTP site for uploads http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/407

FOSS4G 2009 Workshop Meeting 260809

2009-08-25T23:50:07Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* Minutes */

== Time and Place ==

[http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?year=2009&month=8&day=19&hour=23&min=0&sec=0 Thursday 20th August, 9am AEST]

The information you need to configure your IRC client are:
* Server - Pick one from [http://www.freenode.org/irc_servers.shtml Freenode Servers]
* Channel - #foss4g
* Port - 6667

== Agenda ==

None

== Minutes ==

'''In attendance''':

* Jeff McKenna (JM)
* Mark Leslie (ML)
* Jody Garnett (JG)

'''IRC Logs'''

http://logs.qgis.org/foss4g/%23foss4g.2009-08-25.log

'''Action points'''

* ML - Details from arinex: Date of availability of image machine, availability of image machine for remote testing, can we get access to the workshop rooms/machines the night before, can tutorial machines see each other within the room.
* ML - Issue a call for volunteers to assist in tutorials.
* JM - Fill out wiki page for scheduling
* JM - Follow up on FTP site for uploads http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/407

FOSS4G 2009 Workshop Meeting 260809

2009-08-25T23:43:05Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* Minutes */

== Time and Place ==

[http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?year=2009&month=8&day=19&hour=23&min=0&sec=0 Thursday 20th August, 9am AEST]

The information you need to configure your IRC client are:
* Server - Pick one from [http://www.freenode.org/irc_servers.shtml Freenode Servers]
* Channel - #foss4g
* Port - 6667

== Agenda ==

None

== Minutes ==

'''In attendance''':

* Jeff McKenna (JM)
* Mark Leslie (ML)
* Jody Garnett (JG)

'''IRC Logs'''

'''Action points'''

* ML - Details from arinex: Date of availability of image machine, availability of image machine for remote testing, can we get access to the workshop rooms/machines the night before, can tutorial machines see each other within the room.
* ML - Issue a call for volunteers to assist in tutorials.
* JM - Fill out wiki page for scheduling
* JM - Follow up on FTP site for uploads http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/407

FOSS4G 2009 Workshop Meeting 260809

2009-08-25T23:39:27Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* Minutes */

== Time and Place ==

[http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?year=2009&month=8&day=19&hour=23&min=0&sec=0 Thursday 20th August, 9am AEST]

The information you need to configure your IRC client are:
* Server - Pick one from [http://www.freenode.org/irc_servers.shtml Freenode Servers]
* Channel - #foss4g
* Port - 6667

== Agenda ==

None

== Minutes ==

'''In attendance''':

* Jeff McKenna (JM)
* Mark Leslie (ML)
* Jody Garnett (JG)

'''IRC Logs'''

'''Action points'''

* ML - Details from arinex: Date of availability of image machine, availability of image machine for remote testing, can we get access to the workshop rooms/machines the night before, can tutorial machines see each other within the room.
* ML - Review presenter notes and adjust, creating 'instructor notes'.
* ML - Issue a call for volunteers to assist in tutorials.
* JM - Fill out wiki page for scheduling
* JM - Follow up on FTP site for uploads http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/407

FOSS4G 2009 Workshop Meeting 260809

2009-08-25T23:36:03Z

Wiki-Mleslie: New page: == Time and Place == [http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?year=2009&month=8&day=19&hour=23&min=0&sec=0 Thursday 20th August, 9am AEST] The information you need to config...

== Time and Place ==

[http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?year=2009&month=8&day=19&hour=23&min=0&sec=0 Thursday 20th August, 9am AEST]

The information you need to configure your IRC client are:
* Server - Pick one from [http://www.freenode.org/irc_servers.shtml Freenode Servers]
* Channel - #foss4g
* Port - 6667

== Agenda ==

None

== Minutes ==

'''In attendance''':

* Jeff McKenna (JM)
* Mark Leslie (ML)
* Jody Garnett (JG)

'''IRC Logs'''

'''Action points'''

* ML - Details from arinex: Date of availability of image machine, availability of image machine for remote testing, can we get access to the workshop rooms/machines the night before, can tutorial machines see each other within the room.
* ML - Review presenter notes and adjust, creating 'instructor notes'.
* ML - Issue a call for volunteers to assist in tutorials.
* JM - Fill out wiki page for scheduling

FOSS4G 2009 Workshop Meeting 200809

2009-08-20T00:35:45Z

Wiki-Mleslie: <sigh> I suck at wiki formatting.

== Time and Place ==

[http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?year=2009&month=8&day=19&hour=23&min=0&sec=0 Thursday 20th August, 9am AEST]

The information you need to configure your IRC client are:
* Server - Pick one from [http://www.freenode.org/irc_servers.shtml Freenode Servers]
* Channel - #foss4g
* Port - 6667

== Agenda ==

; 9.00 : Introductions
; 9.05 : Update from the Chair
; 9.15 : DVD and Data
; 9.25 : Deadline review
; 9.30 : Other

== Minutes ==

'''In attendance''':

* Jeff McKenna (JM)
* Mark Leslie (ML)

'''IRC Logs'''

http://logs.qgis.org/foss4g/%23foss4g.2009-08-19.log

'''Action points'''

* ML - Review presenter notes and adjust, creating 'instructor notes'. Include instructions for submitting installers, instructions and tests, needed data or media, etc.
* ML - Issue a call for volunteers to chair tutorial sessions.
* JM - Add a wiki page for scheduling
* ML - Determine if we can get access to the workshop machines the night before workshop day.
* ML - Find out if computers on the tutorial room wireless can see each other.
* JM - Setup an FTP site for workshop instructors to upload stuffs.

FOSS4G 2009 Workshop Meeting 200809

2009-08-20T00:14:59Z

Wiki-Mleslie: Adding log link.

== Time and Place ==

[http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?year=2009&month=8&day=19&hour=23&min=0&sec=0 Thursday 20th August, 9am AEST]

The information you need to configure your IRC client are:
* Server - Pick one from [http://www.freenode.org/irc_servers.shtml Freenode Servers]
* Channel - #foss4g
* Port - 6667

== Agenda ==

; 9.00 : Introductions
; 9.05 : Update from the Chair
; 9.15 : DVD and Data
; 9.25 : Deadline review
; 9.30 : Other

== Minutes ==

'''In attendance''':

* Jeff McKenna (JM)
* Mark Leslie (ML)

'''IRC Logs'''

http://logs.qgis.org/foss4g/%23foss4g.2009-08-19.log

'''Action points'''

ML - Review presenter notes and adjust, creating 'instructor notes'. Include instructions for submitting installers, instructions and tests, needed data or media, etc.
ML - Issue a call for volunteers to chair tutorial sessions.
JM - Add a wiki page for scheduling
ML - Determine if we can get access to the workshop machines the night before workshop day.
ML - Find out if computers on the tutorial room wireless can see each other.
JM - Setup an FTP site for workshop instructors to upload stuffs.

FOSS4G 2009 Workshop Meeting 200809

2009-08-19T23:58:40Z

Wiki-Mleslie: Fixing evil formatting.

== Time and Place ==

[http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?year=2009&month=8&day=19&hour=23&min=0&sec=0 Thursday 20th August, 9am AEST]

The information you need to configure your IRC client are:
* Server - Pick one from [http://www.freenode.org/irc_servers.shtml Freenode Servers]
* Channel - #foss4g
* Port - 6667

== Agenda ==

; 9.00 : Introductions
; 9.05 : Update from the Chair
; 9.15 : DVD and Data
; 9.25 : Deadline review
; 9.30 : Other

== Minutes ==

In attendance:
* Jeff McKenna (JM)
* Mark Leslie (ML)

ML - Review presenter notes and adjust, creating 'instructor notes'. Include instructions for submitting installers, instructions and tests, needed data or media, etc.
ML - Issue a call for volunteers to chair tutorial sessions.
JM - Add a wiki page for scheduling
ML - Determine if we can get access to the workshop machines the night before workshop day.
ML - Find out if computers on the tutorial room wireless can see each other.
JM - Setup an FTP site for workshop instructors to upload stuffs.

FOSS4G 2009 Workshop Meeting 200809

2009-08-19T23:57:29Z

Wiki-Mleslie: Adding actions

== Time and Place ==

[http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?year=2009&month=8&day=19&hour=23&min=0&sec=0 Thursday 20th August, 9am AEST]

The information you need to configure your IRC client are:
* Server - Pick one from [http://www.freenode.org/irc_servers.shtml Freenode Servers]
* Channel - #foss4g
* Port - 6667

== Agenda ==

; 9.00 : Introductions
; 9.05 : Update from the Chair
; 9.15 : DVD and Data
; 9.25 : Deadline review
; 9.30 : Other

== Actions ==

ML - Review presenter notes and adjust, creating 'instructor notes'. Include instructions for submitting installers, instructions and tests, needed data or media, etc.
ML - Issue a call for volunteers to chair tutorial sessions.
JM - Add a wiki page for scheduling
ML - Determine if we can get access to the workshop machines the night before workshop day.
ML - Find out if computers on the tutorial room wireless can see each other.
JM - Setup an FTP site for workshop instructors to upload stuffs.

FOSS4G 2009 Workshop Meeting 200809

2009-08-19T04:25:40Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* Agenda */

FOSS4G 2009 Workshop Meeting 200809

2009-08-19T01:23:29Z

Wiki-Mleslie: Fixing time formatting issue

FOSS4G 2009 Workshop Meeting 200809

2009-08-18T23:44:59Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* Agenda */

FOSS4G 2009 Workshop Meeting 200809

2009-08-18T23:43:42Z

FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 26

2009-08-13T00:54:20Z

Wiki-Mleslie: Grammatical atrocities removed.

_DRAFT_

= Sign up for FOSS4G bonus activities =

Sydney, Australia. 14 August 2009. http://2009.foss4g.org

The FOSS4G conference is famous for its community driven, extra-curricular activities and wiki pages are now open for community members to define these activities for 2009. So if you want to get more out of FOSS4G than just listening, if you have a topic you want to discuss, a message you want to share, a product you want to show off, or you want to network with like minded people, then please consider adding your name to one of the following activities.

==Birds of a Feather==
Semi-organised meetings between people with specific shared interests. If you have a discussion topic or project in mind and want to coordinate a BoF session, please add it to our working list. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_BirdsOfAFeather

==OSGeo AGM==
OSGeo's Annual General Meeting which will hear reports from Local Chapters and OSGeo Committees. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Annual_General_Meeting_2009

==Installfest==
At the start of the conference, community members will be helping delegates install a wide variety of FOSS software on delegates laptops. Add the name of your project and yourself to the wiki if you will be attending. See also the Live DVD. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_InstallFest

==Posters==
Limited poster boards will be on hand for the duration of the conference. Add your proposed project and contact details to the wiki so we can determine how big posters should be, and how many we can accept. Monitor poster discussion on the foss4g email list. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_Posters

==Demo Theater==
Ten minute product presentation slots will be running during morning tea and lunch breaks. These presentations are being offered first to sponsors, then to community members. Contact the coordinators if you wish to be involved. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_Demonstration_Theatre

==Live DVD==
A Linux based Live DVD, with windows installers, will be provided to all delegates. This disk will further be available for use at conferences and marketing events around the world long after FOSS4G. This is a huge marketing opportunity, but is currently under-resourced; there is a chance we will be left using the same DVD produced for the 2008 conference. If you are a good community organisor, or a wiz technical geek, please help out with this activity. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_Live_DVD

==Code Sprint==
Saturday after FOSS4G: Passionate programmers + pizza + caffeine + whiteboards + wireless = great software advancements. Add a project you wish to work on, a coordinator, and goals for your code sprint. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_Code_Sprint

==The Climate Change Integration Plugfest (CCIP)==
A demonstration of standards based interoperability between Open Source and Proprietary geospatial applications based on a Climate Change Scenario, being coordinated by the OGC. Contact Raj Singh if interested. http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/bin/view/ClimateChallenge2009/WebHome

==Volunteers==
Want to help out with all the extra little jobs, or need volunteers for specific activities? http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_Volunteers

=About FOSS4G=
The Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) conference, coming to Sydney, Australia, 20-23 October 2009, attracts presentations from the world's best Developers, Policy Makers, Sponsors and Geospatial Professionals in the area of geospatial applications, standards, government programs, business processes and case studies. Topics include mobile platforms, location based applications, crowd sourcing, cloud computing, development, spatial standards, integration of cross-agency data, Spatial Data Infrastructures, Sensor Webs, Web Processing Services, Integration of Open Source and Proprietary Software and more.

http://2009.foss4g.org

== Upcoming milestones ==

* 14 Sep 2009, '''Completed program available'''
* 20 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Workshop
* 21-23 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Presentations and Tutorials
* 24 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Code Sprint

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

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

or contact:

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

tel +61-2-8570-5050

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

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Committee

2009-08-12T01:14:12Z

Wiki-Mleslie: Adding volunteer information.

= Sub-Committee Members =
Mark Leslie
Jeff McKenna

= Dates =
(make sure public facing dates are added to [[FOSS4G_2009_Schedule]] as well.

; September 29
: Printing material cutoff.

; TBD
: Deadline for workshop directory material
: Install workshop directory material

= Preconference Tasks =

* Determine/publicise a recommended print agency for materials we don't cover.
* Determine/publicise a recommended CD/DVD production agency.

= Onsite Tasks =

* Verify boot of machines before first workshop.
* Verify machines are running / kill new processes between workshops.
* Support last-minute changes.
* Takedown of machines to make room for installfest.

= Other =

I have verified that we are permitted to have Workshop Volunteers. I will collect a list of names and they will be given generic name badges for the day. They will not be fed, they will be seated under heat lamps, water will be rationed.

It's also worth looking [FOSS4G_2009_Workshop_Computer_Setup here]

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Committee

2009-08-12T00:44:36Z

Wiki-Mleslie: New page: = Sub-Committee Members = Mark Leslie Jeff McKenna = Dates = (make sure public facing dates are added to FOSS4G_2009_Schedule as well. ; September 29 : Printing material cutoff. ...

= Sub-Committee Members =
Mark Leslie
Jeff McKenna

= Dates =
(make sure public facing dates are added to [[FOSS4G_2009_Schedule]] as well.

; September 29
: Printing material cutoff.

; TBD
: Deadline for workshop directory material
: Install workshop directory material

= Preconference Tasks =

* Determine/publicise a recommended print agency for materials we don't cover.
* Determine/publicise a recommended CD/DVD production agency.

= Onsite Tasks =

* Verify boot of machines before first workshop.
* Verify machines are running / kill new processes between workshops.
* Support last-minute changes.
* Takedown of machines to make room for installfest.

= Other =

It's also worth looking [FOSS4G_2009_Workshop_Computer_Setup here]

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Schedule

2009-08-11T07:02:10Z

Wiki-Mleslie: Fixing the workshop deadline.

{| border="1"
! Date !! FOSS4G, Derived from [http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dcd63bvv_14vzf642gg&hl=en master] !! [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc LiveDVD] !! [http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/bin/view/ClimateChallenge2009/WebHome Climate Change Integration Showcase (CCIP)]
|-
| 2 Feb 2009 || '''Call for Workshops/Tutorials opens''' || ||
|-
| 19 Feb 2009 || || [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JauntyReleaseSchedule Ubuntu Jaunty Feature Freeze] ||
|-
| 2 Mar 2009 || Call for Workshops/Tutorials closes || ||
|-
| 9 Mar 2009 || '''Call for Abstracts opens''' || ||
|-
| 30 Mar 2009 || Notification of acceptance for workshops/tutorials || || Core hardware live
|-
| 23 Apr 2009 || || [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JauntyReleaseSchedule Ubuntu Jaunty Final Release] ||
|-
| 5 May 2009 || '''Registration for conference and tutorials opens''' || ||
|-
| 18 May 2009 || || || Call for Sponsors released
|-
| 25 May 2009 || 2 weeks till abstracts due reminder || ||
|-
| 26 May 2009 || || || Call for Participation released
|-
| 8 Jun 2009 || Abstract submission deadline || ||
|-
| 27 June 2009 || || || Call for Sponsors closes
|-
| 28 June 2009 || Abstract voting closes || ||
|-
| 20 Jul 2009 || Presenters notified of acceptance for talks || || Sponsored Scenario freeze
|-
| 20 Jul 2009 || || LiveDVD Feature Freeze || Call for Participation closes
|-
| 27 Jul 2009 || || || Core Web Services installed (alpha)
|-
| 7 Aug 2009 || '''Early registration deadline''' || ||
|-
| 3 Aug 2009 || || LiveDVD Beta Release ||
|-
| 31 Aug 2009 || || || Beta Release: Data, Web Services, Clients, Scenarios
|-
| 14 Sep 2009 || '''Completed program available on the wiki''' || ||
|-
| 21 Sep 2009 ||Printed Programme Deadline || LiveDVD Final Freeze|| [http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/bin/view/ClimateChallenge2009/CompetitiveProcess]Plugfest award judging
|-
| 28 Sep 2009 || || || System installs on CCIP local system(s)
|-
| 29 Sep 2009 || Deadline for Workshop Printing and data directory submissions || ||
|-
| 5 Oct 2009 || || LiveDVD Final Release & sent to printers|| Feature freeze, Start Video production
|-
| 6 Oct 2009 || Programme to Printers || ||
|-
| 20 Oct 2009 || FOSS4G Workshop || ||
|-
| 21-23 Oct 2009 || FOSS4G Presentations and Tutorials || ||
|-
| 24-25 Oct 2009 || FOSS4G Code Sprint || ||
|}

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Schedule

2009-08-11T00:57:49Z

Wiki-Mleslie: Adding workshop printing submission deadline

{| border="1"
! Date !! FOSS4G, Derived from [http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dcd63bvv_14vzf642gg&hl=en master] !! [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc LiveDVD] !! [http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/bin/view/ClimateChallenge2009/WebHome Climate Change Integration Showcase (CCIP)]
|-
| 2 Feb 2009 || '''Call for Workshops/Tutorials opens''' || ||
|-
| 19 Feb 2009 || || [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JauntyReleaseSchedule Ubuntu Jaunty Feature Freeze] ||
|-
| 2 Mar 2009 || Call for Workshops/Tutorials closes || ||
|-
| 9 Mar 2009 || '''Call for Abstracts opens''' || ||
|-
| 30 Mar 2009 || Notification of acceptance for workshops/tutorials || || Core hardware live
|-
| 23 Apr 2009 || || [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JauntyReleaseSchedule Ubuntu Jaunty Final Release] ||
|-
| 5 May 2009 || '''Registration for conference and tutorials opens''' || ||
|-
| 18 May 2009 || || || Call for Sponsors released
|-
| 25 May 2009 || 2 weeks till abstracts due reminder || ||
|-
| 26 May 2009 || || || Call for Participation released
|-
| 8 Jun 2009 || Abstract submission deadline || ||
|-
| 27 June 2009 || || || Call for Sponsors closes
|-
| 28 June 2009 || Abstract voting closes || ||
|-
| 20 Jul 2009 || Presenters notified of acceptance for talks || || Sponsored Scenario freeze
|-
| 20 Jul 2009 || || LiveDVD Feature Freeze || Call for Participation closes
|-
| 27 Jul 2009 || || || Core Web Services installed (alpha)
|-
| 7 Aug 2009 || '''Early registration deadline''' || ||
|-
| 3 Aug 2009 || || LiveDVD Beta Release ||
|-
| 31 Aug 2009 || || || Beta Release: Data, Web Services, Clients, Scenarios
|-
| 14 Sep 2009 || '''Completed program available on the wiki''' || ||
|-
| 17 Sep 2009 || Deadline for Workshop Printing submissions || ||
|-
| 21 Sep 2009 ||Printed Programme Deadline || LiveDVD Final Freeze|| [http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/bin/view/ClimateChallenge2009/CompetitiveProcess]Plugfest award judging
|-
| 28 Sep 2009 || || || System installs on CCIP local system(s)
|-
| 5 Oct 2009 || || LiveDVD Final Release & sent to printers|| Feature freeze, Start Video production
|-
| 6 Oct 2009 || Programme to Printers || ||
|-
| 20 Oct 2009 || FOSS4G Workshop || ||
|-
| 21-23 Oct 2009 || FOSS4G Presentations and Tutorials || ||
|-
| 24-25 Oct 2009 || FOSS4G Code Sprint || ||
|}

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Discounts

2009-08-09T23:01:40Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* Workshop Instructors */

Back to [[FOSS4G 2009]]...

