Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Gender bias in nominations
Jo wrote: As a female member of OSGeo I don't really feel that my gender matters in the slightest. Having heard too many sad stories from across the software industry, and having seen a couple first-hand, that totally makes my day. We’re doing something right, folks. Thanks. -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Board Digest, Vol 94, Issue 24 (actually: president's role in OSGEO)
On Jul 18, 2014, at 5:31 AM, Jeff McKenna jmcke...@gatewaygeomatics.com wrote: Although your points make sense, the reality is that the President is requested specifically for many things, in person, or on a Skype call, writing a support letter, shaking a hand, giving a talk, etc etc. Those are all things we would all *like* to do, yes, but the reality of volunteer time available and funding limitations means that we cannot always do everything we’d like to do. If we were a Big Organization with Lots of Money, things would be different, perhaps. But we’re not that, so we need to prioritize. -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Membership fee (was: Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members)
While I don’t think I’m keen on having professionals foot the bill for OSGeo, Dirk is definitely on the right track. His citation of the core principles is timely, and I’ll go so far as to repeat it here: OSGeo should act as a low-capital, volunteer-focused organization. OSGeo should focus support on OSGeo communities and initiatives which support themselves. We’re not like Apache, Eclipse, OGC, or ASPRS. We’re OSGeo, and I’d hate to see us drift away from that. “Membership” should be for everyone and anyone. We do need a means to keep the board from straying from those core principles without overwhelming community agreement, which today is done by the idea of charter members. I’m open to changing the model of keeping the board on the right path, but am not willing to go so far as to create any sort membership barriers beyond that one small (yet essential) constraint. -mpg On Jul 1, 2014, at 9:46 AM, Dirk Frigne dirk.fri...@geosparc.com wrote: Although I am not so active on the mailing list, I am an OSGeo's advocate, and I take the opportunity to promote OSGeo wherever I can. I became an OSGeo member in 2007 because I was proud on what the organisation did and I wanted to support it, with the scarce resources I own. One of the things I appreciate enormously is - The organisation is open (as in open source) - Becoming a member of the organisation is totally free (*yes* like in free beer!) - the organisation has a perfect DNA: - members can - act as *A* user - act as *T*echnical skilled person (sofware developers, industry, documentation) - work at *G*overmental body - member of the s*C*ientific world (academic world) In the world of today *free* as in gratis, *free* as in *free* *beer*, doing something for somebody else is very rare (scarce) that it becomes very valuable. Being a part of a community like OSGeo not only is *fun* but also gives you a *good* feeling, and it is very motivating to work in a company or organisation that supports OSGeo. I may be naive, but for me personally this works out well, and having that feeling is one of the important incentives to keep contributing to the community. (And by the way, working with other members of the OSGeo community didn't result in any bad experience until now) Of course, an organisation needs money, To support some stuff (.svn or whathever goal is worth supporting). But I think we should keep the membership *free* (and not as in *free* beer!), because it is in my eyes a very essential part of OSGeo: Core principles are: OSGeo should act as a low capital, volunteer focused organisation. OSGeo should focus support on OSGeo communities and initiatives which support themselves. [1] As in DNA, different chains have different roles. *G*overnments are happy to have such a movement as the Free and open source software [2] movement, because they can avoid vendor lock-in, gain control over their projects (read: become free again), and save a lot of money. They should take this advantage seriously and sponsor open source activities. the s*C*ientific world is happy to use open source solutions, because they can study the tools themselves and focus on research, not being bothered of the licenses they are using. They also should take this advantage seriously and donate scientific relevant material they don't want to exploit immediately to the community. *A*ny user should be free (*not* as in free beer) to use and experiment with the results of what the community is producing. The community should welcome *A*ny user and help him to find his way, so he can take his responsibility and earn respect for what he is doing. And last but not least: the *T*echnically skilled persons are the heart of the community. Being able to create great teamwork and donate back to the community. Also they should take their responsibility and earn the respect they deserve. But where is the money we need to operate the organisation? Personally, I don't think it are the users nor the community members who should take care of that. Because the belonging to the community should remain a *free* right, where the value comes from respect and the intense feeling of giving something without expecting something back. The strange thing is that many of the members are also professional involved into OSGeo (acting as A T G or C). So I suggest it should not be the (community) members who should pay for the support, but these professional actors. And they (the professional actors) should become a member (in their role of incorporation) to support it. But sponsored membership should not give rights to vote, or whatsoever. The only thing you gain is that you, as a professional incorporation, are happy with an organisation as OSGeo, fighting for your rights to be able to use *free* software. And the sponsors should trust and believe that a low
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
