Thank you Horst for your history and inputs. I wish my dad, us being in
South Africa, who started his journey around 1986 after moving partially
away from Statistics and Computer Science lecturing, could have been
part of the early journey. In those times with no internet, he wrote his
own GIS, printer drivers etc., but found no support locally and so ESRI
was adopted as their sales force was second to none. He would have
really enjoyed being part of working with the QGIS family.
---
Regards,
Nigel Berjak
Please consider the environment before printing this email.
On 2026-01-22 19:12, Dr. Horst Düster via QGIS-User wrote:
Dear colleagues
After 38 years of geoinformatics, geographic information systems, and
everything related to them, I am now retiring from professional life at
the end of January and starting a new chapter in my life. It has been
an eventful time, which began at ESRI in Kranzberg near Munich in 1988.
While working on my dissertation at the University of Bern, I quickly
came across open source software and open source GIS. Much to the
surprise of my colleagues, the GIS of my choice at the time was GRASS.
It allowed me to do everything I needed for my work. A series of
fortunate circumstances led to FOSS4G becoming the focus of my work
from then on. In Solothurn, starting in 1999, all doors were open for
my FOSS4G ideas, as the canton had decided on a Linux strategy and the
necessary financial resources were available.
During this time, projects such as UMN MapServer played a key role –
pragmatic, powerful, and developed by an international community. The
big gap in the software stack was desktop GIS. Around 2003, I
discovered Quantum GIS and was very impressed by its potential, even
though it was still in its infancy and didn't offer much functionality.
But if you believe in the small, it can become big. Lucky circumstances
played a role here too, because Marco Hugentobler, one of the core
developers of Quantum GIS, was based very close to me in Zurich. Now I
had money available and a developer at my disposal. This laid the
foundation for the successful development of Quantum GIS, which later
became QGIS. Marco was able to develop all the functions in Quantum GIS
that were necessary for the canton of Solothurn's work—data analysis,
symbolization, digitization, and map production. The world was open to
a free desktop GIS. Today, QGIS is an indispensable part of
geoinformatics, but back then we were laughed at.
My special thanks go to the people who made this journey possible: the
developers, who often worked behind the scenes with great perseverance
and passion; the colleagues in administration, universities, and
offices who had the courage to break new ground; and the few who took
responsibility early on and inspired others to follow suit—in
Switzerland and around the world. Without this personal commitment,
without trust, and without sometimes controversial discussions, much of
this would not have come about.
What has accompanied me all these years has not only been the technical
excellence of these tools, but above all the community behind them:
open, critical, helpful, and always ready to share knowledge. This free
culture has shaped my work and my commitment—and it has made FOSS4G
strong.
With great gratitude for all the encounters, discussions, and joint
projects worldwide, I am now taking a step back from my very active
professional life. The FOSS4G community is in an excellent position
today, and I am convinced that it will continue on its successful path.
The current challenges of our time—the many unhealthy dependencies that
we saw early on and which are now increasingly being recognized by
decision-makers—urge us to be vigilant in the face of growing
authoritarianism and nationalist tendencies, which are regaining
strength in many parts of the world.
And I will continue to be part of the community, because I am not
retiring from life. Who knows where we will cross paths, what happy
circumstances will enrich our lives in the future, and what
contribution I will make in the future? We will see. Perhaps one or two
of my companions will read this text and remember moments we shared.
That would make me very happy.
Thank you for everything. It is a great pleasure and honor for me to be
part of this development.
See you soon, yours
Horst Düster
[email protected]
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