= Policy =
There is a significant amount of work required to put on a successful, large conference like FOSS4G, and in order to keep prices down, much of this work needs to be done by volunteers. A few discounts will be offered to people who take on some of the laborious, less glamorous, or highly effective tasks as an incentive / thankyou.

Unfortunately, we will not be able to give discounts to all the worthy volunteers / supporters / presenters, as this would make the conference price unobtainable for many.

In order to mitigate financial risk, and add an incentive to volunteers, the level of discounts offered will be dependent upon the profit from the conference. I.e. More attendees at the conference means more discounts.

Only people putting in an exceptional effort will be offered a credit. Discounts are aimed to provide a small token of appreciation for super-human efforts rather than as a money saving exercise. If you are having problems paying for the conference, your time would be better spent getting a part time job flipping hamburgers.

The conference chair will have final say on whether a volunteer has contributed a '''super-human effort''' and whether there is sufficient budget.

= Distributing Conference Profit =
Should the conference start making a profit spare funds will be allocated in the following priority:
# Workshop Instructor 1, complementary conference credit (whether the conference is profitable or not).
# Active Conference Committee invited at cost
# Active Workshop Committee, invited at cost
# Active Conference Committee complementary credit
# Active Workshop Committee, complementary conference credit
# Extras for conference delegates, e.g. Shirts, upgraded food packages, code sprint insentives etc.
# Excessively involved volunteer at cost
# Workshop Instructor 2, complementary conference pass
# Although unlikely, if the conference is significantly more successful than expected, Tutorial Instructors may be invited "at cost".

All delegates, except Workshop Instructor 1, will need to purchase a full price ticket, and then will be refunded after the conference if there is sufficient profit.

== Workshop Instructors ==
* The first instructor for a workshop receives credit for registration for "the Conference" (not Conference + Workshops). This is awarded if the conference is profitable or not.
* Workshop instructors may attend a Workshop during the time slot(s) when they are not instructing their Workshop, but only as an observer at the back of the classroom (subject to available space)
* The credit is for registration, and does not represent a specific dollar amount
* The credit cannot be divided

The workshop instructors receiving registration credits are as follows:
* Andrea Aime
* Cedric Moullet
* Clara Tattoni
* Etienne Dube
* Jeff McKenna
* Jeroen Ticheler
* Jim Groffen
* Justin Deoliveira
* Mike Pumphrey
* Tim Schaub

== Active Workshop Committee ==
* Active Workshop committee members who contribute '''a super-human effort''' receive credit for registration for "the Conference" (not Conference + Workshops).
* The credit is for registration, and does not represent a specific dollar amount
* The credit cannot be divided
* If the member is also part of the Conference Committee, they do not receive a second credit
* Workshop committee members may add workshops to their complimentary registrations using the Workshops-Only rate

== Active Conference Committee ==
* Conference committee members who contribute '''a super-human effort''' preparing the conference receive credit for registration for the Conference" (not Conference + Workshops)
* The FOSS4G chair from the following year will also receive a complementary conference pass under the same conditions.
* The credit is for registration, and does not represent a specific dollar amount
* The credit cannot be divided
* Conference committee members may add workshops to their complimentary registrations using the Workshops-Only rate

The Active Committee is:
* Cameron Shorter (FOSS4G 2009 Chair)
* Bruce Bannerman (Sponsors, Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest)
* Harley Prowse (Abstract selection coordinator)
* Jody Garnett (Demo Theatre)
* Simon Hope (Program coordinator)
* Mark Leslie (Workshops coordinator)
* Shoaib Burq (website, twitter, etc)
* Volker Mische (conference registering software)
* Tyler Mitchel (OSGeo Staff)
* Paul Ramsey (OSGeo board representative, mentor, FOSS4G 2007 chair)
* Lorenzo Becchi (FOSS4G 2010 chair)

== Volunteers ==
* Many volunteers are involved in the FOSS4G conference and most will not be offered a discount. However, a volunteer who has contributed '''a super human effort''' for a sustained period before and during the conference, may be offered a discount if there is sufficient budget.

== Tutorial Instructors ==
* There is unlikely to be credits for Tutorial Instructors.
* Should attendance be significantly higher than expected, tutorial instructors may be offered the conference at cost price.

== Panellists and Lighting Talks ==
* There are no discounts for plenary panellists
* There are no discounts for plenary lightning speakers

== Posters ==
* There are no discounts for people who are presenting Posters

== Presenters ==
* There are no discounts for people who are doing Presentations

== Keynote speakers ==
Keynote speakers will be treated on a case by case basis.

= Contra-deals =
== Sponsors ==
* Sponsors receive complimentary registrations and discounts to "the Conference" (not Conference + Workshops) as detailed in the Sponsorship & Exhibitor Prospectus
* Sponsors may add workshops to their complimentary registrations using the Workshops-Only rate
* Sponsor discounts have been factored into the budget and will be allocated whether the conference makes a profit or not.

== Media Sponsors ==
* Position Magazine, the primary Australian GIS magazine, will receive 2 complementary registrations to "the Conference" (not Conference + Workshop) in return for advertising in Position Magazine.
* Media Sponsor discounts have been factored into the budget and will be allocated whether the conference makes a profit or not.

== Exhibitors ==
* Paying exhibitors receive a complimentary registration and discounts to "the Conference" (not Conference + Workshops) as detailed in the Sponsorship & Exhibitor Prospectus
* Exhibitors may add workshops to their complimentary registration using the Workshops-Only rate
* Exhibitor discounts have been factored into the budget and will be allocated whether the conference makes a profit or not.

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Discounts

2009-08-09T23:01:16Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* Workshop Instructors */

Back to [[FOSS4G 2009]]...

= Policy =
There is a significant amount of work required to put on a successful, large conference like FOSS4G, and in order to keep prices down, much of this work needs to be done by volunteers. A few discounts will be offered to people who take on some of the laborious, less glamorous, or highly effective tasks as an incentive / thankyou.

Unfortunately, we will not be able to give discounts to all the worthy volunteers / supporters / presenters, as this would make the conference price unobtainable for many.

In order to mitigate financial risk, and add an incentive to volunteers, the level of discounts offered will be dependent upon the profit from the conference. I.e. More attendees at the conference means more discounts.

Only people putting in an exceptional effort will be offered a credit. Discounts are aimed to provide a small token of appreciation for super-human efforts rather than as a money saving exercise. If you are having problems paying for the conference, your time would be better spent getting a part time job flipping hamburgers.

The conference chair will have final say on whether a volunteer has contributed a '''super-human effort''' and whether there is sufficient budget.

= Distributing Conference Profit =
Should the conference start making a profit spare funds will be allocated in the following priority:
# Workshop Instructor 1, complementary conference credit (whether the conference is profitable or not).
# Active Conference Committee invited at cost
# Active Workshop Committee, invited at cost
# Active Conference Committee complementary credit
# Active Workshop Committee, complementary conference credit
# Extras for conference delegates, e.g. Shirts, upgraded food packages, code sprint insentives etc.
# Excessively involved volunteer at cost
# Workshop Instructor 2, complementary conference pass
# Although unlikely, if the conference is significantly more successful than expected, Tutorial Instructors may be invited "at cost".

All delegates, except Workshop Instructor 1, will need to purchase a full price ticket, and then will be refunded after the conference if there is sufficient profit.

== Workshop Instructors ==
* The first instructor for a workshop receives credit for registration for "the Conference" (not Conference + Workshops). This is awarded if the conference is profitable or not.
* Workshop instructors may attend a Workshop during the time slot(s) when they are not instructing their Workshop, but only as an observer at the back of the classroom (subject to available space)
* The credit is for registration, and does not represent a specific dollar amount
* The credit cannot be divided
* The credit may be transferred to someone else by notifying the Conference Secretariat

The workshop instructors receiving registration credits are as follows:
* Andrea Aime
* Cedric Moullet
* Clara Tattoni
* Etienne Dube
* Jeff McKenna
* Jeroen Ticheler
* Jim Groffen
* Justin Deoliveira
* Mike Pumphrey
* Tim Schaub

== Active Workshop Committee ==
* Active Workshop committee members who contribute '''a super-human effort''' receive credit for registration for "the Conference" (not Conference + Workshops).
* The credit is for registration, and does not represent a specific dollar amount
* The credit cannot be divided
* If the member is also part of the Conference Committee, they do not receive a second credit
* Workshop committee members may add workshops to their complimentary registrations using the Workshops-Only rate

== Active Conference Committee ==
* Conference committee members who contribute '''a super-human effort''' preparing the conference receive credit for registration for the Conference" (not Conference + Workshops)
* The FOSS4G chair from the following year will also receive a complementary conference pass under the same conditions.
* The credit is for registration, and does not represent a specific dollar amount
* The credit cannot be divided
* Conference committee members may add workshops to their complimentary registrations using the Workshops-Only rate

The Active Committee is:
* Cameron Shorter (FOSS4G 2009 Chair)
* Bruce Bannerman (Sponsors, Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest)
* Harley Prowse (Abstract selection coordinator)
* Jody Garnett (Demo Theatre)
* Simon Hope (Program coordinator)
* Mark Leslie (Workshops coordinator)
* Shoaib Burq (website, twitter, etc)
* Volker Mische (conference registering software)
* Tyler Mitchel (OSGeo Staff)
* Paul Ramsey (OSGeo board representative, mentor, FOSS4G 2007 chair)
* Lorenzo Becchi (FOSS4G 2010 chair)

== Volunteers ==
* Many volunteers are involved in the FOSS4G conference and most will not be offered a discount. However, a volunteer who has contributed '''a super human effort''' for a sustained period before and during the conference, may be offered a discount if there is sufficient budget.

== Tutorial Instructors ==
* There is unlikely to be credits for Tutorial Instructors.
* Should attendance be significantly higher than expected, tutorial instructors may be offered the conference at cost price.

== Panellists and Lighting Talks ==
* There are no discounts for plenary panellists
* There are no discounts for plenary lightning speakers

== Posters ==
* There are no discounts for people who are presenting Posters

== Presenters ==
* There are no discounts for people who are doing Presentations

== Keynote speakers ==
Keynote speakers will be treated on a case by case basis.

= Contra-deals =
== Sponsors ==
* Sponsors receive complimentary registrations and discounts to "the Conference" (not Conference + Workshops) as detailed in the Sponsorship & Exhibitor Prospectus
* Sponsors may add workshops to their complimentary registrations using the Workshops-Only rate
* Sponsor discounts have been factored into the budget and will be allocated whether the conference makes a profit or not.

== Media Sponsors ==
* Position Magazine, the primary Australian GIS magazine, will receive 2 complementary registrations to "the Conference" (not Conference + Workshop) in return for advertising in Position Magazine.
* Media Sponsor discounts have been factored into the budget and will be allocated whether the conference makes a profit or not.

== Exhibitors ==
* Paying exhibitors receive a complimentary registration and discounts to "the Conference" (not Conference + Workshops) as detailed in the Sponsorship & Exhibitor Prospectus
* Exhibitors may add workshops to their complimentary registration using the Workshops-Only rate
* Exhibitor discounts have been factored into the budget and will be allocated whether the conference makes a profit or not.

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

Aust-NZ

2009-04-21T23:42:19Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* History */

[[Image:OSGeo_Aust_NZ_Logo.png|thumb|centre]]

=Welcome to the home of the Australia/New Zealand chapter of OSGeo=

==Mailing List==
Our mailing list can be subscribed to at http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/aust-nz

== Introduction ==

The Open Source Geospatial Foundation, or OSGeo, is an international not-for-profit organisation whose mission is to support and promote the collaborative development of open geospatial technologies and data.

The foundation provides financial, organisational and legal support to the broader open source geospatial community. It also serves as an independent legal entity to which community members can contribute code, funding and other resources, secure in the knowledge that their contributions will be maintained for public benefit.

OSGeo also serves as an outreach and advocacy organisation for the open source geospatial community, and provides a common forum and shared infrastructure for improving cross-project collaboration.

OSGeo has attracted a large on-line international community who work collaboratively to further the cause of open source and open data as it relates to spatial information.

The Australia – New Zealand local chapter of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo-AustNZ) aims to further OSGeo's goal's and act as it's local representative within the Australian and New Zealand region.

OSGeo-AustNZ is in the process of incorporating as a Not For Profit organisation in Australia.
In its short time in existence, OSGeo-AustNZ has attracted a significant community, including a number of key people in the regional spatial industry.

The community is proving to be an effective way to break down the traditional barriers that exist between different levels of government, research organisations and private enterprise. It is also encouraging to see an increasing degree of cooperation and cross fertilisation between Australian and New Zealand organisations.

== Scope ==

The OSGeo-AustNZ community welcomes any individual with interest in open source spatial.

== Mission ==

OSGeo-AustNZ establishes a focal point for liaison, outreach, and technical interests within the Australian and New Zealand Region. We also welcome interest from our neighbours, so please don't feel excluded.

The chapter is primarily organised around our mailing list (http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/aust-nz). Discussions can be quite lively and have attracted a who's who of 'spatial' both nationally and internationally.

The aim of this mailing list is to try to break down the traditional silos that exist between organisations and get people excited, working together and talking about what '''can''' be done with open source spatial.

Given the geographic size of our region, we do not often get the chance to meet, but when the opportunity arises it is seized with both hands.

== Getting Involved ==

OSGeo-AustNZ is an organisation that is guided by the interests of its volunteers. Get involved now and make a difference!

== Examples of OSGeo-AustNZ activities ==

Submission for Australia's Parliament of Victoria's Inquiry Into Improving Access To Victorian Public Sector Information and Data Version 1.1: dated 22nd August 2008 by Bruce Bannerman, Cameron Shorter

http://wiki.osgeo.org/images/1/14/Osgeo-austnz_vic_inquiry_psi_v1.1.pdf

==Presence at conferences==
* 2009-11, Sydney [[FOSS4G_2009]]. The Free and Open Source conference for Geospatial.
* 2008-10, Wagga Wagga, [[http://reroc.com.au/Mapped-Out-2008.98.0.html Mapped Out]] Stand at Spatial conference for regional councils.
* 2008-03, Brisbane, [http://www.qsc2008.com.au/ Queensland Spatial Conference]
** 3 hour workshop on Geospatial Open Source and Mapguide OpenSource
** OSGeo Stand
* 2008-03, Perth. [http://www.walis.wa.gov.au/forum WALIS Forum]
** An afternoon thread dedicated to everything "Open". Presentations are available from the website.
** OSGeo stand
** Early details at [http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Aust-NZ/WALIS WALIS stand]
* 2007-05, Hobart. Spatial Sciences
** OSGeo stand
* 2007-01, Sydney. Linux Australia. 1 day stand and lightning talk about OSGeo software

== FOSS4G 2009 ==

==Incorporation==
#In the next month or so we need to get incorporated, probably in Western Australia.

The WA specific requirements can be summarized as:
Legislation: [http://www.slp.wa.gov.au/statutes/swans.nsf/DisplayPDF?Openagent&Type=S&ID=D2C45E0D21C9A904482570BC002E763C WA incorporation legislation]

[http://www.docep.wa.gov.au/associations/ Incorporation Guidelines]
*More than 5 members
*Intention to apply for incorporation must be advertised between one and three months before the application is made.
*No residency requirements
*Keep accounts in such a state that they can be audited and presented to members at AGM
*Register of members to be kept with residential or postal address.

==Committee==
As per votes [http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/aust-nz/2008-April/000437.html here], the Committee for the Aust-NZ chapter is:
* Cameron Shorter (chair)
* Bruce Bannerman
* Brent Wood
* Tim Bowden
* Shoaib Burq

==History==
Our original page (which contains our initial plans for an Austalian chapter, can be found at [[Australia|Old Aust chapter page - outdated]]

[[Category: Australia]]

==Past Events==
[[Aust-NZ/WALIS|WALIS International Forum 2008]]

Aust-NZ

2009-04-21T23:40:54Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* History */

[[Image:OSGeo_Aust_NZ_Logo.png|thumb|centre]]

=Welcome to the home of the Australia/New Zealand chapter of OSGeo=

==Mailing List==
Our mailing list can be subscribed to at http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/aust-nz

== Introduction ==

The Open Source Geospatial Foundation, or OSGeo, is an international not-for-profit organisation whose mission is to support and promote the collaborative development of open geospatial technologies and data.

The foundation provides financial, organisational and legal support to the broader open source geospatial community. It also serves as an independent legal entity to which community members can contribute code, funding and other resources, secure in the knowledge that their contributions will be maintained for public benefit.