Correct: “membership”, by design at the original founding meeting, was designed not to confer ANY rights or distinguishing properties except for the ability to vote for board members. While the election process is pretty messy right now, I view that as a solvable problem: I’m still at a loss to understand why we’d want to change anything more than that. -mpg On Jun 26, 2014, at 2:58 AM, Steven Feldman shfeld...@gmail.com wrote: If I have understood this procedure correctly: The board is voted for by the Charter Members, new Charter Members are proposed and voted for by the existing Charter Members, there may be a limit placed on the number of new Charter Members set by the board. Membership of OSGeo does not seem to confer any rights on the member. Do we need to review our foundation docs to find a more inclusive procedure? Steven Feldman ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] What's wrong? (was Re: Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members)
I’ve not been following this issue closely, so I just went back through the old mails and I’m still left with this rather basic question: What is the problem that we are trying to solve? What started this movement? What in our organization is “broken” that needs to be fixed? -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] What's wrong? (was Re: Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members)
(just using my buddy Hobu as a foil here...) So, the membership process is broken because it is ad hoc, difficult to coordinate, and so on? Agreed! And there are only two benefits to “membership: voting for the board and personal PR? Agreed! The personal PR one doesn’t count for much with me. Anyone putting anything like “actively involved in OSGeo” on their resume would get full points from me (speaking as a hiring manager type of person). So, to me, that just leaves the Board election mechanism as the interesting question for discussion? Or is there something else about membership worth discussing? Unless we’re seriously talking about using membership dues as a potential revenue source? I’m against making our organization any more formal or professional than it is now. We’re a grassroots, low-budget, loose affiliation of projects and interests. If we’re interested in changing the tone and dynamic of the organization, I’d be interested to hear from people as to what we think the change direction should be and to what ultimate advantage. -mpg On Jun 23, 2014, at 9:51 AM, Howard Butler how...@hobu.co wrote: On Jun 23, 2014, at 10:16 AM, Michael P. Gerlek m...@flaxen.com wrote: I’ve not been following this issue closely, so I just went back through the old mails and I’m still left with this rather basic question: What is the problem that we are trying to solve? OSGeo's membership process is completely adhoc, and it prevents people who wish to be members from doing so. Seemingly, the only two benefits of membership are 1) able to vote for board and 2) able to trumpet to world you're a member. A paid membership doesn't doesn't really change that, but it does help OSGeo in a number of important ways: * Our organization would look pretty much exactly like all the other similar professional organizations to the IRS * It smoothes out our revenue and provides a floor for things like infrastructure, accounting, insurance, etc which are things a proper org needs but OSGeo often lacks. * Anyone who wants to be a member can pay the fee, get the tshirt, and be a member. What started this movement? I don't know that there's so much a movement, but rather a realization by some that the membership process is a bit broken. To simply let any/all who want to be an OSGeo member has the board-packing concerns brought up during the inaugural organization meeting. What in our organization is “broken” that needs to be fixed? * The CRO's administration of the board vote and membership rolls is a hard, thankless job that ends up suffering the brunt of OSGeo's broken membership process. * People who wish to be members of OSGeo can't simply sign up. * OSGeo's purported revenue model of soliciting large donations from private organizations does not match its real revenue model of harvesting income from the FOSS4G conference. Howard ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Supporting Standards
[added standards mailing list back to the distribution list] Quoting all of item 4, to put Stefano's quote in context: Standards specifications are made accessible to all for implementation and deployment. Affirming standards organizations have defined procedures to develop specifications that can be implemented under fair terms. Given market diversity, fair terms may vary from royalty-free to fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms (FRAND). I'm pretty pragmatic about this stuff, so I see this as a perfectly reasonable position for an organization to take. -mpg On Sep 6, 2012, at 8:52 AM, Stefano Costa st...@iosa.it wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 Il 06/09/2012 17:26, Seven (aka Arnulf) ha scritto: Folks, one item on the OGC Architecture Board meeting agenda today was to look at this web site: http://open-stand.org/principles/ - From my perspective the principles listed here are very much aligned with our goals and nicely worded. So my suggestion is to support this initiative as an organization [1]. Let's have a dialog here and if we come to the conclusion that we want to officially endorse this submit a motion to the board for their next meeting. I'm a bit worried by the vague wording of those principles. More in detail, point 4 is crucial, stating that: fair terms may vary from royalty-free to fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms (FRAND). See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#RAND for some background of why this is problematic for free and open source software (our mission, I believe). Ciao steko ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Secret ballots for voting
Someone asked the Board (off-list) why we do not publish the results of our elections in detail -- such as how many votes there were for each candidate, including any candidates that weren't elected. I'm not sure if our bylaws require secret ballots, but that has been our process since the Foundation began.There are clearly pros and cons both ways for this. If we were fully transparent, everyone see who voted for whom and there would be no possibility of cheating. By keeping votes private, on the other hand, we allow people to candidly express their feelings without feeling any social pressures. It's not clear to me that the community favors a change from our current secret ballot process, but I know it has been asked about before over the years and I know at least one person raised a question about the lack of transparency in our last round of voting. If you feel strongly about this please feel free to start a thread about it and we'll see what the consensus is. PS- I can say that 98 of the 144 charter members voted in this last election. -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Mathematics of Planet Earth 2013