OSGeo also serves as an outreach and advocacy organisation for the open source geospatial community, and provides a common forum and shared infrastructure for improving cross-project collaboration.

OSGeo has attracted a large on-line international community who work collaboratively to further the cause of open source and open data as it relates to spatial information.

The Australia – New Zealand local chapter of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo-AustNZ) aims to further OSGeo's goal's and act as it's local representative within the Australian and New Zealand region.

OSGeo-AustNZ is in the process of incorporating as a Not For Profit organisation in Australia.
In its short time in existence, OSGeo-AustNZ has attracted a significant community, including a number of key people in the regional spatial industry.

The community is proving to be an effective way to break down the traditional barriers that exist between different levels of government, research organisations and private enterprise. It is also encouraging to see an increasing degree of cooperation and cross fertilisation between Australian and New Zealand organisations.

== Scope ==

The OSGeo-AustNZ community welcomes any individual with interest in open source spatial.

== Mission ==

OSGeo-AustNZ establishes a focal point for liaison, outreach, and technical interests within the Australian and New Zealand Region. We also welcome interest from our neighbours, so please don't feel excluded.

The chapter is primarily organised around our mailing list (http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/aust-nz). Discussions can be quite lively and have attracted a who's who of 'spatial' both nationally and internationally.

The aim of this mailing list is to try to break down the traditional silos that exist between organisations and get people excited, working together and talking about what '''can''' be done with open source spatial.

Given the geographic size of our region, we do not often get the chance to meet, but when the opportunity arises it is seized with both hands.

== Getting Involved ==

OSGeo-AustNZ is an organisation that is guided by the interests of its volunteers. Get involved now and make a difference!

== Examples of OSGeo-AustNZ activities ==

Submission for Australia's Parliament of Victoria's Inquiry Into Improving Access To Victorian Public Sector Information and Data Version 1.1: dated 22nd August 2008 by Bruce Bannerman, Cameron Shorter

http://wiki.osgeo.org/images/1/14/Osgeo-austnz_vic_inquiry_psi_v1.1.pdf

==Presence at conferences==
* 2009-11, Sydney [[FOSS4G_2009]]. The Free and Open Source conference for Geospatial.
* 2008-10, Wagga Wagga, [[http://reroc.com.au/Mapped-Out-2008.98.0.html Mapped Out]] Stand at Spatial conference for regional councils.
* 2008-03, Brisbane, [http://www.qsc2008.com.au/ Queensland Spatial Conference]
** 3 hour workshop on Geospatial Open Source and Mapguide OpenSource
** OSGeo Stand
* 2008-03, Perth. [http://www.walis.wa.gov.au/forum WALIS Forum]
** An afternoon thread dedicated to everything "Open". Presentations are available from the website.
** OSGeo stand
** Early details at [http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Aust-NZ/WALIS WALIS stand]
* 2007-05, Hobart. Spatial Sciences
** OSGeo stand
* 2007-01, Sydney. Linux Australia. 1 day stand and lightning talk about OSGeo software

== FOSS4G 2009 ==

==Incorporation==
#In the next month or so we need to get incorporated, probably in Western Australia.

The WA specific requirements can be summarized as:
Legislation: [http://www.slp.wa.gov.au/statutes/swans.nsf/DisplayPDF?Openagent&Type=S&ID=D2C45E0D21C9A904482570BC002E763C WA incorporation legislation]

[http://www.docep.wa.gov.au/associations/ Incorporation Guidelines]
*More than 5 members
*Intention to apply for incorporation must be advertised between one and three months before the application is made.
*No residency requirements
*Keep accounts in such a state that they can be audited and presented to members at AGM
*Register of members to be kept with residential or postal address.

==Committee==
As per votes [http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/aust-nz/2008-April/000437.html here], the Committee for the Aust-NZ chapter is:
* Cameron Shorter (chair)
* Bruce Bannerman
* Brent Wood
* Tim Bowden
* Shoaib Burq

==History==
Our original page (which contains our initial plans for an Austalian chapter, can be found at [[http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Australia Old Aust chapter page- outdated]]

[[Category: Australia]]

==Past Events==
[[Aust-NZ/WALIS|WALIS International Forum 2008]]

FOSS4G 2009 Lessons Learned

2009-04-08T22:59:30Z

Wiki-Mleslie: Learning more lessons

''See also: [[FOSS4G2007_Lessons_Learned]] and [[FOSS4G2008_Lessons_Learned]]''

==Bidding==

* Find your local tourist bureau to help you bid. The [http://www.scvb.com.au/ Sydney Convention and Visitors Bureau] helped us significantly, providing all the statistics and photos you need to promote your city. It is boiler plate stuff for them.
* Plan ahead. FOSS4G moves around the world to give everyone a chance to attend locally.
** Bidding cities should take a long term strategy. If you don't win one year, keep submitting until you do.
** The bid committee should suggest regions they would like to move to in the near future which will encourage cities in that region to bid.
** Feedback to unsuccessful bids should include targeted feedback, including rankings, to help cities refine their bid.
** Cities should engage the local conference industry. They are likely to provide their services for free in order to secure the conference.
* Network locally. A large, diverse team is attractive to selectors.
* Be open in your bidding process. While it may allow competing cities to gain advantage, you will demonstrate your strength and openness to the OSGeo bid committee.
* Talk up your city and local involvement at FOSS4G the previous year. Tim Bowden talked up Sydney's intention to bid for 2009 at FOSS4G 2007 and no other city decided to bid for that year.

Reference: [http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com/2008/02/international-conference-delivered-to.html International Conference delivered to your doorstep] by Cameron Shorter

===Commercial In Confidence Documentation===
* Open Source developers often expect that all FOSS4G documentation will be Open. Unfortunately, the Professional Conference Organisor (PCO) industry seems to protect all their processes and documentation very closely. Consider this when dealing with them. Request up front for documentation to be made available publicly. Some documents, like Bid Proposals will probably remain Commercial In Confidence, and you need to ensure participants are aware of this.

==PCO Selection==
* Select your Professional Conference Organisor (PCO) earlier rather than later, preferably before you put your proposal in. The PCO should help you put your budget together, and if they put the budget together for the bid, they should be well advanced when you win.
* Instead of using a PCO, consider using a non-profit organisation like [http://gita.org.au/ GITA] or [http://www.spatialsciences.org.au/ SSI]. These organisations often have expertise in organising spatial conferences, have contacts in the spatial industry, and are not out to make a profit from your conference.

===Technically Savy===
Our PCO required training to become familiar with Geek communication practices. In particular, the PCO preferred telephone conferences over email lists, wikis and IRC and was unfamiliar with email voting. This required training and negotiation with the PCO.

Lesson:
* Ensure PCOs have realistic expectations regarding our communication habits up front by describing them in our PCO tender documents. In PCO selection, include familiarity with email lists, wikis as one of the selection criteria.

==Decision making==
* Collaborative decision making is good, but make sure each committee has a chair-person with the mandate and authority to make decisions on behalf of the committee. (The chairperson should consult the committee and aggregate comments). This should make the committee significantly more effective.

==Venue booking & Conference dates==
* During proposal development, the bid team selected two venues for the conference:
** The University of NSW
*** Pro: Has accademic ties
*** Pro: Has cheap university accommodation for 500 near by (share bathrooms)
*** Pro: 10 mins bus to beach
*** Pro: Cheaper, by ~ $50/delegate
*** Con: High end accommodation is 20 mins by bus (in city)
*** Con: Would need to bus delegates to the city harbour for an impressive dinner
** Sydney Convention and Exhibition Center
*** Pro: Professional, classy center
*** Pro: Right on harbor, so easy to ship delegates to dinner location is style
*** Pro: Wide range of accommodation near by.
* We postponed venue selection till after we won the bid, and consequently SCEC did not hold our preferred date for us.
* Despite the initial analysis of the dates to be avoided (e.g. due to conflict with cultural or religious holidays, other conferences, etc.), As of early September 2008 we had still not booked a venue and it appeared that the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Center (SCEC) was only available on dates that overlapped with the USA thanksgiving weekend (which is in late November). We were able to salvage the situation by booking the SCEC for dates in October rather than November, however the availability was limited, and restricted our options.

Lessons:
* Ensure that an early decision is made regarding the Venue, and the dates. If a venue can be booked for 'the entire week', the fine tuning of the actual days and rooms required can be done later, but being able to know 'the week' allows for marketing of the event, such as at the prior year's FOSS4G conference.
* In terms of communication the critical nature of the date should have been better communicated by the Organising Committee to the PCO.
* When considering cost/delegate, be mindful that international delegates will likely be paying thousands of dollars on travel, accommodation and lost income. $50 price difference in the conference will not effect them much. (It will effect local delegates more).
* Pick a date that doesn't conflict with national holidays of key markets.
* Find out when related national and international conferences are being held and make sure you don't clash. FOSS4G 2008 was on at the same time as Europe's biggest Geospatial fair, Intergeo. Here are this list of conferences we watched for 2009: [[FOSS4G_2009_Marketing_Plan#Related_Conferences]].
* Be aware that PCOs can reduce costs substantially by adjusting the number of rooms used, or using rooms off site for workshops or code sprints.

==Facilities==
OSGeo attendees want access to local facilities and these should be researched before hand, and details provided on the website.

For some things, like printing and CD burning, it helps to set up an account with a trusted local source (as was done for FOSS4G 2008). See [[FOSS4G_2008_Media_Facilities]].

Attendees want:
* CD/DVD printing
* Paper printing (for workshops)
* hire of general IT services, computers, projectors, etc.
* An address to ship materials/equipment to ahead of time.

==Website==
Note that some of the issues related to the website for 2009 will likely not be an issue for 2010 and beyond, because the OSGeo Conference Committee will provide the 'basic infrastructure'(e.g. DNS setup, webserver setup) for the website to the local organizing committee for 2010 and beyond. Though, a decent conference system software needs to be chosen which supports on site management of sessions (like the free [http://cdsware.cern.ch/indico/ Indico] which was successfully used for [http://www.foss4g2006.org www.foss4g2006.org]).

Lessons:
* We have spent considerable time communicating/deciding the URL - if the format of the conference URL is not standard (i.e. http://20xx.foss4g/) then make a decision early.
* If a PCO is being used and they are supplying the website then liaise as early as possible with their technical contact and set out expectations on what the site should be (and not be i.e. .ASP)
* Provide whomever is doing the website with as much reference material as possible - if they are a PCO they will not know anything about FOSS4G therefore they are at an immediate disadvantage when it comes to creating content for the website

==Budget==
Get your budget agreed to before you sign a contract with the PCO. We found items in the budget, like accommodation for the local PCO attendees that caused us friction. It would have been better to have these sorted out before the contract was signed.

==Marketing==
===Press release pipeline===
On advise from 2007, as per [[FOSS4G2007_Lessons_Learned#Use_Proxies]], we built up a press release pipeline, making heavy use of Community Leaders to forward the FOSS4G press release, with a paragraph or two introduction, to their communities. This

We built a spreadsheet of community leaders, including name, email address, and email list or publication they were a leader in. The list can be accessed by Cameron Shorter or Tyler Michel from here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pu9014gybzrd1M6FqyOzGWg&hl=en_GB . Talk to either of them if you need access for future FOSS4G conferences.

# Lesson: Build this list early.
# Lesson: Ask community leaders to CC you on emails they send out, so that you get feedback on which communities are being reached, and whether you need to find a new leader for a particular area.
# Lesson: Select a schedule for press releases a publish it before hand. This helps magazines and Linked In owners to plan their releases to help you.
# Lesson: Don't send press releases just before a public holiday. We sent a release two days before Easter, and found many respondents were on leave. When they return, they will have a pile of email to attend to and your press release will likely be deleted.

===Translations===
We had community volunteers translate the website and press releases. Examples: http://2009.foss4g.org and http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_Press_Release_7_Translations . A list of translators is also available at: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pu9014gybzrd1M6FqyOzGWg&hl=en_GB

==Tutorials==
* See http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G2008_Lessons_Learned#Laptop_Based_Workshops

==Workshops==

* Provide a range of options for user level (Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced) and category (User, Developer) and provide '''strict definitions''' of what these terms mean. Use examples.
* Read previous [[FOSS4G2007_Lessons_Learned#Format_of_the_Call lessons learned]] so you don't have to learn all this yourself.
* Having people fill out document templates and submit worked, but was a pain to juggle. A web form would be much easier, would eliminate some of the stylistic issues that I will need to sort out before getting things into the program and can enforce the word limits and the use of the correct template.
* 100 words may be enough for a single instructor biography, but it's entirely insufficient when there are several. We had one submission that hit 500 for three instructors, and it would have been great to print that.
* We put word limits on everything that would be published, and some things that wouldn't (such as Instructor Experience that was only used for assessment). We should have indicated explicitly what was for publication and what was strictly evaluation. No word limits need to be imposed on the evaluation only, but then you'll have to read it.
* Having a separate submission path for tutorials than workshops allowed specific information to be captured for each. It likely cost us tutorial submissions where simply having a ''Workshop'', ''Tutorial'', ''Both'' selection would have made it trivial to submit both.
* A number of people didn't realise there were templates for submitting workshop and tutorial details. The web form would solve this, and I don't really know how to make it clearer within the OCS system. Ideally a submission wouldn't be able to move further until a document was uploaded. Two submissions failed due to not submitting the doc.
* Review the submissions early. I saved a couple of people by pointing out that the files they uploaded were not the correct templates, or they hadn't provided anything at all.
* Review often too. In the final week, when most submissions arrived, I reviewed as soon as I received notice of a submission. Then I could get after them while they still had it on their minds.

There's a hard lesson I've learned, and I'm still not sure how it should be handled differently. We have a tradition of open selection of stuff. Workshops have always been less open, but we still involve community input. What I've found this year is that the only people offering this input were those with workshops or tutorials in. This means that the more people in your org that volunteer to review the higher your chance of getting in. To some extent this is fine. I think at worst we had three from one org, out of eleven, and one didn't complete his input. But in the end we lost some great presentations because they weren't there pushing for them. One in particular fit with the goals of the conference perfectly but wasn't selected because of the advanced content. Somebody else got their advanced content in instead, though I don't recall who. It was part of the recommendation to weight for beginner themes.

If I were to do this again, I think I might try the following. First, I wouldn't submit anything myself. I did have concerns over perceived conflict of interest, which was one big reason I pushed for the community selection. Second, I would refine the selection criteria much more than I did this year. Make sure it made it into the press release, was published on the wiki and on the submission form. I would then perform the selection myself. IIRC, the original reason for community involvement in the selection was not to be inclusive, warm and fuzzy, it's because it's a hell of a lot of work. Workshops are doable by a single person, especially once the selection criteria are explicit. Frankly, those that are interested in helping with this sort of work are generally not our target audience anyway. Presentations are different. They're closer to the event for one. We're more organised by then. And there's simply too many for one person, or even a small group, to handle in isolation with any kind of efficiency. I wouldn't expect this to go well with the community. It defies convention. In my case at least, simply not submitting my own workshop wouldn't really eliminate the spectre of conflict as others in my org had submissions in. I'm not completely convinced this is the correct solution, but it's what I've come up with.

==Tools==

=== Google Analytics ===

We are successfully using google analytics to monitor the foss4g website traffic. Using the geographic breakup of the traffic we can understand which regions of the world require more aggressive marketing.

We created a generic gmail account for foss4g@gmail.com. This was done by Shoaib Burq and the password was shared with other committee members.

On 1st of March we had been using Google Analytics for about 2 weeks during which period only 2 hits to the site were from China.

We are looking to ramp up the Asian marketing.

=== Google Docs ===

Google docs proved to be quite successful for collaborative editing of documents and for creating draft conference time tables

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Lessons Learned

2009-03-31T23:14:13Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* Workshops */

''See also: [[FOSS4G2007_Lessons_Learned]] and [[FOSS4G2008_Lessons_Learned]]''

==Bidding==

* Find your local tourist bureau to help you bid. The [http://www.scvb.com.au/ Sydney Convention and Visitors Bureau] helped us significantly, providing all the statistics and photos you need to promote your city. It is boiler plate stuff for them.
* Plan ahead. FOSS4G moves around the world to give everyone a chance to attend locally.
** Bidding cities should take a long term strategy. If you don't win one year, keep submitting until you do.
** The bid committee should suggest regions they would like to move to in the near future which will encourage cities in that region to bid.
** Feedback to unsuccessful bids should include targeted feedback, including rankings, to help cities refine their bid.
** Cities should engage the local conference industry. They are likely to provide their services for free in order to secure the conference.
* Network locally. A large, diverse team is attractive to selectors.
* Be open in your bidding process. While it may allow competing cities to gain advantage, you will demonstrate your strength and openness to the OSGeo bid committee.
* Talk up your city and local involvement at FOSS4G the previous year. Tim Bowden talked up Sydney's intention to bid for 2009 at FOSS4G 2007 and no other city decided to bid for that year.

Reference: [http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com/2008/02/international-conference-delivered-to.html International Conference delivered to your doorstep] by Cameron Shorter

===Commercial In Confidence Documentation===
* Open Source developers often expect that all FOSS4G documentation will be Open. Unfortunately, the Professional Conference Organisor (PCO) industry seems to protect all their processes and documentation very closely. Consider this when dealing with them. Request up front for documentation to be made available publicly. Some documents, like Bid Proposals will probably remain Commercial In Confidence, and you need to ensure participants are aware of this.

==PCO Selection==
* Select your Professional Conference Organisor (PCO) earlier rather than later, preferably before you put your proposal in. The PCO should help you put your budget together, and if they put the budget together for the bid, they should be well advanced when you win.
* Instead of using a PCO, consider using a non-profit organisation like [http://gita.org.au/ GITA] or [http://www.spatialsciences.org.au/ SSI]. These organisations often have expertise in organising spatial conferences, have contacts in the spatial industry, and are not out to make a profit from your conference.

===Technically Savy===
Our PCO required training to become familiar with Geek communication practices. In particular, the PCO preferred telephone conferences over email lists, wikis and IRC and was unfamiliar with email voting. This required training and negotiation with the PCO.

Lesson:
* Ensure PCOs have realistic expectations regarding our communication habits up front by describing them in our PCO tender documents. In PCO selection, include familiarity with email lists, wikis as one of the selection criteria.

==Decision making==
* Collaborative decision making is good, but make sure each committee has a chair-person with the mandate and authority to make decisions on behalf of the committee. (The chairperson should consult the committee and aggregate comments). This should make the committee significantly more effective.

==Venue booking & Conference dates==
* During proposal development, the bid team selected two venues for the conference:
** The University of NSW
*** Pro: Has accademic ties
*** Pro: Has cheap university accommodation for 500 near by (share bathrooms)
*** Pro: 10 mins bus to beach
*** Pro: Cheaper, by ~ $50/delegate
*** Con: High end accommodation is 20 mins by bus (in city)
*** Con: Would need to bus delegates to the city harbour for an impressive dinner
** Sydney Convention and Exhibition Center
*** Pro: Professional, classy center
*** Pro: Right on harbor, so easy to ship delegates to dinner location is style
*** Pro: Wide range of accommodation near by.
* We postponed venue selection till after we won the bid, and consequently SCEC did not hold our preferred date for us.
* Despite the initial analysis of the dates to be avoided (e.g. due to conflict with cultural or religious holidays, other conferences, etc.), As of early September 2008 we had still not booked a venue and it appeared that the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Center (SCEC) was only available on dates that overlapped with the USA thanksgiving weekend (which is in late November). We were able to salvage the situation by booking the SCEC for dates in October rather than November, however the availability was limited, and restricted our options.

Lessons:
* Ensure that an early decision is made regarding the Venue, and the dates. If a venue can be booked for 'the entire week', the fine tuning of the actual days and rooms required can be done later, but being able to know 'the week' allows for marketing of the event, such as at the prior year's FOSS4G conference.
* In terms of communication the critical nature of the date should have been better communicated by the Organising Committee to the PCO.
* When considering cost/delegate, be mindful that international delegates will likely be paying thousands of dollars on travel, accommodation and lost income. $50 price difference in the conference will not effect them much. (It will effect local delegates more).
* Pick a date that doesn't conflict with national holidays of key markets.
* Find out when related national and international conferences are being held and make sure you don't clash. FOSS4G 2008 was on at the same time as Europe's biggest Geospatial fair, Intergeo. Here are this list of conferences we watched for 2009: [[FOSS4G_2009_Marketing_Plan#Related_Conferences]].
* Be aware that PCOs can reduce costs substantially by adjusting the number of rooms used, or using rooms off site for workshops or code sprints.

==Facilities==
OSGeo attendees want access to local facilities and these should be researched before hand, and details provided on the website.

For some things, like printing and CD burning, it helps to set up an account with a trusted local source (as was done for FOSS4G 2008). See [[FOSS4G_2008_Media_Facilities]].

Attendees want:
* CD/DVD printing
* Paper printing (for workshops)
* hire of general IT services, computers, projectors, etc.
* An address to ship materials/equipment to ahead of time.

==Website==
Note that some of the issues related to the website for 2009 will likely not be an issue for 2010 and beyond, because the OSGeo Conference Committee will provide the 'basic infrastructure'(e.g. DNS setup, webserver setup) for the website to the local organizing committee for 2010 and beyond. Though, a decent conference system software needs to be chosen which supports on site management of sessions (like the free [http://cdsware.cern.ch/indico/ Indico] which was successfully used for [http://www.foss4g2006.org www.foss4g2006.org]).

Lessons:
* We have spent considerable time communicating/deciding the URL - if the format of the conference URL is not standard (i.e. http://20xx.foss4g/) then make a decision early.
* If a PCO is being used and they are supplying the website then liaise as early as possible with their technical contact and set out expectations on what the site should be (and not be i.e. .ASP)
* Provide whomever is doing the website with as much reference material as possible - if they are a PCO they will not know anything about FOSS4G therefore they are at an immediate disadvantage when it comes to creating content for the website

==Budget==
Get your budget agreed to before you sign a contract with the PCO. We found items in the budget, like accommodation for the local PCO attendees that caused us friction. It would have been better to have these sorted out before the contract was signed.

==Marketing==
===Press release pipeline===
On advise from 2007, as per [[FOSS4G2007_Lessons_Learned#Use_Proxies]], we built up a press release pipeline, making heavy use of Community Leaders to forward the FOSS4G press release, with a paragraph or two introduction, to their communities. This

We built a spreadsheet of community leaders, including name, email address, and email list or publication they were a leader in. The list can be accessed by Cameron Shorter or Tyler Michel from here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pu9014gybzrd1M6FqyOzGWg&hl=en_GB . Talk to either of them if you need access for future FOSS4G conferences.

# Lesson: Build this list early.
# Lesson: Ask community leaders to CC you on emails they send out, so that you get feedback on which communities are being reached, and whether you need to find a new leader for a particular area.

===Translations===
We had community volunteers translate the website and press releases. Examples: http://2009.foss4g.org and http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_Press_Release_7_Translations . A list of translators is also available at: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pu9014gybzrd1M6FqyOzGWg&hl=en_GB

==Tutorials==
* See http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G2008_Lessons_Learned#Laptop_Based_Workshops

==Workshops==

* Provide a range of options for user level (Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced) and category (User, Developer) and provide '''strict definitions''' of what these terms mean. Use examples.
* Read previous [[FOSS4G2007_Lessons_Learned#Format_of_the_Call lessons learned]] so you don't have to learn all this yourself.
* Having people fill out document templates and submit worked, but was a pain to juggle. A web form would be much easier, would eliminate some of the stylistic issues that I will need to sort out before getting things into the program and can enforce the word limits and the use of the correct template.
* Having a separate submission path for tutorials than workshops allowed specific information to be captured for each. It likely cost us tutorial submissions where simply having a ''Workshop'', ''Tutorial'', ''Both'' selection would have made it trivial to submit both.
* A number of people didn't realise there were templates for submitting workshop and tutorial details. The web form would solve this, and I don't really know how to make it clearer within the OCS system. Ideally a submission wouldn't be able to move further until a document was uploaded. Two submissions failed due to not submitting the doc.
* Review the submissions early. I saved a couple of people by pointing out that the files they uploaded were not the correct templates, or they hadn't provided anything at all.
* Review often too. In the final week, when most submissions arrived, I reviewed as soon as I received notice of a submission. Then I could get after them while they still had it on their minds.

There's a hard lesson I've learned, and I'm still not sure how it should be handled differently. We have a tradition of open selection of stuff. Workshops have always been less open, but we still involve community input. What I've found this year is that the only people offering this input were those with workshops or tutorials in. This means that the more people in your org that volunteer to review the higher your chance of getting in. To some extent this is fine. I think at worst we had three from one org, out of eleven, and one didn't complete his input. But in the end we lost some great presentations because they weren't there pushing for them. One in particular fit with the goals of the conference perfectly but wasn't selected because of the advanced content. Somebody else got their advanced content in instead, though I don't recall who. It was part of the recommendation to weight for beginner themes.

If I were to do this again, I think I might try the following. First, I wouldn't submit anything myself. I did have concerns over perceived conflict of interest, which was one big reason I pushed for the community selection. Second, I would refine the selection criteria much more than I did this year. Make sure it made it into the press release, was published on the wiki and on the submission form. I would then perform the selection myself. IIRC, the original reason for community involvement in the selection was not to be inclusive, warm and fuzzy, it's because it's a hell of a lot of work. Workshops are doable by a single person, especially once the selection criteria are explicit. Frankly, those that are interested in helping with this sort of work are generally not our target audience anyway. Presentations are different. They're closer to the event for one. We're more organised by then. And there's simply too many for one person, or even a small group, to handle in isolation with any kind of efficiency. I wouldn't expect this to go well with the community. It defies convention. In my case at least, simply not submitting my own workshop wouldn't really eliminate the spectre of conflict as others in my org had submissions in. I'm not completely convinced this is the correct solution, but it's what I've come up with.

==Tools==

=== Google Analytics ===

We are successfully using google analytics to monitor the foss4g website traffic. Using the geographic breakup of the traffic we can understand which regions of the world require more aggressive marketing.

We created a generic gmail account for foss4g@gmail.com. This was done by Shoaib Burq and the password was shared with other committee members.

On 1st of March we had been using Google Analytics for about 2 weeks during which period only 2 hits to the site were from China.

We are looking to ramp up the Asian marketing.

=== Google Docs ===

Google docs proved to be quite successful for collaborative editing of documents and for creating draft conference time tables

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Workshop Computer Setup

2009-03-27T01:14:34Z

Wiki-Mleslie: Initial attempt

== Hardware ==

* 17" LCD monitors
* Dual Core 2GHz
* 1GB RAM
* 160GB disk

== Software ==

* Windows XP
* IE6
* Firefox
* Adobe Reader

== Workshop Data Load ==

A directory for each workshop will be added to all workshop computers to provide installers, sample data, instructions, presentation slides and anything else workshop instructors will require. These packages must be provided by September 29th to ensure they are loaded and that workbooks can be printed. Please direct any inquiries or requests for default software to the [http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference-workshops workshops mailing list]. Note that we are expecting that the installation of software specific to your workshop will be part of the workshop itself.

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Workshop Selection Criteria

2009-03-27T01:04:39Z

Wiki-Mleslie: Added reality.

== Process ==

From my email to the list:

I promised a quick overview of the process we will be running through for
workshop and tutorial submissions, so here it is.

After the call closes (tonight for me) I will be munching through all the
submissions and producing two pdf docs, one for workshops one for tutorials.
These will be made available for people to review, likely by posting them
here. What I will need is everybody to send me a list of their favorite
10 workshops (or fewer), in order of preference, and their favorite 12
tutorials (or fewer). If there are workshops that you would really like
to see run as tutorials, make a write-in vote and we can pester them to
change formats if needed. These should be sent to me (email@deleted.com
use "FOSS4G Workshop Review" as the subject please), not to a public list.

I will then to one of two things. I can create a private list if there are
sufficient people reviewing (only two have answered by call thus far) and we
can move discussion to that, or I'll just email everyone directly. I will
aggregate the votes and tell everyone the results identifying clear winners
and which selections need to be fought for. I'm not going to impose any
'conflict of interest' restrictions here, you may vote for your own, but
please flag it as your own during voting and discussions.

The final decision on the recommendation rests with me, which I will make
from the discussion in a week or so. This recommendation will be passed
to the OC and they will make adjustments as they require.

We ended up needing a second pass for Workshops that ranked close together. I asked people to justify their rankings, and at Jeff's suggestion did a 0-5 numerical ranking. Justifications were all sensible, mostly required to ensure people actually thought about it, and the rankings showed a clear preference so no 'executive decisions' were required.

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

PostGIS Incubation Application Questionnaire

2009-03-24T23:00:51Z

Wiki-Mleslie:

'''Please provide the name and email address of the principal Project Owner.'''

* Jeff Lounsbury <jeffloun at refractions dot net>

'''Please provide the names and emails of co-project owners (if any).'''

De facto PSC:

* Regina Obe <lr at pcorp dot us> Paragon
* Mark Cave-Ayland Sirius
* Kevin Neufeld <kneufeld at refractions dot net> Refractions
* Paul Ramsey <pramsey at opengeo dot org> OpenGeo

'''Please provide the names, emails and entity affiliation of all official committers.'''

Current:

* [[User:Olivier.courtin|Olivier Courtin]] - <olivier dot courtin at camptocamp dot com> - Camptocamp
* Pierre Racine - University Laval
* Sandro Santilli - Independent
* [[User:Mloskot|Mateusz Loskot]] - <mateusz dot loskot at cadcorp dot com> and <mateusz at loskot dot net> - Cadcorp
* Chris Hodgson - Refractions
* [[User:Mleslie|Mark Leslie]] - LISASoft
* Stephen Frost - ?
* Ben Jubb - Refractions
* Markus Schaber - Logical Tracking & Tracing

Defunct:

* Jeff Lounsbury
* Frank Warmerdam
* Devrim Gunduz
* Norman Vine
* Timothy Keitt
* Norman Barker
* Ralph Mason

'''Please describe your Project.'''

A spatial data extender for the PostgreSQL open source RDBMS. Adds geometry types, indexes and hundreds of functions, allowing for storage, editing and analysis of geospatial data via SQL.

'''Why is hosting at OSGeo good for your project?'''

A consistent hosting platform, and affiliation with other members of the OSGeo community will be good from a technical development point-of-view and a community-building point-of-view.

'''Type of application does this project represent(client, server, standalone, library, etc.):'''

Server.

'''Please describe any relationships to other open source projects.'''

PostGIS is used extensively by other open source projects. Mapserver, Geoserver, gvSIG, QGIS, GRASS, GeoDjango, deeGree, and many others. PostGIS depends on the OSGeo library projects: GEOS and Proj4.

'''Please describe any relationships with commercial companies or products.'''

PostGIS is owned and supported by Refractions Research.
PostGIS is supported by numerous proprietary products, Safe Software's FME, Cadcorp SIS, Manifold, and ESRI's ArcSDE, to name a few.

'''Which open source license(s) will the source code be released under?'''

PostGIS has been and will continue to be released under the GPLv2.

'''Is there already a beta or official release?'''

Yes, PostGIS 1.4.0 was recently released. PostGIS has been released regularly since 2001.

'''What is the origin of your project (commercial, experimental, thesis or other higher education, government, or some other source)?'''

PostGIS was built originally and substantially maintained for most of its life (2001-present) by Refractions Research, but always released and developed as an open source project. Only in the last two years has the majority of maintenance effort moved outside the company.

'''Does the project support open standards? Which ones and to what extent? (OGC, w3c, ect.) Has the software been certified to any standard (CITE for example)? If not, is it the intention of the project owners to seek certification at some point?'''

PostGIS is certified as SFSQL compliant by the OGC at version 1.3. (And has maintained compliance at 1.4, though it is not certified at this time.) PostGIS is now using the ISO SQL/MM draft as a guide for future standards compliance. PostGIS also supports standard serializations, such as GML, KML, SVG, WKB, WKT and GeoJSON.

'''Is the code free of patents, trademarks, and do you control the copyright?'''

The code is free of patents and trademarks. Copyright is distributed amongst the various contributors.

'''How many people actively contribute (code, documentation, other?) to the project at this time?'''

Approximately a half-dozen.

'''How many people have commit access to the source code respository?'''

22

'''Approximately how many users are currently using this project?'''

Thousands. Over six months there were: 20K source downloads; 34K windows downloads; 106K web site visits; 68K unique visitors. There are 1770 subscribers to postgis-users and 267 subscribers to postgis-devel.

'''What type of users does your project attract (government, commercial, hobby, academic research, etc. )?'''

All.

'''If you do not intend to host any portion of this project using the OSGeo infrastructure, why should you be considered a member project of the OSGeo Foundation?'''

We intend to host everything except the web site and the build system with osgeo.org in the near future.

'''Does the project include an automated build and test?'''

Yes, but that has been and will continue to be hosted at Refractions in the near term.

'''What language(s) are used in this project? (C/Java/perl/etc)'''

C / SQL / Java

'''What is the dominant written language (i.e. English, French, Spanish, German, etc) of the core developers?'''

English

'''What is the (estimated) size of a full release of this project? How many users do you expect to download the project when it is released?'''

Source tar file is about 5MB in size. Windows downloads are handled via the PgSQL infrastructure. About 3K source downloads a month on average, perhaps 5-10K source downloads a month during a release.

[[Category:Incubation]]

PostGIS Incubation Application Questionnaire

2009-03-24T23:00:22Z

Wiki-Mleslie:

'''Please provide the name and email address of the principal Project Owner.'''

* Jeff Lounsbury <jeffloun at refractions dot net>

'''Please provide the names and emails of co-project owners (if any).'''

De facto PSC:

* Regina Obe <lr at pcorp dot us> Paragon
* Mark Cave-Ayland Sirius
* Kevin Neufeld <kneufeld at refractions dot net> Refractions
* Paul Ramsey <pramsey at opengeo dot org> OpenGeo

'''Please provide the names, emails and entity affiliation of all official committers.'''

Current:

* [[User:Olivier.courtin|Olivier Courtin]] - <olivier dot courtin at camptocamp dot com> - Camptocamp
* Pierre Racine - University Laval
* Sandro Santilli - Independent
* [[User:Mloskot|Mateusz Loskot]] - <mateusz dot loskot at cadcorp dot com> and <mateusz at loskot dot net> - Cadcorp
* Chris Hodgson - Refractions
* Mark Leslie - LISASoft
* Stephen Frost - ?
* Ben Jubb - Refractions
* Markus Schaber - Logical Tracking & Tracing

Defunct:

* Jeff Lounsbury
* Frank Warmerdam
* Devrim Gunduz
* Norman Vine
* Timothy Keitt
* Norman Barker
* Ralph Mason

'''Please describe your Project.'''

A spatial data extender for the PostgreSQL open source RDBMS. Adds geometry types, indexes and hundreds of functions, allowing for storage, editing and analysis of geospatial data via SQL.

'''Why is hosting at OSGeo good for your project?'''

A consistent hosting platform, and affiliation with other members of the OSGeo community will be good from a technical development point-of-view and a community-building point-of-view.

'''Type of application does this project represent(client, server, standalone, library, etc.):'''

Server.

'''Please describe any relationships to other open source projects.'''

PostGIS is used extensively by other open source projects. Mapserver, Geoserver, gvSIG, QGIS, GRASS, GeoDjango, deeGree, and many others. PostGIS depends on the OSGeo library projects: GEOS and Proj4.

'''Please describe any relationships with commercial companies or products.'''

PostGIS is owned and supported by Refractions Research.
PostGIS is supported by numerous proprietary products, Safe Software's FME, Cadcorp SIS, Manifold, and ESRI's ArcSDE, to name a few.

'''Which open source license(s) will the source code be released under?'''

PostGIS has been and will continue to be released under the GPLv2.

'''Is there already a beta or official release?'''

Yes, PostGIS 1.4.0 was recently released. PostGIS has been released regularly since 2001.

'''What is the origin of your project (commercial, experimental, thesis or other higher education, government, or some other source)?'''

PostGIS was built originally and substantially maintained for most of its life (2001-present) by Refractions Research, but always released and developed as an open source project. Only in the last two years has the majority of maintenance effort moved outside the company.

'''Does the project support open standards? Which ones and to what extent? (OGC, w3c, ect.) Has the software been certified to any standard (CITE for example)? If not, is it the intention of the project owners to seek certification at some point?'''

PostGIS is certified as SFSQL compliant by the OGC at version 1.3. (And has maintained compliance at 1.4, though it is not certified at this time.) PostGIS is now using the ISO SQL/MM draft as a guide for future standards compliance. PostGIS also supports standard serializations, such as GML, KML, SVG, WKB, WKT and GeoJSON.

'''Is the code free of patents, trademarks, and do you control the copyright?'''

The code is free of patents and trademarks. Copyright is distributed amongst the various contributors.