It's not been mentioned in the Upper Echelons that I hang about in, for what that's worth. If someone wanted to propose OSGeo get involved in this somehow, I'm sure we'd be interested… -mpg On Aug 14, 2012, at 10:23 AM, Barry Rowlingson b.rowling...@lancaster.ac.uk wrote: Is anyone at the upper echelons of OSGeo aware of MPE2013? http://mpe2013.org The mission of the MPE project is to: * Encourage research in identifying and solving fundamental questions about planet earth * Encourage educators at all levels to communicate the issues related to planet earth * Inform the public about the essential role of the mathematical sciences in facing the challenges to our planet One point in one of the newsletters caught my eye: MPE2013 received the patronage of UNESCO. This includes, in particular, the international launching of the Mathematics of Planet Earth Open Source Exhibition foreseen to take place in the beginning of 2013. UNESCO had been approached on behalf of the International Union through the Canadian and French Commissions at UNESCO. In particular, MPE2013 will work in partnership with UNESCO for the promotion of the MPE exhibition. Is this on the OSGeo radar? [Next year is also the International Year Of Statistics 2013 (plus or minus a few months)] Barry ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] CORRECTION -- Re: Board Elections 2012
Cameron Shorter's name was inadvertently omitted from the nomination page. Arnulf and I are both(!) traveling today and can't quickly update the wiki - if some kind soul would do that for us, we would appreciate it. If you have already voted and wish to change your selections, feel free to do so. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation! .mpg Arnulf, CRO's On Aug 3, 2012, at 4:27 AM, Arnulf Christl arn...@osgeo.org wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Dear Charter Members, we are approaching the end of the 2012 elections [0]. The Board nomination period has ended and all nominees listed on [1] have confirmed that they are happy to stand for election. Please take your time to read through the nomination, the acceptance and thoughts from each candidate and then proceed to vote for 5 different candidates by adding them one per line to an email to be sent to c...@osgeo.org. Voting closes at 23:59 (your timezone) 12-August-2012! Please caefully follow the instructions given on the Wiki [2] in order to be able to submit a valid email and MAKE SURE TO SEND IT TO c...@osgeo.org ONLY. Otherwise your vote may become public or just disappear somewhere. You will receive a confirmation of your successful vote. If you do not receive a confirmation within 24h of submitting your mail please contact c...@osgeo.org Thank your for taking on this responsibility, Your CROs (Arnulf Christl Michael Gerlek) [0] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2012 [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Member_Nominations_2012 [2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2012#Vote_for_new_Board_Members_-_2012-08-03_-_2012-08-12 - -- President, OSGeo http://www.osgeo.org -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAlAbtaAACgkQXmFKW+BJ1b38RwCeOFOp4mQGCXVQEAkd7pyvnRZE g5wAnjWfXfi9aImTjdIL4UZ3YKwIxVh4 =UCHq -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source Geospatial Atlas
Also, some companies would be willing to help underwrite production costs in exchange for some small ads on the back pages, if we wanted to go that way. Nice idea, but initial production costs are zero with publish-on-demand - its just the time of the editor. Ah, but you're not thinking big enough :-) We little people might pay for our own copies, sure, but I'd like to have the foundation have a stack of copies of this book: to give to our sponsors, to use as (high-end) marketing material for trade-shows, ... -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Nomination for Cameron Shorter
I am pleased to nominate Cameron Shorter to be a member of the OSGeo Board. Followers of this list will no doubt already be familiar with Cameron: active in this foundation since the very beginning, he chaired the 2009 FOSS4G conference, has served on various OSGeo committees, and has worked on the OSGeo-Live project, among many other contributions. He would surely make a great addition to the board team for the next two years. -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] The importance of a project's license
I hesitate to get into this discussion, but... Puneet wrote: [...] I short-circuit all license discussions in my personal domain by not having any license. Life is too short and precious, in my view, to encumber with these complications. Do you literally mean no license at all? That might be a mistake, if you're looking for others to adopt your code. Having no license documentation in the code raises all sorts of red flags. In my commercial or government work, I'd not allow use of any code whose provenance, author, and/or copyright status is at all unclear. -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [Board] Fwd: Board elections Voting