'''How many people actively contribute (code, documentation, other?) to the project at this time?'''

Approximately a half-dozen.

'''How many people have commit access to the source code respository?'''

22

'''Approximately how many users are currently using this project?'''

Thousands. Over six months there were: 20K source downloads; 34K windows downloads; 106K web site visits; 68K unique visitors. There are 1770 subscribers to postgis-users and 267 subscribers to postgis-devel.

'''What type of users does your project attract (government, commercial, hobby, academic research, etc. )?'''

All.

'''If you do not intend to host any portion of this project using the OSGeo infrastructure, why should you be considered a member project of the OSGeo Foundation?'''

We intend to host everything except the web site and the build system with osgeo.org in the near future.

'''Does the project include an automated build and test?'''

Yes, but that has been and will continue to be hosted at Refractions in the near term.

'''What language(s) are used in this project? (C/Java/perl/etc)'''

C / SQL / Java

'''What is the dominant written language (i.e. English, French, Spanish, German, etc) of the core developers?'''

English

'''What is the (estimated) size of a full release of this project? How many users do you expect to download the project when it is released?'''

Source tar file is about 5MB in size. Windows downloads are handled via the PgSQL infrastructure. About 3K source downloads a month on average, perhaps 5-10K source downloads a month during a release.

[[Category:Incubation]]

FOSS4G 2009 Organising Committee Meetings

2009-03-18T01:58:15Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* 2009/03/18 Tour Hosts / Organising Committee */

Live GIS Disc Packages

2009-03-11T23:39:59Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* Guidelines */

=Goal=
The goal of creating packages for the Live GIS Disc is everything required to create a customized version of the Live Disc.
This includes Debian packages of

* geospatial applications
* configuration files
* sample data
* sample projects and examples

The efforts to provide Debian packages does not compete with the DebianGIS-project. Our focus is not on creating official packages for any applications. We only package applications where a project's build process or dependencies make it difficult to create a package fulfilling the official requirements and guidelines for a Debian package. Instead our focus is on packaging additional material (data, examples, configurations) in order to make them easily usable for everyone.

==Guidelines==
* Basic rules of reuse apply. If the same application configuration is used by more than one tutorial, it belongs in it's own package.
* Standard version numbering is required to ensure compatibility as tutorials are updated.
* Packages should be compatible with both Ubuntu and Debian
* OSGeo should host a package repository for this work
* Applications should target release to official Debian repositories as a long-term goal

==Issues==
* Having applications start on boot-up causes high memory use and a very slow boot time.
* Running several applications at a time will have serious consequences for performance. uDig by default used a GeoServer that was backed onto PostGIS. On a system with 1GB RAM, I was unable to finish loading uDig within 4 hours. Showcase a single app at a time by default.

==Meta-Packages==
Also working on packaging applications and additional material makes the collaboration between the different contributors of a project more easy.

To allow for easily reproduce packages and repackaging we store scripts, config-files and instructions on how to build each package in the projects [http://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/livedvd subversion repository].

= Debian Repository =

These sections describe what is in, and what we would like in, the Debian repositories.

== Direct from Debian ==
* GDAL/OGR (with Python, Perl, Ruby bindings)
* mapserver
* postgis
* pgadmin
* grass
* gdal-grass plugin
* proj

For a complete list see [http://wiki.debian.org/DebianGis DebianGIS] [http://wiki.debian.org/DebianGis/PackageList Package list] and
[http://pkg-grass.alioth.debian.org/debiangis-status.html Package status] pages.

== Not in Debian ==
* qgis (just needs to be uploaded/approved)
* geoserver
* uDig
* gvSig (some preliminary work done by a DD, issues pointed)
* r-spatial
* GeoNetwork

== Possiblies ==
* ossim (available on d-gis svn)
* jump
* WW Java (needs a custom app and testing on debian/ubuntu) http://packages.ubuntu.com/source/intrepid/worldwind

= OSGeo Repository =

These sections describe the packages we have or want in the OSGeo repository.

== Suggestions / Requests ==

* Addition of some more python tools:
** OGR
** Shapely
** Featureserver
** Tilecache
** MapFish
* Add JTS-1.8.0, with a script to launch the TestBuilder as a demo
* Add OpenStreetMap stuff :
** JOSM
** Mapnik
* Add [http://packages.debian.org/gpsdrive GpsDrive]
: (Can render OpenStreetMap data with Mapnik; already packaged)

= Meta-Packages =

==Available packages==

''The list is not complete.''

{| border="1"
|-
!Application !!On LiveDVD? !!Version on DVD !!Application packaged? !!Meta-package in SVN? !!Example available? !!Example packaged? !!Documenation available? !!Documentation packaged? !!Comment
|-
!Postgres/Postgis||YES||8.3.5/1.3.3-1||YES||NO||YES||NO||NO||NO
|-
!GeoServer||YES||1.7.0||YES||NO||YES||NO||NO||NO||Comes with examaple config, but needs additional config for postgis
|-
!Mapserver||YES||5.0.0-3||YES||NO||YES||NO||NO||NO||Example looks crap
|-
!GRASS||YES||6.3.0-0||YES||NO||YES||NO||NO||NO||
|-
!Qgis||YES||0.11.0-Metis||YES||NO||YES||NO||NO||NO||Better example needed
|-
!gvSIG||YES||1.1.2||NO||NO||YES||NO||NO||NO||Better example needed
|-
!uDig||YES||1.1.1||YES, only unofficially||YES||YES||YES||NO||NO||Better example needed
|-
!Open Layers||YES||2.6||NO||NO||YES||NO||NO||NO||Better example needed. Only on DVD as part of GeoServer
|-
!GeoNetwork||NO||||NO||NO||NO||NO||NO||NO||
|-
!Mapguide||NO||||NO||NO||NO||NO||NO||NO||
|-
!Open Jump||NO||||YES||NO||NO||NO||NO||NO||
|-
!Deegree||NO||||NO||NO||NO||NO||NO||NO||
|}

[[Category: Software Stack]]

Toronto Code Sprint 2009

2009-03-09T22:50:33Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* Present in spirit */

== Purpose ==

Get together project members to make decisions and tackle larger problems, see the [[Toronto Code Sprint 2009 Agenda]]. We have chosen a mid-North American location because this code sprint is targeting members of the "C Tribe" (eg, Mapserver, GRASS, GDAL, Proj, PostGIS, MapGuide) and many members of the "C Tribe" are clustered in the area. Toronto is also a major travel hub, for sprinters traveling from afar. Other tribes are welcome to join the sprint, of course, but we hope that "C Tribe" members will give this event special consideration.

== Sponsors ==

We have received support from six sponsors, each providing a $500 sponsorship that will be put towards venue, internet and lunch costs.

Thanks to our sponsors!

* [http://www.greenwoodmap.com/ Rich Greenwood]
* [http://www.osgis.nl/index_en.htm OSGIS.nl]
* [http://www.coordinatesolutions.com Coordinate Solutions]
* [http://www.lizardtech.com/ LizardTech]
* [http://www.sjgeophysics.com/ SJ Geophysics]
* [http://qpublic.net/ qPublic.net]

The event budget is available [http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=plI7bw56S6qHPAj9OEsIMaQ here]. Any surplus at the end of the event will be turned over to OSGeo.

== Timing ==

Where: '''Rainbow Room''', Radisson Admiral Waterfront Hotel, Toronto, Ontario

When: Saturday March 7 - Tuesday March 10, 2009.

Duration: Four days from approximately 9am-4pm

== Venue ==

[http://www.radisson.com/torontoca_admiral Radisson Hotel Admiral Toronto-Harbourfront] 
249 Queen's Quay West 
Toronto, Ontario 
M5J 2N5 , Canada 
Reservations: 1-888-201-1718 
Telephone: +01-416-203-3333 
Fax: +01-416-203-3100 

[http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Radisson+Hotel+Admiral+Toronto-Harbourfront&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=58.337319,62.314453&ie=UTF8&ll=43.643156,-79.385662&spn=0.026428,0.030427&z=15 Map]

When reserving, please specify "OSGeo" as the block name. '''The block rate is $79/night.'''

== Costs ==

Participants should plan for the following costs:

* Travel to Toronto, variable depending on where you are.
* Accommodation for four nights, $160 to $400 depending on what room you choose and whether you room share.
* Breakfast, lunch, and other snacks.
* The sponsorship moneys will be put towards: meeting room rental, internet access, Saturday night social event (hockey), group dinners Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

== Communication ==

Please join the mailing list at:

http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/tosprint

== Participation ==

We are planning for attendance of 20-40. Please add your name and the projects you are hoping to sprint on, if you have a strong intention to attend.

* [[User:pwramsey3|Paul Ramsey]] (PostGIS, Mapserver, Proj) '''attendance confirmed''' YYZ @ 14:00 Friday AC190 2508850632
* [[User:Tomkralidis|Tom Kralidis]] (MapServer, Mapbuilder) '''attendance confirmed''', cell: 416.606.0796
* Frank Warmerdam (GDAL/OGR, PROJ.4, MapServer, QGIS, OSGeo4W) '''attendance confirmed''', cell:613-635-3771
* [[User:tbonfort|Thomas Bonfort]] (MapServer) '''attendance confirmed''' YYZ @ 12:45 Friday
* Howard Butler (MapServer, GeoDjango, GDAL, CS-Map, spatialreference.org) '''attendance confirmed''' YYZ @ 16:00 Friday 5157080858
* [[User:jmckenna|Jeff McKenna]] (MapServer docs, MS4W) '''attendance confirmed''' cell: 613-220-8144
* Steve Lime (MapServer) '''attendance confirmed''' YYZ @ 18:15 Friday NW 2882
* [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]] (MapServer, GDAL/OGR) '''attendance confirmed''' YYZ @ 8:15am Friday, then in a meeting until about 16:30
* [[User:assefa|Yewondwossen Assefa]] (MapServer) '''attendance confirmed'''
* [[User:mpg|Michael P. Gerlek]] (GDAL & liblas) '''attendance confirmed'''
* [[User:mrosen|Mike Rosen]] (GDAL & liblas) '''attendance confirmed'''
* [[User:paragon|Leo Hsu and Regina Obe]] (PostGIS, GEOS, Mapserver) '''Can attend Saturday only'''
* [[User:olivier.courtin|Olivier Courtin]] (PostGIS, TinyOWS) '''attendance confirmed''' YYZ @ 12:45 Friday
* Mark Cave-Ayland (PostGIS) '''attendance confirmed''' YYZ @ 19.35 Friday BA0099
* [[User:JulienSam|Julien-Samuel Lacroix]] (MapServer) '''attendance confirmed''' YYZ @ 8:15am Friday, then in a meeting until about 16:30
* [[User:pnaciona|Perry Nacionales]] (MapServer docs) '''attendance confirmed''' YYZ @ 18:15 Friday NW 2882
* [[User:pierre|Pierre Racine]] ([http://postgis.refractions.net/support/wiki/index.php?WKTRasterHomePage PostGIS WKT Raster]) '''attendance confirmed''' YYZ @ 21:55 Friday AC8925
* [[User:jimk|Jim Klassen]] (Mapserver, GeoMOOSE) '''attendance confirmed'''
* Dan Little (Mapserver, OpenLayers, GeoMOOSE) '''attendance confirmed'''
* Alan Boudreault (MapServer, GDAL/OGR) '''attendance confirmed''' YYZ @ 8:15am Friday, then in a meeting until about 16:30
* Christopher Schmidt (OpenLayers) '''attendance confirmed''' YYZ @ 22:35 Friday. 603.264.2294
* [[User:SchuylerErle|Schuyler Erle]] (OpenLayers) YYZ @ 12:00 Saturday. 347 846 8839.
* Vivien Deparday (OpenLayers) attendance on Monday Tuesday.

=== Present in spirit ===

If you can not make it to get to Toronto in person and you still want to actively participate in the sprint, there will be a chance to do it by joining the event on IRC ([irc://irc.freenode.net/tosprint #tosprint]). If you are interested in remote participation, feel free to add yourself below.

* [[User:mloskot|Mateusz Loskot]] (GDAL/OGR, GEOS, PostGIS, WKTRaster) '''attendance confirmed'''
* [[User:szekerest|Tamas Szekeres]] (MapServer, GDAL/OGR) '''attendance confirmed'''
* [[User:strk|strk]] (GEOS, PostGIS, WKTRaster) '''attendance confirmed'''
* [[User:jive|jive]] (GeoTools)
* [[User:Mleslie|Mark Leslie]] (PostGIS)

For all who would like to track the discussions, [http://logs.qgis.org/tosprint/%23tosprint.2009-03-07.log #tosprint channel logs] are available.

== Breakout Session Notes ==

* [http://trac.osgeo.org/mapserver/wiki/TorontoCodeSprint2009Notes MapServer Sprint Notes]
* [http://postgis.refractions.net/support/wiki/index.php?Sprint2009Notes PostGIS Sprint Notes]

== Gear ==

* Extra items that would be useful (please sign up if you can bring)
** Wireless hub (Perry 1, Mike R 1)
** Extension Cords (Pierre 1, Paul 1, Steve 1, Daniel 3)
** Power Bars (Pierre 1, Paul 1, Steve 1, Daniel 3)
** Ethernet Cables (Pierre 2 short, Paul 1 long, Schuyler some short, Daniel 2-3 long)
** Projector (Schuyler 1, assuming the airline lets him carry it on)
** Screen
** [http://www.pace.edu/emplibrary/EMC%20Flip%20Chart.jpg Flip Charts]
** Wired hubs
** Daniel will bring a 16 port switch, just in case

== Room Share ==

If you would like to room share,

# Reserve a room at the hotel, choosing a type with more than one bed.
# Put your name in this section, indicating the amount of space in your room.

Put your names below:

* example entry: B has a triple room, needs two roommates.

== Individual Preparation ==

* Bring your own computer
* Install subversion and the compiler tools, and come with a working development environment if possible.

== FAQ ==

* Is the Toronto Code Sprint just a coding event?
** Yes, a coding and documentation event. It is a working session for people who are already participants in open source projects.
* Will it be possible to present new projects during this event?
** No, this is not a presentation-oriented event. People will get together in small groups and work on areas of mutual interest within their projects.

== Social Events ==

* Saturday March 7th
** 4PM, '''Ice hockey game''', Hershey Bears vs Toronto Marlies @ Ricoh Coliseum, 100 Princes' Blvd. [http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=100+Princes+Boulevard,+Toronto,+ON+M6K,+Canada%E2%80%8E&sll=43.640237,-79.392271&sspn=0.03056,0.073214&ie=UTF8&ll=43.636821,-79.411583&spn=0.032053,0.073214&z=14&iwloc=addr map] If you are interested please send a message to the 'tosprint' mailing list, as the tickets must be pre-ordered
** Dinner at [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=151+Front+Street+West+Toronto+on+(East+Side+Marios) East Side Mario's] (8PM)
* Sunday March 8th
** Dinner at [http://www.batonrougerestaurants.com/page.asp?intNodeID=33079 Baton Rouge] (7PM)
* Monday March 9th
** Dinner at [http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=jack+astor%27s&sll=43.643032,-79.40918&sspn=0.256397,0.585709&ie=UTF8&ll=43.667623,-79.39064&spn=0.128146,0.292854&z=12&iwloc=D Jack Astor's] (7PM)

[[Category:Code Sprints]]
[[Category:Events]]

FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 7

2009-03-09T02:18:13Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* FOSS4G 2009 Call for Abstracts */

= FOSS4G 2009 Call for Abstracts =

The Organising Committee would like to welcome all interested participants to submit abstracts for presentations for the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial conference (FOSS4G), being held in Sydney, Australia October 20-23. FOSS4G offers participants an opportunity to learn from and share your knowledge, experience and ideas with a group of like minded individuals representing a wide array of industries, governments, technologies and nationalities.

Presentations are open to all those interested and will comprise a 30 minute slot which includes hand-over, introductions and 5 minutes for questions. Presentations will be selected which have a strong "Open Geospatial" theme to them. The committee is looking for a mixture of technical and non-technical presentations.

In deference to the conference theme of “User Driven,” topics of particular interest are:
* Case Studies: Share your experiences implementing and using open source geospatial. What problems were you attempting to solve? How successful were you and at what cost? What can others learn from your experience?
* Business Case: Have you had to sell the Open Source concept within your organisation? How did you present the concept to management? How did you present the cost/benefit scenarios and build the business case? What hurdles did you encounter and how did you surmount them?
* Collaboration: Have you faced the trials of collaboration between organisations, remote offices or team members scattered to the far corners of the globe? What steps have you taken to improve the efficiency of your collaboration: open or de facto standards, decentralised data collection, or the myriad of solutions that only you could describe?
* Security: Securing you data while ensuring ease of access to those select few within your inner circle can be a daunting task. Share you successes, and your failures, with others facing their own security issues.
* Developments: Have you created a shiny new widget that is about to change the world? Or has your time-honoured project finally completed a much requested feature or two? Bring us up to date with the new developments in your open source geospatial software products with all the latest buzz: what does it do, how are people using it and what is in store for the next year.

For more information, visit the FOSS4G site at http://2009.foss4g.org/presentations/

The deadline for presentation submissions is June 1st 2009. See you in Sydney.

==FOSS4G 2009 Highlights==
'''The Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP)''': FOSS4G will launch the OGC's Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP), which demonstrates standards based interoperability between Open Source and Proprietary geospatial applications. It consists of a server with multiple virtual machines, each installed with geospatial applications offering standards based web services. All web services will demonstrate a common dataset, and will be accessed by a range of geospatial client applications installed on client computers. http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/bin/view/ClimateChallenge2009/WebHome

Presenters are encouraged (but not mandated) to make use of scenarios and on-site data from the Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP). This is especially important as demand for access to data over the internet is expected to be high, and Australia has notoriously slow connections to the outside world.

'''FOSS4G Live DVD''': LiveDVDs, based on the Xubuntu operating system and including Geospatial Open Source Software, will be given to all delegates. Users can boot a Live DVD on their computer and trial the software without installing or effecting the existing system. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc

'''Installfest''': The Installfest will give delegates the opportunity to meet in a common area and install a wide variety of FOSS software on their laptops, EEPC or any other system they care to bring in. Community members will be around to assist with any troubles and provide help and insight into the software. The install fest will take place after workshops on the first day.

'''Workshops and Tutorials''': Workshops and Tutorials allow presenters to lead attendees through applications, integration solutions, or other topics in an interactive environment. Half-day workshops (3 hours) will be held in computer rooms on the first day. Tutorials (90 minutes) will be held in standard presentation rooms, run concurrently with presentations during the third and fourth days.

'''Presentations''': The meat of the conference are it's presentations. Drawing on a huge community of local, regional and international experts we will discuss some of the most current and poignant topics in the industry today.

'''Demo Theatre''': During lunch and coffee breaks the demonstration theatre will be open showcasing live software. These short demonstrations from sponsors, open source projects and the user community show what is possible with open source today.

'''Birds of a Feather''': Rooms have been set aside for semi-organised meetings between like minded groups. Some prominant community initiatives started in prior FOSS4G Birds of a Feather sessions.

'''Code Sprint''': The weekend after FOSS4G is reserved for the Hackers' Code Sprint. Hackers will be locked in a basement with lots of bandwidth, pizzas and coke. (Well, maybe something better than that, but we don't want to spoil the mystical hacker image by describing it any differently.)

== Upcoming milestones ==

* 9 Mar 2009, '''Call for Abstracts opens'''
* 30 Mar 2009, Notification of acceptance for workshops/tutorials
* 13 Apr 2009, '''Registration for conference and workshops opens'''
* 1 Jun 2009, Abstract submission deadline
* 13 Jul 2009, Presenters notified of acceptance for talks
* 31 Jul 2009, '''Author/Early registration deadline'''
* 14 Sep 2009, '''Completed program available on the wiki'''
* 20 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Workshop
* 21-23 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Presentations and Tutorials
* 24-25 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Code Sprint

== Media Sponsors ==
* Position Magazine: http://www.positionmag.com.au
* Geoconnexions Magazine: http://www.geoconnexion.com/

----

For information about this announcement, contact:

FOSS4G Organising Committee: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009#Contact_Us

or,

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

tel +61-8570-5050

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

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 7

2009-03-08T23:28:38Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* Upcoming milestones */

= FOSS4G 2009 Call for Abstracts =

The Organising Committee would like to welcome all interested participants to submit abstracts for presentations for the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial conference (FOSS4G), being held in Sydney, Australia October 20-23. FOSS4G offers participants an opportunity to learn from and share your knowledge, experience and ideas with a group of like minded individuals representing a wide array of industries, governments, technologies and nationalities.

Presentations are open to all those interested and will comprise a 30 minute slot which includes hand-over, introductions and 5 minutes for questions. Presentations will be selected which have a strong "Open Geospatial" theme to them. The committee is looking for a mixture of technical and non-technical presentations.

In deference to the conference theme of “User Driven,” topics of particular interest are:
* Case Studies: Share your experiences implementing and using open source geospatial. What problems were you attempting to solve? How successful were you and at what cost? What can others learn from your experience?
* Internal Advocacy: Have you had to sell the Open Source concept within your organisation? How did you present the concept to management? How did you present the cost/benefit scenarios and build the business case? What hurdles did you encounter and how did you surmount them?
* Collaboration: Have you faced the trials of collaboration between organisations, remote offices or team members scattered to the far corners of the globe? What steps have you taken to improve the efficiency of your collaboration: open or de facto standards, decentralised data collection, or the myriad of solutions that only you could describe?
* Security: Securing you data while ensuring ease of access to those select few within your inner circle can be a daunting task. Share you successes, and your failures, with others facing their own security issues.
* Developments: Have you created a shiny new widget that is about to change the world? Or has your time-honoured project finally completed a much requested feature or two? Bring us up to date with the new developments in your open source geospatial software products with all the latest buzz: what does it do, how are people using it and what is in store for the next year.

For more information, visit the FOSS4G site at http://2009.foss4g.org/presentations/

The deadline for presentation submissions is June 1st 2009. See you in Sydney.

==FOSS4G 2009 Highlights==
'''The Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP)''': FOSS4G will launch the OGC's Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP), which demonstrates standards based interoperability between Open Source and Proprietary geospatial applications. It consists of a server with multiple virtual machines, each installed with geospatial applications offering standards based web services. All web services will demonstrate a common dataset, and will be accessed by a range of geospatial client applications installed on client computers. http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/bin/view/ClimateChallenge2009/WebHome

Presenters are encouraged (but not mandated) to make use of scenarios and on-site data from the Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP). This is especially important as demand for access to data over the internet is expected to be high, and Australia has notoriously slow connections to the outside world.

'''FOSS4G Live DVD''': LiveDVDs, based on the Xubuntu operating system and including Geospatial Open Source Software, will be given to all delegates. Users can boot a Live DVD on their computer and trial the software without installing or effecting the existing system. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc

'''Installfest''': The Installfest will give delegates the opportunity to meet in a common area and install a wide variety of FOSS software on their laptops, EEPC or any other system they care to bring in. Community members will be around to assist with any troubles and provide help and insight into the software. The install fest will take place after workshops on the first day.

'''Workshops and Tutorials''': Workshops and Tutorials allow presenters to lead attendees through applications, integration solutions, or other topics in an interactive environment. Half-day workshops (3 hours) will be held in computer rooms on the first day. Tutorials (90 minutes) will be held in standard presentation rooms, run concurrently with presentations during the third and fourth days.

'''Presentations''': The meat of the conference are it's presentations. Drawing on a huge community of local, regional and international experts we will discuss some of the most current and poignant topics in the industry today.

'''Birds of a Feather''': Rooms have been set aside for semi-organised meetings between like minded groups. Some prominant community initiatives started in prior FOSS4G Birds of a Feather sessions.

'''Code Sprint''': The weekend after FOSS4G is reserved for the Hackers' Code Sprint. Hackers will be locked in a basement with lots of bandwidth, pizzas and coke. (Well, maybe something better than that, but we don't want to spoil the mystical hacker image by describing it any differently.)

== Upcoming milestones ==

* 9 Mar 2009, '''Call for Abstracts opens'''
* 30 Mar 2009, Notification of acceptance for workshops/tutorials
* 13 Apr 2009, '''Registration for conference and workshops opens'''
* 1 Jun 2009, Abstract submission deadline
* 13 Jul 2009, Presenters notified of acceptance for talks
* 31 Jul 2009, '''Author/Early registration deadline'''
* 14 Sep 2009, '''Completed program available on the wiki'''
* 20 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Workshop
* 21-23 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Presentations and Tutorials
* 24-25 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Code Sprint

== Media Sponsors ==
* [http://www.positionmag.com.au Position Magazine]
* [http://www.geoconnexion.com/ Geoconnexions Magazine]

----

For information about this announcement, contact:

FOSS4G Organising Committee: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009#Contact_Us

or,

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

tel +61-8570-5050

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

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 7

2009-03-08T23:26:02Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* FOSS4G 2009 Call for Abstracts */

= FOSS4G 2009 Call for Abstracts =

The Organising Committee would like to welcome all interested participants to submit abstracts for presentations for the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial conference (FOSS4G), being held in Sydney, Australia October 20-23. FOSS4G offers participants an opportunity to learn from and share your knowledge, experience and ideas with a group of like minded individuals representing a wide array of industries, governments, technologies and nationalities.

Presentations are open to all those interested and will comprise a 30 minute slot which includes hand-over, introductions and 5 minutes for questions. Presentations will be selected which have a strong "Open Geospatial" theme to them. The committee is looking for a mixture of technical and non-technical presentations.

In deference to the conference theme of “User Driven,” topics of particular interest are:
* Case Studies: Share your experiences implementing and using open source geospatial. What problems were you attempting to solve? How successful were you and at what cost? What can others learn from your experience?
* Internal Advocacy: Have you had to sell the Open Source concept within your organisation? How did you present the concept to management? How did you present the cost/benefit scenarios and build the business case? What hurdles did you encounter and how did you surmount them?
* Collaboration: Have you faced the trials of collaboration between organisations, remote offices or team members scattered to the far corners of the globe? What steps have you taken to improve the efficiency of your collaboration: open or de facto standards, decentralised data collection, or the myriad of solutions that only you could describe?
* Security: Securing you data while ensuring ease of access to those select few within your inner circle can be a daunting task. Share you successes, and your failures, with others facing their own security issues.
* Developments: Have you created a shiny new widget that is about to change the world? Or has your time-honoured project finally completed a much requested feature or two? Bring us up to date with the new developments in your open source geospatial software products with all the latest buzz: what does it do, how are people using it and what is in store for the next year.

For more information, visit the FOSS4G site at http://2009.foss4g.org/presentations/

The deadline for presentation submissions is June 1st 2009. See you in Sydney.

==FOSS4G 2009 Highlights==
'''The Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP)''': FOSS4G will launch the OGC's Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP), which demonstrates standards based interoperability between Open Source and Proprietary geospatial applications. It consists of a server with multiple virtual machines, each installed with geospatial applications offering standards based web services. All web services will demonstrate a common dataset, and will be accessed by a range of geospatial client applications installed on client computers. http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/bin/view/ClimateChallenge2009/WebHome

Presenters are encouraged (but not mandated) to make use of scenarios and on-site data from the Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP). This is especially important as demand for access to data over the internet is expected to be high, and Australia has notoriously slow connections to the outside world.

'''FOSS4G Live DVD''': LiveDVDs, based on the Xubuntu operating system and including Geospatial Open Source Software, will be given to all delegates. Users can boot a Live DVD on their computer and trial the software without installing or effecting the existing system. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc

'''Installfest''': The Installfest will give delegates the opportunity to meet in a common area and install a wide variety of FOSS software on their laptops, EEPC or any other system they care to bring in. Community members will be around to assist with any troubles and provide help and insight into the software. The install fest will take place after workshops on the first day.

'''Workshops and Tutorials''': Workshops and Tutorials allow presenters to lead attendees through applications, integration solutions, or other topics in an interactive environment. Half-day workshops (3 hours) will be held in computer rooms on the first day. Tutorials (90 minutes) will be held in standard presentation rooms, run concurrently with presentations during the third and fourth days.

'''Presentations''': The meat of the conference are it's presentations. Drawing on a huge community of local, regional and international experts we will discuss some of the most current and poignant topics in the industry today.

'''Birds of a Feather''': Rooms have been set aside for semi-organised meetings between like minded groups. Some prominant community initiatives started in prior FOSS4G Birds of a Feather sessions.

'''Code Sprint''': The weekend after FOSS4G is reserved for the Hackers' Code Sprint. Hackers will be locked in a basement with lots of bandwidth, pizzas and coke. (Well, maybe something better than that, but we don't want to spoil the mystical hacker image by describing it any differently.)

== Upcoming milestones ==

* 9 Mar 2009, '''Call for Abstracts opens'''
* 30 Mar 2009, Notification of acceptance for workshops/tutorials
* 13 Apr 2009, '''Registration for conference and tutorials opens'''
* 1 Jun 2009, Abstract submission deadline
* 13 Jul 2009, Presenters notified of acceptance for talks
* 31 Jul 2009, '''Author/Early registration deadline'''
* 14 Sep 2009, '''Completed program available on the wiki'''
* 20 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Workshop
* 21-23 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Presentations and Tutorials
* 24-25 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Code Sprint

----

For information about this announcement, contact:

FOSS4G Organising Committee: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009#Contact_Us

or,

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

tel +61-8570-5050

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

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 7

2009-03-03T23:59:03Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* FOSS4G 2009 Call for Abstracts */

= FOSS4G 2009 Call for Abstracts =

The Organising Committee would like to welcome all interested participants to submit abstracts for presentations for the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial conference (FOSS4G), being held in Sydney, Australia October 20-23. FOSS4G offers participants an opportunity to learn from and share your knowledge, experience and ideas with a group of like minded individuals representing a wide array of industries, governments, technologies and nationalities.

Presentations are open to all those interested and will provide 25 minutes of talk time with 5 minutes for question and answer sessions at the end. All selected presentations will cover the use or development of open source geospatial software.

In deference to the conference theme of “User Driven,” topics of particular interest are:
* Case Studies: Share your experiences using open source geospatial. What problems were you attempting to solve? How successful were you and at what cost? What can others learn from your experience? How did you sell the Open Source concept to management? What was the Return on Investment?
* Collaboration: Have you faced the trials of collaboration between organisations, remote offices or team members scattered to the far corners of the globe (come on, we all know it isn't a sphere)? What steps have you taken to improve the efficiency of your collaboration: open or de facto standards, decentralised data collection, or the myriad of solutions that only you could describe?
* Security: Securing you data while ensuring ease of access to those select few within your inner circle can be a daunting task. Share you successes, and your failures, with others facing their own security issues.
* Developments: Have you created a shiny new widget that is about to change the world? Or has your time-honoured project finally completed a much requested feature or two? Bring us up to date with the new developments in your open source geospatial software products with all the latest buzz: what does it do, how are people using it and what is in store for the next year.

For more information, visit the FOSS4G site at http://2009.foss4g.org/presentations/

The deadline for presentation submissions is June 1st 2009. See you in Sydney.

==FOSS4G 2009 Highlights==
'''The Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP)''': FOSS4G will launch the OGC's Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP), which demonstrates standards based interoperability between Open Source and Proprietary geospatial applications. It consists of a server with multiple virtual machines, each installed with geospatial applications offering standards based web services. All web services will demonstrate a common dataset, and will be accessed by a range of geospatial client applications installed on client computers. http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/bin/view/ClimateChallenge2009/WebHome

Presenters are encouraged (but not mandated) to make use of scenarios and on-site data from the Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP). This is especially important as demand for access to data over the internet is expected to be high, and Australia has notoriously slow connections to the outside world.

'''FOSS4G Live DVD''': LiveDVDs, based on the Xubuntu operating system and including Geospatial Open Source Software, will be given to all delegates. Users can boot a Live DVD on their computer and trial the software without installing or effecting the existing system. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc

'''Installfest''': The Installfest will give delegates the opportunity to meet in a common area and install a wide variety of FOSS software on their laptops, EEPC or any other system they care to bring in. Community members will be around to assist with any troubles and provide help and insight into the software. The install fest will take place after workshops on the first day.

'''Workshops and Tutorials''': Workshops and Tutorials allow presenters to lead attendees through applications, integration solutions, or other topics in an interactive environment. Half-day workshops (3 hours) will be held in computer rooms on the first day. Tutorials (90 minutes) will be held in standard presentation rooms, run concurrently with presentations during the third and fourth days.

'''Presentations''': The meat of the conference are it's presentations. Drawing on a huge community of local, regional and international experts we will discuss some of the most current and poignant topics in the industry today.

'''Birds of a Feather''': Rooms have been set aside for semi-organised meetings between like minded groups. Some prominant community initiatives started in prior FOSS4G Birds of a Feather sessions.

'''Code Sprint''': The weekend after FOSS4G is reserved for the Hackers' Code Sprint. Hackers will be locked in a basement with lots of bandwidth, pizzas and coke. (Well, maybe something better than that, but we don't want to spoil the mystical hacker image by describing it any differently.)

== Upcoming milestones ==

* 9 Mar 2009, '''Call for Abstracts opens'''
* 30 Mar 2009, Notification of acceptance for workshops/tutorials
* 13 Apr 2009, '''Registration for conference and tutorials opens'''
* 1 Jun 2009, Abstract submission deadline
* 13 Jul 2009, Presenters notified of acceptance for talks
* 31 Jul 2009, '''Author/Early registration deadline'''
* 14 Sep 2009, '''Completed program available on the wiki'''
* 20 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Workshop
* 21-23 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Presentations and Tutorials
* 24-25 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Code Sprint

----

For information about this announcement, contact:

FOSS4G Organising Committee: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009#Contact_Us

or,

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

tel +61-8570-5050

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

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 7

2009-03-03T23:58:49Z

Wiki-Mleslie: Harleys recommended changes

= FOSS4G 2009 Call for Abstracts =

The Organising Committee would like to welcome all interested participants to submit abstracts for presentations for the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial conference (FOSS4G), being held in Sydney, Australia October 20-23. FOSS4G offers participants an opportunity to learn from and share your knowledge, experience and ideas with a group of like minded individuals representing a wide array of industries, governments, technologies and nationalities.

Presentations are open to all those interested and will provide 25 minutes of talk time with 5 minutes for question and answer sessions at the end. All selected presentations will cover the use or development of open source geospatial software.

In deference to the conference theme of “User Driven,” topics of particular interest are:
* Case Studies: Share your experiences using open source geospatial. What problems were you attempting to solve? How successful were you and at what cost? What can others learn from your experience? How did you sell the Open Source concept to management? What was the Return on Investment?
* Collaboration: Have you faced the trials of collaboration between organisations, remote offices or team members scattered to the far corners of the globe (come on, we all know it isn't a sphere)? What steps have you taken to improve the efficiency of your collaboration: open or de facto standards, decentralised data collection, or the myriad of solutions that only you could describe?
* Security: Securing you data while ensuring ease of access to those select few within your inner circle can be a daunting task. Share you successes, and your failures, with others facing their own security issues.
* Developments: Have you created a shiney new widget that is about to change the world? Or has your time-honoured project finally completed a much requested feature or two? Bring us up to date with the new developments in your open source geospatial software products with all the latest buzz: what does it do, how are people using it and what is in store for the next year.

For more information, visit the FOSS4G site at http://2009.foss4g.org/presentations/

The deadline for presentation submissions is June 1st 2009. See you in Sydney.

==FOSS4G 2009 Highlights==
'''The Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP)''': FOSS4G will launch the OGC's Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP), which demonstrates standards based interoperability between Open Source and Proprietary geospatial applications. It consists of a server with multiple virtual machines, each installed with geospatial applications offering standards based web services. All web services will demonstrate a common dataset, and will be accessed by a range of geospatial client applications installed on client computers. http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/bin/view/ClimateChallenge2009/WebHome

Presenters are encouraged (but not mandated) to make use of scenarios and on-site data from the Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP). This is especially important as demand for access to data over the internet is expected to be high, and Australia has notoriously slow connections to the outside world.

'''FOSS4G Live DVD''': LiveDVDs, based on the Xubuntu operating system and including Geospatial Open Source Software, will be given to all delegates. Users can boot a Live DVD on their computer and trial the software without installing or effecting the existing system. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc

'''Installfest''': The Installfest will give delegates the opportunity to meet in a common area and install a wide variety of FOSS software on their laptops, EEPC or any other system they care to bring in. Community members will be around to assist with any troubles and provide help and insight into the software. The install fest will take place after workshops on the first day.

'''Workshops and Tutorials''': Workshops and Tutorials allow presenters to lead attendees through applications, integration solutions, or other topics in an interactive environment. Half-day workshops (3 hours) will be held in computer rooms on the first day. Tutorials (90 minutes) will be held in standard presentation rooms, run concurrently with presentations during the third and fourth days.