+1 I like the old way better too, but Daniel it right: the comment period is past. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Daniel Morissette Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2012 7:06 AM To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [Board] Fwd: Board elections Voting On 12-07-25 9:08 AM, Seven (aka Arnulf) wrote: Thanks for the link steko. For this election I suggest we stick with what we have though, probably a little late to introduce this. But I will add the whole elections topic to the next board meeting so that we don't wake up late for the next elections again... I am with Arnulf on this: let's stick with what we have and revisit in time before the next election. The current election schedule was proposed on June 14 [1] and discussed/edited for about a week until it was finally approved on June 21 [2], so there was time for members to comment if they wanted to (and some did if you look in the archives). I don't care one way or the other personally for the voting, but I do know that it's not possile to make everyone happy and I'm sure that for every charter member requesting a change we can find one that would find it inappropriate to change the rules in the middle of an election. [1] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2012-June/009714.html [2] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2012-June/009745.html -- Daniel Morissette http://www.mapgears.com/ Provider of Professional MapServer Support since 2000 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] DARPA-funded short-term incubator for geospatial data analysis
DARPA and George Mason University are running a very novel, incubator-like opportunity for small teams of people interested in a chance to pursue radical new ideas in the areas of geospatial and visual data analysis. If you've got an idea for something truly different in the geo data world, and would like to spend 8 weeks exploring the idea with a $50K budget, you can find more details and background here: http://go.usa.gov/wo5 http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/10/darpa-innovation-house-project-imaging-data/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/post/darpa-george-mason-seek-trailblazers-for-eight-week-innovation-house-study-program/2012/07/10/gJQAv06naW_blog.html Deadline is July 31st, so act fast! [disclaimers: it is being run by my former boss at DARPA and I'm a member of the review committee] _mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Boad of Director Nomination: Daniel Morissette
+1! _mpg -Original Message- From: Seven (aka Arnulf) [mailto:se...@arnulf.us] Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2012 10:19 AM To: c...@osgeo.org; OSGeo Discussions Subject: Boad of Director Nomination: Daniel Morissette Dear OSGeo Community, Charter Members, I want to nominate Daniel Morissette for the OSGeo board of directors. I have been working with Daniel for many years and he is one of the most trustworthy and consistently productive people I know. He has always proven to be highly sensitive to community related aspects and has an international outlook, combined with very good English skills. This makes him a good mediator between different regions and cultures, a regularly upcoming issue in our community. This would already make him an invaluable member of the board of directors. But this is not enough, on top of this he also tends to the irksome job of treasurer and has toiled through many down-to-earth tasks that an organization of our size requires to get done. He is also an integral part of the Franco-Canadian local community and a relentless contributor to the MapServer project. It would be silly to not squeeze some more out of him if he so friendly asks for it. Thank you, Arnulf -- Exploring Space, Time and Mind http://arnulf.us ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] DARPA-funded short-term incubator for geospatial data analysis
As someone just pointed out to me, I should add this further clarification: All team members must be U.S. citizens and at least 18 years of age. (If there was an osgeo-discuss-usa list, I'd have used that instead. Apologies.) On a happier note, though, also observe that: There are no specific academic, professional or experience-related requirements. If it is not obvious from a team's resumes, the team should make a credible case that it has the skills necessary to accomplish what it proposes. _mpg -Original Message- From: Michael P. Gerlek [mailto:m...@flaxen.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2012 9:58 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: DARPA-funded short-term incubator for geospatial data analysis Sorry, I left out the most important bit: DARPA is very supportive of open source -- as a means of doing things cheaper, bootstrapping faster, fostering collaboration, and promoting extensibility. _mpg -Original Message- From: Michael P. Gerlek [mailto:m...@flaxen.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2012 9:54 AM To: OSGeo Discussions (discuss@lists.osgeo.org) Subject: DARPA-funded short-term incubator for geospatial data analysis DARPA and George Mason University are running a very novel, incubator-like opportunity for small teams of people interested in a chance to pursue radical new ideas in the areas of geospatial and visual data analysis. If you've got an idea for something truly different in the geo data world, and would like to spend 8 weeks exploring the idea with a $50K budget, you can find more details and background here: http://go.usa.gov/wo5 http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/10/darpa-innovation-house-project-imaging-data/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/post/darpa-george-mason-seek-trailblazers-for-eight-week-innovation-house-study-program/2012/07/10/gJQAv06naW_blog.html Deadline is July 31st, so act fast! [disclaimers: it is being run by my former boss at DARPA and I'm a member of the review committee] _mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] New charter members!
We received 22 nominations for the 2012 Charter Members. There were 20 membership positions available, but the board acted over the weekend to increase that number to 22. Therefore, on behalf of the OSGeo Board and the entire OSGeo community, I am pleased to welcome the following people as OSGeo Charter Members for 2012: Barend Kobben Netherlands Angelos Tzotsos Greece Anita GraserAustria Victor OlayaSpain Pedro-Juan Ferrer Spain Andrea AimeeItaly Jean-Roc Morreale France Serena Coetzee South Africa Michael Smith USA Karel Charvat Czech Republic Jan Jezek Czech Republic Vasile Craciunescu Romania Thomas Bonfort France Mauricio MirandaArgentina Peter Löwe Germany Massimiliano CannataItaly P.K.Sinha India Brian HamlinUSA Ragi Yaser Burhum Peru Dimitris Kotzinos Greece César MedinaChile Doug NewcombUSA Congratulations to all! _mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Do you want to be on the OSGeo Board?