'''Presentations''': The meat of the conference are it's presentations. Drawing on a huge community of local, regional and international experts we will discuss some of the most current and poignant topics in the industry today.

'''Birds of a Feather''': Rooms have been set aside for semi-organised meetings between like minded groups. Some prominant community initiatives started in prior FOSS4G Birds of a Feather sessions.

'''Code Sprint''': The weekend after FOSS4G is reserved for the Hackers' Code Sprint. Hackers will be locked in a basement with lots of bandwidth, pizzas and coke. (Well, maybe something better than that, but we don't want to spoil the mystical hacker image by describing it any differently.)

== Upcoming milestones ==

* 9 Mar 2009, '''Call for Abstracts opens'''
* 30 Mar 2009, Notification of acceptance for workshops/tutorials
* 13 Apr 2009, '''Registration for conference and tutorials opens'''
* 1 Jun 2009, Abstract submission deadline
* 13 Jul 2009, Presenters notified of acceptance for talks
* 31 Jul 2009, '''Author/Early registration deadline'''
* 14 Sep 2009, '''Completed program available on the wiki'''
* 20 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Workshop
* 21-23 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Presentations and Tutorials
* 24-25 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Code Sprint

----

For information about this announcement, contact:

FOSS4G Organising Committee: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009#Contact_Us

or,

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

tel +61-8570-5050

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

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 7

2009-03-03T03:58:28Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* FOSS4G 2009 Call for Abstracts */

= FOSS4G 2009 Call for Abstracts =

The Organising Committee would like to welcome all interested participants to submit abstracts for presentations for the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial conference (FOSS4G), being held in Sydney, Australia October 20-23. FOSS4G offers participants an opportunity to learn from and share your knowledge, experience and ideas with a group of like minded individuals representing a wide array of industries, governments, technologies and nationalities.

Presentations are open to all those interested and will provide 25 minutes of talk time with 5 minutes for question and answer sessions at the end. All selected presentations will cover the use or development of open source geospatial software.

In deference to the conference theme of “User Driven,” topics of particular interest are:
* Case Studies: Share your experiences using open source geospatial. What problems were you attempting to solve? How successful were you and at what cost? What can others learn from your experience?
* Collaboration: Have you faced the trials of collaboration between organisations, remote offices or team members scattered to the far corners of the globe (come on, we all know it isn't a sphere)? What steps have you taken to improve the efficiency of your collaboration: open or de facto standards, decentralised data collection, or the myriad of solutions that only you could describe?
* Security: Securing you data while ensuring ease of access to those select few within your inner circle can be a daunting task. Share you successes, and your failures, with others facing their own security issues.
* Developments: Have you created a shiney new widget that is about to change the world? Or has your time-honoured project finally completed a much requested feature or two? Bring us up to date with the new developments in your open source geospatial software products with all the latest buzz: what does it do, how are people using it and what is in store for the next year.

For more information, visit the FOSS4G site at http://2009.foss4g.org/presentations/

The deadline for presentation submissions is June 1st 2009. See you in Sydney.

==FOSS4G 2009 Highlights==
'''The Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP)''': FOSS4G will launch the OGC's Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP), which demonstrates standards based interoperability between Open Source and Proprietary geospatial applications. It consists of a server with multiple virtual machines, each installed with geospatial applications offering standards based web services. All web services will demonstrate a common dataset, and will be accessed by a range of geospatial client applications installed on client computers. http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/bin/view/ClimateChallenge2009/WebHome

Presenters are encouraged (but not mandated) to make use of scenarios and on-site data from the Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP). This is especially important as demand for access to data over the internet is expected to be high, and Australia has notoriously slow connections to the outside world.

'''FOSS4G Live DVD''': LiveDVDs, based on the Xubuntu operating system and including Geospatial Open Source Software, will be given to all delegates. Users can boot a Live DVD on their computer and trial the software without installing or effecting the existing system. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc

'''Installfest''': The Installfest will give delegates the opportunity to meet in a common area and install a wide variety of FOSS software on their laptops, EEPC or any other system they care to bring in. Community members will be around to assist with any troubles and provide help and insight into the software. The install fest will take place after workshops on the first day.

'''Workshops and Tutorials''': Workshops and Tutorials allow presenters to lead attendees through applications, integration solutions, or other topics in an interactive environment. Half-day workshops (3 hours) will be held in computer rooms on the first day. Tutorials (90 minutes) will be held in standard presentation rooms, run concurrently with presentations during the third and fourth days.

'''Presentations''': The meat of the conference are it's presentations. Drawing on a huge community of local, regional and international experts we will discuss some of the most current and poignant topics in the industry today.

'''Birds of a Feather''': Rooms have been set aside for semi-organised meetings between like minded groups. Some prominant community initiatives started in prior FOSS4G Birds of a Feather sessions.

'''Code Sprint''': The weekend after FOSS4G is reserved for the Hackers' Code Sprint. Hackers will be locked in a basement with lots of bandwidth, pizzas and coke. (Well, maybe something better than that, but we don't want to spoil the mystical hacker image by describing it any differently.)

== Upcoming milestones ==

* 9 Mar 2009, '''Call for Abstracts opens'''
* 30 Mar 2009, Notification of acceptance for workshops/tutorials
* 13 Apr 2009, '''Registration for conference and tutorials opens'''
* 1 Jun 2009, Abstract submission deadline
* 13 Jul 2009, Presenters notified of acceptance for talks
* 31 Jul 2009, '''Author/Early registration deadline'''
* 14 Sep 2009, '''Completed program available on the wiki'''
* 20 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Workshop
* 21-23 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Presentations and Tutorials
* 24-25 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Code Sprint

----

For information about this announcement, contact:

FOSS4G Organising Committee: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009#Contact_Us

or,

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

tel +61-8570-5050

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

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 7

2009-03-03T03:58:05Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* Upcoming milestones */

= FOSS4G 2009 Call for Abstracts =

The Organising Committee would like to welcome all interested participants to submit abstracts for presentations for the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial conference (FOSS4G), being held in Sydney, Australia October 20-23. FOSS4G offers participants an opportunity to learn from and share your knowledge, experience and ideas with a group of like minded individuals representing a wide array of industries, governments, technologies and nationalities.

Presentations are open to all those interested and will provide 25 minutes of talk time with 5 minutes for question and answer sessions at the end. All selected presentations will cover the use or development of open source geospatial software.

In deference to the conference theme of “User Driven,” topics of particular interest are:
* Case Studies: Share your experiences using open source geospatial. What problems were you attempting to solve? How successful were you and at what cost? What can others learn from your experience?
* Collaboration: Have you faced the trials of collaboration between organisations, remote offices or team members scattered to the far corners of the globe (come on, we all know it isn't a sphere)? What steps have you taken to improve the efficiency of your collaboration: open or de facto standards, decentralised data collection, or the myriad of solutions that only you could describe?
* Security: Securing you data while ensuring ease of access to those select few within your inner circle can be a daunting task. Share you successes, and your failures, with others facing their own security issues.
* Developments: Have you created a shiney new widget that is about to change the world? Or has your time-honoured project finally completed a much requested feature or two? Bring us up to date with the new developments in your open source geospatial software products with all the latest buzz: what does it do, how are people using it and what is in store for the next year.

For more information, visit the FOSS4G site at http://2009.foss4g.org/presentations/

The deadline for presentation submissions is June 1st 2009. See you in Sydney.

==FOSS4G 2009 Highlights==
'''The Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP)''': FOSS4G will launch the OGC's Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP), which demonstrates standards based interoperability between Open Source and Proprietary geospatial applications. It consists of a server with multiple virtual machines, each installed with geospatial applications offering standards based web services. All web services will demonstrate a common dataset, and will be accessed by a range of geospatial client applications installed on client computers. http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/bin/view/ClimateChallenge2009/WebHome

Presenters are encouraged (but not mandated) to make use of scenarios and on-site data from the Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP). This is especially important as demand for access to data over the internet is expected to be high, and Australia has notoriously slow connections to the outside world.

'''FOSS4G Live DVD''': LiveDVDs, based on the Xubuntu operating system and including Geospatial Open Source Software, will be given to all delegates. Users can boot a Live DVD on their computer and trial the software without installing or effecting the existing system. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc

'''Installfest''': The Installfest will give delegates the opportunity to meet in a common area and install a wide variety of FOSS software on their laptops, EEPC or any other system they care to bring in. Community members will be around to assist with any troubles and provide help and insight into the software. The install fest will take place after workshops on the first day.

'''Workshops and Tutorials''': Workshops and Tutorials allow presenters to lead attendees through applications, integration solutions, or other topics in an interactive environment. Half-day workshops (3 hours) will be held in computer rooms on the first day. Tutorials (90 minutes) will be held in standard presentation rooms, run concurrently with presentations during the third and fourth days.

'''Presentations''': The meat of the conference are it's presentations. Drawing on a huge community of local, regional and international experts we will discuss some of the most current and poignant topics in the industry today.

'''Birds of a Feather''': Rooms have been set aside for semi-organised meetings between like minded groups. Some prominant community initiatives started in prior FOSS4G Birds of a Feather sessions.

'''Code Sprint''': The weekend after FOSS4G is reserved for the Hackers' Code Sprint. Hackers will be locked in a basement with lots of bandwidth, pizzas and coke. (Well, maybe something better than that, but we don't want to spoil the mystical hacker image by describing it any differently.)

== Upcoming milestones ==

* 9 Mar 2009, '''Call for Abstracts opens'''
* 30 Mar 2009, Notification of acceptance for workshops/tutorials
* 13 Apr 2009, '''Registration for conference and tutorials opens'''
* 1 Jun 2009, Abstract submission deadline
* 13 Jul 2009, Presenters notified of acceptance for talks
* 31 Jul 2009, '''Author/Early registration deadline'''
* 14 Sep 2009, '''Completed program available on the wiki'''
* 20 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Workshop
* 21-23 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Presentations and Tutorials
* 24-25 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Code Sprint

----

For information about this announcement, contact:

FOSS4G Organising Committee: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009#Contact_Us

or,

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

tel +61-8570-5050

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

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 7

2009-03-03T03:57:48Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* Upcoming milestones */

= FOSS4G 2009 Call for Abstracts =

The Organising Committee would like to welcome all interested participants to submit abstracts for presentations for the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial conference (FOSS4G), being held in Sydney, Australia October 20-23. FOSS4G offers participants an opportunity to learn from and share your knowledge, experience and ideas with a group of like minded individuals representing a wide array of industries, governments, technologies and nationalities.

Presentations are open to all those interested and will provide 25 minutes of talk time with 5 minutes for question and answer sessions at the end. All selected presentations will cover the use or development of open source geospatial software.

In deference to the conference theme of “User Driven,” topics of particular interest are:
* Case Studies: Share your experiences using open source geospatial. What problems were you attempting to solve? How successful were you and at what cost? What can others learn from your experience?
* Collaboration: Have you faced the trials of collaboration between organisations, remote offices or team members scattered to the far corners of the globe (come on, we all know it isn't a sphere)? What steps have you taken to improve the efficiency of your collaboration: open or de facto standards, decentralised data collection, or the myriad of solutions that only you could describe?
* Security: Securing you data while ensuring ease of access to those select few within your inner circle can be a daunting task. Share you successes, and your failures, with others facing their own security issues.
* Developments: Have you created a shiney new widget that is about to change the world? Or has your time-honoured project finally completed a much requested feature or two? Bring us up to date with the new developments in your open source geospatial software products with all the latest buzz: what does it do, how are people using it and what is in store for the next year.

For more information, visit the FOSS4G site at http://2009.foss4g.org/presentations/

The deadline for presentation submissions is June 1st 2009. See you in Sydney.

==FOSS4G 2009 Highlights==
'''The Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP)''': FOSS4G will launch the OGC's Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP), which demonstrates standards based interoperability between Open Source and Proprietary geospatial applications. It consists of a server with multiple virtual machines, each installed with geospatial applications offering standards based web services. All web services will demonstrate a common dataset, and will be accessed by a range of geospatial client applications installed on client computers. http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/bin/view/ClimateChallenge2009/WebHome

Presenters are encouraged (but not mandated) to make use of scenarios and on-site data from the Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP). This is especially important as demand for access to data over the internet is expected to be high, and Australia has notoriously slow connections to the outside world.

'''FOSS4G Live DVD''': LiveDVDs, based on the Xubuntu operating system and including Geospatial Open Source Software, will be given to all delegates. Users can boot a Live DVD on their computer and trial the software without installing or effecting the existing system. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc

'''Installfest''': The Installfest will give delegates the opportunity to meet in a common area and install a wide variety of FOSS software on their laptops, EEPC or any other system they care to bring in. Community members will be around to assist with any troubles and provide help and insight into the software. The install fest will take place after workshops on the first day.

'''Workshops and Tutorials''': Workshops and Tutorials allow presenters to lead attendees through applications, integration solutions, or other topics in an interactive environment. Half-day workshops (3 hours) will be held in computer rooms on the first day. Tutorials (90 minutes) will be held in standard presentation rooms, run concurrently with presentations during the third and fourth days.

'''Presentations''': The meat of the conference are it's presentations. Drawing on a huge community of local, regional and international experts we will discuss some of the most current and poignant topics in the industry today.

'''Birds of a Feather''': Rooms have been set aside for semi-organised meetings between like minded groups. Some prominant community initiatives started in prior FOSS4G Birds of a Feather sessions.

'''Code Sprint''': The weekend after FOSS4G is reserved for the Hackers' Code Sprint. Hackers will be locked in a basement with lots of bandwidth, pizzas and coke. (Well, maybe something better than that, but we don't want to spoil the mystical hacker image by describing it any differently.)

== Upcoming milestones ==

* 9 Mar 2009, '''Call for Abstracts opens'''
* 30 Mar 2009, Notification of acceptance for workshops/tutorials
* 13 Apr 2009, '''Registration for conference and tutorials opens'''
* 1 Jun 2009, Abstract submission deadline
* 13 Jul 2009, Presenters notified of acceptance for talks
* 31 Jul 2009, '''Author/Early registration deadline'''
* 14 Sep 2009, '''Completed program available on the wiki'''
* 20 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Workshop
* 21-23 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Presentations and Tutorials
* 24-25 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Code Sprint

For information about this announcement, contact:

FOSS4G Organising Committee: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009#Contact_Us

or,

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

tel +61-8570-5050

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

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 7

2009-03-03T03:57:32Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* FOSS4G 2009 Call for Abstracts */

= FOSS4G 2009 Call for Abstracts =

The Organising Committee would like to welcome all interested participants to submit abstracts for presentations for the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial conference (FOSS4G), being held in Sydney, Australia October 20-23. FOSS4G offers participants an opportunity to learn from and share your knowledge, experience and ideas with a group of like minded individuals representing a wide array of industries, governments, technologies and nationalities.

Presentations are open to all those interested and will provide 25 minutes of talk time with 5 minutes for question and answer sessions at the end. All selected presentations will cover the use or development of open source geospatial software.

In deference to the conference theme of “User Driven,” topics of particular interest are:
* Case Studies: Share your experiences using open source geospatial. What problems were you attempting to solve? How successful were you and at what cost? What can others learn from your experience?
* Collaboration: Have you faced the trials of collaboration between organisations, remote offices or team members scattered to the far corners of the globe (come on, we all know it isn't a sphere)? What steps have you taken to improve the efficiency of your collaboration: open or de facto standards, decentralised data collection, or the myriad of solutions that only you could describe?
* Security: Securing you data while ensuring ease of access to those select few within your inner circle can be a daunting task. Share you successes, and your failures, with others facing their own security issues.
* Developments: Have you created a shiney new widget that is about to change the world? Or has your time-honoured project finally completed a much requested feature or two? Bring us up to date with the new developments in your open source geospatial software products with all the latest buzz: what does it do, how are people using it and what is in store for the next year.

For more information, visit the FOSS4G site at http://2009.foss4g.org/presentations/

The deadline for presentation submissions is June 1st 2009. See you in Sydney.

==FOSS4G 2009 Highlights==
'''The Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP)''': FOSS4G will launch the OGC's Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP), which demonstrates standards based interoperability between Open Source and Proprietary geospatial applications. It consists of a server with multiple virtual machines, each installed with geospatial applications offering standards based web services. All web services will demonstrate a common dataset, and will be accessed by a range of geospatial client applications installed on client computers. http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/bin/view/ClimateChallenge2009/WebHome

Presenters are encouraged (but not mandated) to make use of scenarios and on-site data from the Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP). This is especially important as demand for access to data over the internet is expected to be high, and Australia has notoriously slow connections to the outside world.

'''FOSS4G Live DVD''': LiveDVDs, based on the Xubuntu operating system and including Geospatial Open Source Software, will be given to all delegates. Users can boot a Live DVD on their computer and trial the software without installing or effecting the existing system. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc

'''Installfest''': The Installfest will give delegates the opportunity to meet in a common area and install a wide variety of FOSS software on their laptops, EEPC or any other system they care to bring in. Community members will be around to assist with any troubles and provide help and insight into the software. The install fest will take place after workshops on the first day.

'''Workshops and Tutorials''': Workshops and Tutorials allow presenters to lead attendees through applications, integration solutions, or other topics in an interactive environment. Half-day workshops (3 hours) will be held in computer rooms on the first day. Tutorials (90 minutes) will be held in standard presentation rooms, run concurrently with presentations during the third and fourth days.

'''Presentations''': The meat of the conference are it's presentations. Drawing on a huge community of local, regional and international experts we will discuss some of the most current and poignant topics in the industry today.

'''Birds of a Feather''': Rooms have been set aside for semi-organised meetings between like minded groups. Some prominant community initiatives started in prior FOSS4G Birds of a Feather sessions.

'''Code Sprint''': The weekend after FOSS4G is reserved for the Hackers' Code Sprint. Hackers will be locked in a basement with lots of bandwidth, pizzas and coke. (Well, maybe something better than that, but we don't want to spoil the mystical hacker image by describing it any differently.)

== Upcoming milestones ==

* 9 Mar 2009, '''Call for Abstracts opens'''
* 30 Mar 2009, Notification of acceptance for workshops/tutorials
* 13 Apr 2009, '''Registration for conference and tutorials opens'''
* 1 Jun 2009, Abstract submission deadline
* 13 Jul 2009, Presenters notified of acceptance for talks
* 31 Jul 2009, '''Author/Early registration deadline'''
* 14 Sep 2009, '''Completed program available on the wiki'''
* 20 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Workshop
* 21-23 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Presentations and Tutorials
* 24-25 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Code Sprint

----

For information about this announcement, contact:

FOSS4G Organising Committee: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009#Contact_Us

or,

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

tel +61-8570-5050

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

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 7

2009-03-03T03:56:56Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* Upcoming milestones */

= FOSS4G 2009 Call for Abstracts =

The Organising Committee would like to welcome all interested participants to submit abstracts for presentations for the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial conference (FOSS4G), being held in Sydney, Australia October 20-23. FOSS4G offers participants an opportunity to learn from and share your knowledge, experience and ideas with a group of like minded individuals representing a wide array of industries, governments, technologies and nationalities.

Presentations are open to all those interested and will provide 25 minutes of talk time with 5 minutes for question and answer sessions at the end. All selected presentations will cover the use or development of open source geospatial software.

In deference to the conference theme of “User Driven,” topics of particular interest are:
* Case Studies: Share your experiences using open source geospatial. What problems were you attempting to solve? How successful were you and at what cost? What can others learn from your experience?
* Collaboration: Have you faced the trials of collaboration between organisations, remote offices or team members scattered to the far corners of the globe (come on, we all know it isn't a sphere)? What steps have you taken to improve the efficiency of your collaboration: open or de facto standards, decentralised data collection, or the myriad of solutions that only you could describe?
* Security: Securing you data while ensuring ease of access to those select few within your inner circle can be a daunting task. Share you successes, and your failures, with others facing their own security issues.
* Developments: Have you created a shiney new widget that is about to change the world? Or has your time-honoured project finally completed a much requested feature or two? Bring us up to date with the new developments in your open source geospatial software products with all the latest buzz: what does it do, how are people using it and what is in store for the next year.

For more information, visit the FOSS4G site at http://2009.foss4g.org/presentations/

The deadline for presentation submissions is June 1st 2009. See you in Sydney.

----

==FOSS4G 2009 Highlights==
'''The Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP)''': FOSS4G will launch the OGC's Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP), which demonstrates standards based interoperability between Open Source and Proprietary geospatial applications. It consists of a server with multiple virtual machines, each installed with geospatial applications offering standards based web services. All web services will demonstrate a common dataset, and will be accessed by a range of geospatial client applications installed on client computers. http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/bin/view/ClimateChallenge2009/WebHome

Presenters are encouraged (but not mandated) to make use of scenarios and on-site data from the Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP). This is especially important as demand for access to data over the internet is expected to be high, and Australia has notoriously slow connections to the outside world.

'''FOSS4G Live DVD''': LiveDVDs, based on the Xubuntu operating system and including Geospatial Open Source Software, will be given to all delegates. Users can boot a Live DVD on their computer and trial the software without installing or effecting the existing system. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc

'''Installfest''': The Installfest will give delegates the opportunity to meet in a common area and install a wide variety of FOSS software on their laptops, EEPC or any other system they care to bring in. Community members will be around to assist with any troubles and provide help and insight into the software. The install fest will take place after workshops on the first day.

'''Workshops and Tutorials''': Workshops and Tutorials allow presenters to lead attendees through applications, integration solutions, or other topics in an interactive environment. Half-day workshops (3 hours) will be held in computer rooms on the first day. Tutorials (90 minutes) will be held in standard presentation rooms, run concurrently with presentations during the third and fourth days.

'''Presentations''': The meat of the conference are it's presentations. Drawing on a huge community of local, regional and international experts we will discuss some of the most current and poignant topics in the industry today.

'''Birds of a Feather''': Rooms have been set aside for semi-organised meetings between like minded groups. Some prominant community initiatives started in prior FOSS4G Birds of a Feather sessions.

'''Code Sprint''': The weekend after FOSS4G is reserved for the Hackers' Code Sprint. Hackers will be locked in a basement with lots of bandwidth, pizzas and coke. (Well, maybe something better than that, but we don't want to spoil the mystical hacker image by describing it any differently.)

== Upcoming milestones ==

* 9 Mar 2009, '''Call for Abstracts opens'''
* 30 Mar 2009, Notification of acceptance for workshops/tutorials
* 13 Apr 2009, '''Registration for conference and tutorials opens'''
* 1 Jun 2009, Abstract submission deadline
* 13 Jul 2009, Presenters notified of acceptance for talks
* 31 Jul 2009, '''Author/Early registration deadline'''
* 14 Sep 2009, '''Completed program available on the wiki'''
* 20 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Workshop
* 21-23 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Presentations and Tutorials
* 24-25 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Code Sprint

----

For information about this announcement, contact:

FOSS4G Organising Committee: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009#Contact_Us

or,

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

tel +61-8570-5050

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

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 7

2009-03-03T03:56:32Z

Wiki-Mleslie: Draft Call for Presentations

= FOSS4G 2009 Call for Abstracts =

The Organising Committee would like to welcome all interested participants to submit abstracts for presentations for the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial conference (FOSS4G), being held in Sydney, Australia October 20-23. FOSS4G offers participants an opportunity to learn from and share your knowledge, experience and ideas with a group of like minded individuals representing a wide array of industries, governments, technologies and nationalities.

Presentations are open to all those interested and will provide 25 minutes of talk time with 5 minutes for question and answer sessions at the end. All selected presentations will cover the use or development of open source geospatial software.

In deference to the conference theme of “User Driven,” topics of particular interest are:
* Case Studies: Share your experiences using open source geospatial. What problems were you attempting to solve? How successful were you and at what cost? What can others learn from your experience?
* Collaboration: Have you faced the trials of collaboration between organisations, remote offices or team members scattered to the far corners of the globe (come on, we all know it isn't a sphere)? What steps have you taken to improve the efficiency of your collaboration: open or de facto standards, decentralised data collection, or the myriad of solutions that only you could describe?
* Security: Securing you data while ensuring ease of access to those select few within your inner circle can be a daunting task. Share you successes, and your failures, with others facing their own security issues.
* Developments: Have you created a shiney new widget that is about to change the world? Or has your time-honoured project finally completed a much requested feature or two? Bring us up to date with the new developments in your open source geospatial software products with all the latest buzz: what does it do, how are people using it and what is in store for the next year.

For more information, visit the FOSS4G site at http://2009.foss4g.org/presentations/

The deadline for presentation submissions is June 1st 2009. See you in Sydney.

----

==FOSS4G 2009 Highlights==
'''The Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP)''': FOSS4G will launch the OGC's Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP), which demonstrates standards based interoperability between Open Source and Proprietary geospatial applications. It consists of a server with multiple virtual machines, each installed with geospatial applications offering standards based web services. All web services will demonstrate a common dataset, and will be accessed by a range of geospatial client applications installed on client computers. http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/bin/view/ClimateChallenge2009/WebHome

Presenters are encouraged (but not mandated) to make use of scenarios and on-site data from the Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest (CCIP). This is especially important as demand for access to data over the internet is expected to be high, and Australia has notoriously slow connections to the outside world.

'''FOSS4G Live DVD''': LiveDVDs, based on the Xubuntu operating system and including Geospatial Open Source Software, will be given to all delegates. Users can boot a Live DVD on their computer and trial the software without installing or effecting the existing system. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc

'''Installfest''': The Installfest will give delegates the opportunity to meet in a common area and install a wide variety of FOSS software on their laptops, EEPC or any other system they care to bring in. Community members will be around to assist with any troubles and provide help and insight into the software. The install fest will take place after workshops on the first day.

'''Workshops and Tutorials''': Workshops and Tutorials allow presenters to lead attendees through applications, integration solutions, or other topics in an interactive environment. Half-day workshops (3 hours) will be held in computer rooms on the first day. Tutorials (90 minutes) will be held in standard presentation rooms, run concurrently with presentations during the third and fourth days.

'''Presentations''': The meat of the conference are it's presentations. Drawing on a huge community of local, regional and international experts we will discuss some of the most current and poignant topics in the industry today.

'''Birds of a Feather''': Rooms have been set aside for semi-organised meetings between like minded groups. Some prominant community initiatives started in prior FOSS4G Birds of a Feather sessions.

'''Code Sprint''': The weekend after FOSS4G is reserved for the Hackers' Code Sprint. Hackers will be locked in a basement with lots of bandwidth, pizzas and coke. (Well, maybe something better than that, but we don't want to spoil the mystical hacker image by describing it any differently.)

== Upcoming milestones ==

* 2 Feb 2009, '''Call for Workshops/Tutorials opens'''
* 9 Mar 2009, Call for Workshops/Tutorials closes
* 9 Mar 2009, '''Call for Abstracts opens'''
* 30 Mar 2009, Notification of acceptance for workshops/tutorials
* 13 Apr 2009, '''Registration for conference and tutorials opens'''
* 1 Jun 2009, Abstract submission deadline
* 13 Jul 2009, Presenters notified of acceptance for talks
* 31 Jul 2009, '''Author/Early registration deadline'''
* 14 Sep 2009, '''Completed program available on the wiki'''
* 20 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Workshop
* 21-23 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Presentations and Tutorials
* 24-25 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Code Sprint

----

For information about this announcement, contact:

FOSS4G Organising Committee: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009#Contact_Us

or,

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

tel +61-8570-5050

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

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Press Releases

2009-03-03T03:52:10Z

Wiki-Mleslie:

* 18 Feb 2008, [[FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 1]] Sydney selected to host FOSS4G in 2009.
* 5 May 2008, [[FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 2]] Tour Hosts selected to manage the FOSS4G conference in Sydney 2009
* 20 Jan 2008, [[FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 3]] Climate Change Integration Plugfest announcement
* 28 Jan 2009, [[FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 4]] Sponsorship and Exhibition Prospectus released
* 2 Feb 2009, [[FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 5]] Call for workshops and tutorials
* 2 Mar 2009, [[FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 6]] One week extension to call for workshops and tutorials
* 9 Mar 2009, [[FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 7]] Call for Abstracts

== Upcoming milestones ==
For the complete milestone spreadsheet, refer to: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dcd63bvv_14vzf642gg&hl=en

(milestones requiring press releases are in bold)

* 2 Feb 2009, '''Call for Workshops/Tutorials opens'''
* 2 Mar 2009, Call for Workshops/Tutorials closes
* 9 Mar 2009, '''Call for Abstracts opens'''
* 30 Mar 2009, Notification of acceptance for workshops/tutorials
* 13 Apr 2009, '''Registration for conference and tutorials opens'''
* 1 Jun 2009, Abstract submission deadline
* 13 Jul 2009, Presenters notified of acceptance for talks
* 31 Jul 2009, '''Author/Early registration deadline'''
* 14 Sep 2009, '''Completed program available on the wiki'''
* 20 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Workshop
* 21-23 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Presentations and Tutorials
* 24-25 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Code Sprint

{| border="1"
|+ FOSS4G Key dates
! Date !! FOSS4G !! LiveDVD !! CCIP
|-
| 2 Feb 2009 || '''Call for Workshops/Tutorials opens''' || ||
|-
| 19 Feb 2009 || || [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JauntyReleaseSchedule Ubuntu Jaunty Feature Freeze] ||
|-
| 2 Mar 2009 || Call for Workshops/Tutorials closes || ||
|-
| 9 Mar 2009 || '''Call for Abstracts opens''' || ||
|-
| 30 Mar 2009 || Notification of acceptance for workshops/tutorials || ||
|-
| 13 Apr 2009 || '''Registration for conference and tutorials opens''' || ||
|-
| 23 Apr 2009 || || [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JauntyReleaseSchedule Ubuntu Jaunty Final Release] ||
|-
| 1 Jun 2009 || Abstract submission deadline || ||
|-
| 13 Jul 2009 || Presenters notified of acceptance for talks || ||
|-
| 20 Jul 2009 || || LiveDVD Feature Freeze ||
|-
| 31 Jul 2009 || '''Author/Early registration deadline''' || ||
|-
| 3 Aug 2009 || || LiveDVD Beta Release ||
|-
| 14 Sep 2009 || '''Completed program available on the wiki''' || ||
|-
| 21 Sep 2009 || || LiveDVD Final Freeze||
|-
| 5 Oct 2009 || || LiveDVD Final Release||
|-
| 20 Oct 2009 || FOSS4G Workshop || ||
|-
| 21-23 Oct 2009 || FOSS4G Presentations and Tutorials || ||
|-
| 24-25 Oct 2009 || FOSS4G Code Sprint || ||
|}

FOSS4G 2009 Press Release 6

2009-03-01T22:30:06Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* FOSS4G 2009 One week extension to Workshops and Tutorial abstract submissions */

=FOSS4G 2009 One week extension to Workshops and Tutorial abstract submissions=

Sydney, Australia. 2 March 2009.

In response to requests from presenters, the deadline for the FOSS4G 2009 workshop and tutorial abstract submissions has been extended by one week, to Monday 9 March 2009. If you are considering submitting a workshop, please notify your intent by emailing the Workshop/Tutorial coordinator, Mark Leslie, at m a r k . l e s l i e AT l i s a s o f t . c o m.

== About FOSS4G==

FOSS4G, held 20-23 October 2009 in Sydney, Australia, is the international "gathering of tribes" for open source geospatial communities. The theme for the FOSS4G 2009 conference will be "User Driven". Users and developers are encouraged present their latest projects and software to demonstrate the power of Open Source for system integration through a series of workshop sessions and tutorial presentations. Session participants should expect to see presentations on both geospatial open source and propriety software integration along with pure open source solutions.

==Workshops==
Workshops are expected to be a hands-on experience with participants following along with the instructor, working directly with the application under discussion. All workshop rooms will be equipped with computers (two students sharing one system) to support this vision. Workshop computers will pre-installed with a basic image containing standard packages running in a Windows XP environment. A projector will be provided for each computer room for use within a workshop. Instructors will need to discuss pre-installation requirements with the Conference Organising Committee if required.

Workshops are expected to require considerable effort to create, with past experience showing that three days of preparation per hour of presentation are required to produce a high quality workshop. Additionally you will be expected to develop material for attendees to take home with them, such as handouts, workbook, CD-ROMs etc. Due to the effort involved in producing and presenting a workshop, instructors will receive a single complementary registration to the conference for delivering a workshop.

All workshop submissions will be considered, but particular interest will be shown in the following topics:
* Practical Introduction to ____
* Integrating Open Source
* Spatial Data Privacy and Security

==Tutorials==
Tutorial rooms will not be equipped with computers, however presenters may optionally make use of delegate laptops and the FOSS4G LiveDVD.

At least 80% of delegates are expected to be carrying a laptop and FOSS4G LiveDVDs will be given to all delegates.

Preference will be given to hands-on tutorials.

Any hands-on aspects to a tutorial will be the responsibility of the presenter and needs to be described in the tutorial description. Presenters making use of the Live DVD or Climate Change Integration Plugfest (CCIP) will be expected to contribute to testing pre-releases to ensure material and software is properly installed. To discuss your requirements for LiveDVD, please contact the organising committee: http://2009.foss4g.org/contacts/.

All tutorial submissions will be considered, but particular interest will be shown in the following topics:
* Practical introductions
* Interoperability
* Spatial data accuracy
* Spatial data privacy
* Spatial data security
* System implementation
* Data migration

----

Submission instructions and templates are available at http://2009.foss4g.org/workshops/ and http://2009.foss4g.org/tutorials/.

The deadline for workshop / tutorial submissions is March 2, 2009.

==FOSS4G 2009 Highlights==
'''The Climate Change Integration Plugfest (CCIP)''': FOSS4G will launch the OGC's Climate Change Integration Plugfest (CCIP), which demonstrates standards based interoperability between Open Source and Proprietary geospatial applications. It consists of a server with multiple virtual machines, each installed with geospatial applications offering standards based web services. All web services will demonstrate a common dataset, and will be accessed by a range of geospatial client applications installed on client computers. http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/bin/view/ClimateChallenge2009/WebHome

Presenters are encouraged (but not mandated) to make use of scenarios and on-site data from the Climate Change Integration Plugfest (CCIP). This is especially important as demand for access to data over the internet is expected to be high, and Australia has notoriously slow connections to the outside world.

'''FOSS4G Live DVD''': LiveDVDs, based on the Xubuntu operating system and including Geospatial Open Source Software, will be given to all delegates. Users can boot a Live DVD on their computer and trial the software without installing or effecting the existing system. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc

'''Installfest''': The Installfest will give delegates the opportunity to meet in a common area and install a wide variety of FOSS software on their laptops, EEPC or any other system they care to bring in. Community members will be around to assist with any troubles and provide help and insight into the software. The install fest will take place after workshops on the first day.

'''Workshops and Tutorials''': Workshops and Tutorials allow presenters to lead attendees through applications, integration solutions, or other topics in an interactive environment. Half-day workshops (3 hours) will be held in computer rooms on the first day. Tutorials (90 minutes) will be held in standard presentation rooms, run concurrently with presentations during the third and fourth days.

'''Presentations''': The meat of the conference are it's presentations. Drawing on a huge community of local, regional and international experts we will discuss some of the most current and poignant topics in the industry today.

'''Birds of a Feather''': Rooms have been set aside for semi-organised meetings between like minded groups. Some prominant community initiatives started in prior FOSS4G Birds of a Feather sessions.

'''Code Sprint''': The weekend after FOSS4G is reserved for the Hackers' Code Sprint. Hackers will be locked in a basement with lots of bandwidth, pizzas and coke. (Well, maybe something better than that, but we don't want to spoil the mystical hacker image by describing it any differently.)

== Upcoming milestones ==

* 2 Feb 2009, '''Call for Workshops/Tutorials opens'''
* 9 Mar 2009, Call for Workshops/Tutorials closes
* 9 Mar 2009, '''Call for Abstracts opens'''
* 30 Mar 2009, Notification of acceptance for workshops/tutorials
* 13 Apr 2009, '''Registration for conference and tutorials opens'''
* 1 Jun 2009, Abstract submission deadline
* 13 Jul 2009, Presenters notified of acceptance for talks
* 31 Jul 2009, '''Author/Early registration deadline'''
* 14 Sep 2009, '''Completed program available on the wiki'''
* 20 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Workshop
* 21-23 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Presentations and Tutorials
* 24-25 Oct 2009, FOSS4G Code Sprint

----

For information about this announcement, contact:

FOSS4G Organising Committee: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009#Contact_Us

or,

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

tel +61-8570-5050

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

[[Category:FOSS4G2009]]
[[Category:FOSS4G]]

FOSS4G 2009 Organising Committee Meetings

2009-02-18T00:49:29Z

Wiki-Mleslie: /* 2009/02/18 Tour Hosts / Organising Committee */