The nomination period for 2012 OSGeo Board Members starts in two weeks. As a long-time member of the OSGeo community and as a current Board member, I can say that this organization that has helped build a fantastic and supportive community over the past several years. However, there are always ongoing discussions about areas where we could improve our impact on the open source geospatial ecosystem. If you are interested in helping set the direction for OSGeo over the next couple years and/or have some ideas about the strategic issues we face, I encourage you to start a discussion on either the Board or Discussion lists. _mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] RE: [OSGeo-Conf] Short report about FOSS4G-CEE 2012 with outlook to coming years
Jachym- Can you provide us with a summary of the financial aspects of your event? Things like did the attendees have to pay anything and if so how much, did you have any sponsors, how much was spent on the venue, food, etc, etc. This is good information to have, for others thinking about planning similar events. -mpg -Original Message- From: conference_dev-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:conference_dev-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Jachym Cepicky Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2012 1:38 PM To: Discussions, OSGeo; conference-...@lists.osgeo.org; 'conference' Subject: [OSGeo-Conf] Short report about FOSS4G-CEE 2012 with outlook to coming years Hi, if anybody is interested, I'm sending here very short report about FOSS4G-CEE Geoinformatics in Prague 2012, which was organised this week (and which is continuing with GRASS Code sprint right now). See http://foss4g-cee.org for more details. Number of registered participants: 120 CZ - 35 RO - 14 DE - 12 FR - 6 AT - 5 SK - 4 EE, HU, CH, PL, TU, USA - 3 IT, UK - 2 HR, NRW, NZ, Georgia, Ghana, Nigeria 1 Number of accepted papers cca 60 Number of accepted workshops: 6 Number of accepted tutorials: 5 However, relatively high number of presenters did not arrive (at least one did announce it soon enough, but has slipped between my fingers, sorry one more time) - luckily, present speakers were usually able to prolong their presentations operatively. On some tutorials, no attendees have come :-( Social events formal and informal: nice! Lessons learned: * Double check presenters against list of registrations. * Double check list of vegetarians and keep track of it * Have more accepted presentations in the stack, for possible substitutions * and others List of photos: http://foss4g-cee.org/photos/ PDF version of presentations are being added to http://foss4g-cee.org/program/overview/ Big thanks to the organisation team, general feedback was positive. Big thanks to all participants: Without them, the conference would not happen. Future of FOSS4G-CEE: - It was agreed, that (unless there is no big obligation), FOSS4G-CEE 2013 will be organised by Vasile Crăciunescu and his team at geo-spatial.org in Bucharest, Romania. Their situation will be quite difficult thanks to global FOSS4G organised somewhere in Europe. But still, they have clearly expressed their enthusiasm about organisation the event. During the event, several participants from various countries (France, Italy, Germany, Czech, Romania and others) have indicated their strong demand for conference best described as FOSS4G-Europe. Having FOSS4G-NA in mind, and all the discussions about positives and negatives of such proposals, we've had during last months, I do personally support this idea: There is demand for more local oriented, yet big enough events around the ellipsoid, let's talk about it (better in some other thread, at conference_dev list). Such event should happen during 2014, so we have about year for clarifying all possible questions. Jachym -- Jachym Cepicky Help Service - Remote Sensing s.r.o. jachym.cepi...@gmail.com | jac...@hsrs.cz http://les-ejk.cz | http://bnhelp.cz ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo's jobs mailing list
This is just a gentle reminder that there is a mailing list for geospatial jobs related to open source over at j...@lists.osgeo.org (archived at http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/jobs/). If you are looking to hire someone to do some open source geo work, or if you're looking to get hired to do some open source geo work, this is a good place to go. It is a moderated list with very low volume -- just a handful of posts per month. -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] CHARTER MEMBERS: please read
In advance of OSGeo's 2012 election season, we are updated our database of charter members. We need at least an email address for each of the charter members, although we will optionally be happy to accept the following data from you as well: Last Name (surname) First and middle names Nationality Affiliation Street Address City State/Province Country Post Code Phone Please send this information to me (m...@flaxen.com). This information is kept confidential, restricted to the board members. (Aggregated information without personal identifiers, such as nationalities, may be used for tracking our demographics.) The current list of 125 charter members is posted here: http://www.osgeo.org/charter_members. Thank you. _mpg, OSGeo board secretary ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [Board] Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Defining an OSGeo Ambassador role
to another planet or are deemed unfit for the purpose by the community? __**_ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/**mailman/listinfo/discuss http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss On 20/04/12 07:24, Cameron Shorter wrote: On 20/04/2012 4:06 AM, Michael P. Gerlek wrote: Do we have any policies and cost structures for the Ambassador function yet? I've seen a few people talking about creating an OSGeo Ambassador role. Arnulf I think might have been the first to mention it, and I think it is an excellent idea. I'm also aware that the OGC are considering developing OGC ambassadors too. So I'd like to open the floor and see what people think an ambassador's role could involve, which leads into the qualities we would wish our ambassador's to have, which leads into the ways we may select an ambassador. Let me start by noting some of the driving factors: 1. Arnulf has noted that as OSGeo president, he has spent a significant amount of time on areoplanes travelling around the world to talk on behalf of OSGeo. He has suggested that this role should be shared. Conference organisors, who have a primary goal of attracting attendees, look for authoritative figureheads to talk at conferences. They are expected to have a deep insight into a specific domain, such as OSGeo. They should also speak well, even better if they are entertaining. 2. OSGeo is a sexy topic has many conferences, and there are hundreds, if not thousands of conferences around the world which would like to see an OSGeo presence. 3. OSGeo is fortunate to draw membership from around the world, including boasting a number of very healthy local chapters. As such, we are likely to have potential ambassadors in most counties. (We might be a bit short in Antarctica) 4. There are times when negotiating MOUs or similar with other countries, it would be useful to have someone local speak with authority on behalf of OSGeo. 5. Note that there are conflicting interests here of wanting to open up the role for anyone who volunteers, verses maintaining a selectiveness and prestige for the role which is the key selection criteria for conferences asking for an ambassador. As such, I think it important that ambassadors can only be voted into the position, and not handed out to anyone. We already vote for a board, and charter members. I think board members should be considered ambassadors by default. Should charter members be considered ambassadors? Charter members only get this role after demonstrating a commitment to OSGeo, so will likely have a reasonable depth of OSGeo knowledge. Maybe we should ask for a history of speaking well (as demonstrated at conferences), to the ambassador criteria. Then lastly, do we wish to invite ambassadors from a greater circle? At this point, I'd probably err on saying no, as if the entry bar to becoming an ambassador is too easy, then the mystic of the role will be lost. -- Cameron Shorter Geospatial Solutions Manager Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source http://www.lisasoft.com __**_ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/**mailman/listinfo/discuss http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Defining an OSGeo Ambassador role
as their primary address - interviews on the main blog - a track record of their public activity wrt OSGeo promotion, software development, management, documentation and what else In this way the charter members could gain a higher visibility in the wider geospatial community and be recognised as official representatives. Ciao steko BTW is there any process in place to remove charter members if they become inactive, move to another planet or are deemed unfit for the purpose by the community? ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss On 20/04/12 07:24, Cameron Shorter wrote: On 20/04/2012 4:06 AM, Michael P. Gerlek wrote: Do we have any policies and cost structures for the Ambassador function yet? I've seen a few people talking about creating an OSGeo Ambassador role. Arnulf I think might have been the first to mention it, and I think it is an excellent idea. I'm also aware that the OGC are considering developing OGC ambassadors too. So I'd like to open the floor and see what people think an ambassador's role could involve, which leads into the qualities we would wish our ambassador's to have, which leads into the ways we may select an ambassador. Let me start by noting some of the driving factors: 1. Arnulf has noted that as OSGeo president, he has spent a significant amount of time on areoplanes travelling around the world to talk on behalf of OSGeo. He has suggested that this role should be shared. Conference organisors, who have a primary goal of attracting attendees, look for authoritative figureheads to talk at conferences. They are expected to have a deep insight into a specific domain, such as OSGeo. They should also speak well, even better if they are entertaining. 2. OSGeo is a sexy topic has many conferences, and there are hundreds, if not thousands of conferences around the world which would like to see an OSGeo presence. 3. OSGeo is fortunate to draw membership from around the world, including boasting a number of very healthy local chapters. As such, we are likely to have potential ambassadors in most counties. (We might be a bit short in Antarctica) 4. There are times when negotiating MOUs or similar with other countries, it would be useful to have someone local speak with authority on behalf of OSGeo. 5. Note that there are conflicting interests here of wanting to open up the role for anyone who volunteers, verses maintaining a selectiveness and prestige for the role which is the key selection criteria for conferences asking for an ambassador. As such, I think it important that ambassadors can only be voted into the position, and not handed out to anyone. We already vote for a board, and charter members. I think board members should be considered ambassadors by default. Should charter members be considered ambassadors? Charter members only get this role after demonstrating a commitment to OSGeo, so will likely have a reasonable depth of OSGeo knowledge. Maybe we should ask for a history of speaking well (as demonstrated at conferences), to the ambassador criteria. Then lastly, do we wish to invite ambassadors from a greater circle? At this point, I'd probably err on saying no, as if the entry bar to becoming an ambassador is too easy, then the mystic of the role will be lost. -- Cameron Shorter Geospatial Solutions Manager Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 tel:%2B61%20%280%292%208570%205050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 tel:%2B61%20%280%29419%20142%20254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source http://www.lisasoft.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Ing. Margherita Di Leo, Ph.D. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Do you run an OSGeo committe or chapter?
We are setting up a contact list on the wiki, inventorying all the various committees and local chapters. Pls take a minute to review this wiki page and make any additions you see fit: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Contacts -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Defining an OSGeo Ambassador role
Cameron, thanks for bringing this up for discussion. A couple things to note: - in some cases, the Board might decide that it is important enough to have an Ambassador at an event that the Foundation would cover travel expenses - it is unlikely that the Foundation would be able to cover the costs of the Ambassador's time, however; aside from the expense involved and trying to determine a fair uniform hourly rate, I could see that turn into a fight for who gets to go; but on the other hand, a nominal fee might help enable some of us who are self-employed or similar to fill the ambassador role - some events/functions might require the Ambassador be a Board member as well (as in the case of the email of mine which Cameron quotes) -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Cameron Shorter Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 2:24 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Defining an OSGeo Ambassador role On 20/04/2012 4:06 AM, Michael P. Gerlek wrote: Do we have any policies and cost structures for the Ambassador function yet? I've seen a few people talking about creating an OSGeo Ambassador role. Arnulf I think might have been the first to mention it, and I think it is an excellent idea. I'm also aware that the OGC are considering developing OGC ambassadors too. So I'd like to open the floor and see what people think an ambassador's role could involve, which leads into the qualities we would wish our ambassador's to have, which leads into the ways we may select an ambassador. Let me start by noting some of the driving factors: 1. Arnulf has noted that as OSGeo president, he has spent a significant amount of time on areoplanes travelling around the world to talk on behalf of OSGeo. He has suggested that this role should be shared. Conference organisors, who have a primary goal of attracting attendees, look for authoritative figureheads to talk at conferences. They are expected to have a deep insight into a specific domain, such as OSGeo. They should also speak well, even better if they are entertaining. 2. OSGeo is a sexy topic has many conferences, and there are hundreds, if not thousands of conferences around the world which would like to see an OSGeo presence. 3. OSGeo is fortunate to draw membership from around the world, including boasting a number of very healthy local chapters. As such, we are likely to have potential ambassadors in most counties. (We might be a bit short in Antarctica) 4. There are times when negotiating MOUs or similar with other countries, it would be useful to have someone local speak with authority on behalf of OSGeo. 5. Note that there are conflicting interests here of wanting to open up the role for anyone who volunteers, verses maintaining a selectiveness and prestige for the role which is the key selection criteria for conferences asking for an ambassador. As such, I think it important that ambassadors can only be voted into the position, and not handed out to anyone. We already vote for a board, and charter members. I think board members should be considered ambassadors by default. Should charter members be considered ambassadors? Charter members only get this role after demonstrating a commitment to OSGeo, so will likely have a reasonable depth of OSGeo knowledge. Maybe we should ask for a history of speaking well (as demonstrated at conferences), to the ambassador criteria. Then lastly, do we wish to invite ambassadors from a greater circle? At this point, I'd probably err on saying no, as if the entry bar to becoming an ambassador is too easy, then the mystic of the role will be lost. -- Cameron Shorter Geospatial Solutions Manager Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source http://www.lisasoft.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Defining an OSGeo Ambassador role
Dimitris: No apologies needed, it is an important discussion to have! But as you are aware, there are no easy answers. The Board of Directors has been discussing these issues a lot, both on lists and in face-to-face meetings. The problem is that OSGeo has a very broad charter and a very diverse membership, and so it is hard to just say we should do this or we should do that without looking at all the tradeoffs involved. And furthermore, doing anything substantial requires funding, which is hard to get without a clear set of goals and objectives to take to potential sponsors -- and so it's a circular problem. One of the first steps we know we need to take, before we can go after any real sponsorship funding, is to fix some long-standing problems with our accounting practices and our unclear nonprofit status; both of those are being worked on actively right now (by Daniel and me). Another needed step is to revive the Marketing committee; Arnulf and Cameron are doing that right now as well. That said, a lesson we're coming to grips with is that certain business development and back-office functions are not well-suited to a volunteer-based organization or even a single paid Executive Director generalist -- those jobs require specific skillsets, which some of us think it might be best to outsource or partner with another allied nonprofit organization. Since the board is made up of volunteers spread across the globe, it's hard to be able to move as fast on any of these issues as I would like, but I do think the current board is slowly digging our way through all this. For more discussions on this stuff, I'd encourage you to join the board list. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Dimitris Kotzinos Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 3:50 PM To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Defining an OSGeo Ambassador role Dear all, following up on Michael's e-mail, I have to say that I find the idea of having OSGEO ambassadors very useful and I think that we should keep it to a limited number of people (maybe about a dozen as a maximum) geographically spread all over the globe. Moreover, I would like to take the opportunity to put forward some additional concerns. I have followed in this list some (sometimes fierce) discussions about managerial issues of the OSGEO (e.g. the discussion on the decision to have no Executive Director, the discussion on the responsibilities for the Beijing conference and so on). I am still missing the discussion (at the discussion list) of a more complete and coherent plan on how we think OSGEO should go on for the next couple of years. I think that having Ambassadors or not should be part of a greater plan on how we think OSGEO should handle (sometimes practical) issues like its representation in events, its public face, the conferences we want to put together (and how) and so on ... Thus my request is to discuss the whatever plan as a whole and not as individual ideas. My apologies for opening up again a discussion that might already be obsolete :) Best regards, Dimitris Kotzinos ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] RE: [Board] Fwd: Request for your endorsement of GIS Amicus Letter re: Sierra Club v Orange County
I'm covering this for the Board, and in the next few days I will be putting out a formal motion for OSGeo to endorse it. -mpg From: board-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:board-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of David William Bitner Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2012 4:50 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Cc: OSGeo-Board List Subject: [Board] Fwd: Request for your endorsement of GIS Amicus Letter re: Sierra Club v Orange County Dear OSGeo friends, As has been discussed earlier on this list, the Sierra Club's case against Orange County to try to open up county parcel basemap data under California data practices laws is heading to the CA Supreme Court. Bruce Joffe has drafted an Amicus Letter in support of the Sierra Club. I encourage the GIS professionals on this list to consider individual support of this effort and ask the Board to consider signing this letter as an organization. Thank you, David Bitner -- Forwarded message -- From: Bruce Joffe gis.consulta...@joffes.com Date: Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 10:22 PM Subject: Request for your endorsement of GIS Amicus Letter re: Sierra Club v Orange County To: apa...@wakegov.com, bill.mo...@townofcary.org, bit...@dbspatial.com, bra...@co.thurston.wa.us, bspat...@together.net, chris.woodw...@state.co.us, chr...@zwebdesign.com, chuck.drin...@ewam-associates.com, craig.par...@sbcglobal.net, cwo...@dhs.ca.gov, dia...@ci.fullerton.ca.us, dmur...@ci.westminster.co.us, e...@msi.ic.ucsb.edu, g...@onda.org, haydee.dabr...@cdph.ca.gov, jsack...@selcnc.org, jwhi...@stanford.edu, l...@calmail.berkeley.edu, l...@berkeley.edu, lbl...@ksninc.com, sunburned.surve...@redefinedhorizons.com, leanne.les...@colorado.edu, leebe...@earthsystems.net, li...@prev.org Dear Friends, You have been stalwart supporters, advocating for our principles on this important issue of vital concern to our GIS community. I thank you for sending me your pre-endorsement of this GIS Amicus Letter, and hope you will now co-sign this version as an individual, and perhaps also representing your own organization. You may pass this request along to other potential supporters. Thank you, Bruce Dear Colleague, I'm sure you know that Sierra Club is in the final phase of contest against Orange County for access to its GIS-compatible parcel basemap. This case will determine the applicability of the CA Public Records Act to GIS-based data. Although Orange County prevailed in the Trial Court, and again in the Court of Appeals, the case has been accepted for final resolution by the California Supreme Court. I count you among the overwhelming majority of GIS professionals who support Sierra Club's lawsuit because you support unfettered access to our governments' geodata. Now is your opportunity to influence the outcome of the case by adding your name to the GIS Community Amicus Letter (attached) that will be sent to the Court. The letter explains several GIS technicalities to the Court and refutes misinformation proffered by Orange County. A large preponderance of signatures will help convince the Court that OC's arguments do not represent the normal standard of GIS professional knowledge and practice. Please send me an email indicating your endorsement of the Amicus Letter, and I will add your name as a co-signer. * You may co-sign as an individual. Please indicate your title and professional affiliation for reference purposes. (The letter makes it clear that individuals' signatures does not imply endorsement of their reference organization.) IN ADDITION * Please encourage your professional organizations to endorse this Amicus Letter as an organization. Organizational endorsement makes a big impression! * Please ask your employer to endorse as well, if appropriate. The Amicus Letter must be sent by February 24, so please send me your endorsement as soon as you can. With Anticipatory Thanks, Bruce _ Bruce Joffe, GISP Organizer, Open Data Consortium project c/o GIS Consultants 902 Rose Ave. Piedmont, CA 94611 510-508-0213 gis.consulta...@joffes.com _ P.S. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION I have sent out Amicus endorsement requests before. Previously: 83 people and organizations co-signed a GIS Amicus Letter asking the Supreme Court to review this case ... and the Court agreed. 77 people and organizations co-signed a GIS Amicus Letter asking the Court of Appeal to force Santa Clara County to provide its geodata under terms of the PRA ... and the Court agreed. 65 people and organizations co-signed a request to the CA Attorney General to determine whether Parcel boundary map data maintained by a county in electronic format is subject to public inspection and copying under provisions of the California Public Records Act. ... and the AG concurred.
[OSGeo-Discuss] formal request for endorement of amicus on Sierra Club v. Orange Country court case
OSGeo folk: I'm formally requesting that OSGeo endorse the amicus (friend of the court) brief being submitted by the Sierra Club to the California Supreme Court. This case covers significant interest to our community, including the definition of GIS data and the public's right to access open records. The amicus letter can be found at [1]. More details on the case can be found on our wiki at [2]. If you have any thoughts on this matter -- pro or con -- please reply to the list or to me. Following the protocol given in [3], discussion of this issue will take place on this mailing list until January 26th. At that time, I will collect the community's responses and submit them to the Board for discussion at our next meeting on February 4th. [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/File:OrangeCountry_amicus_letter.pdf [2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OrangeCounty_Amicus [3] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Protocol_for_requesting_letter_of_support -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Student funding available for OSGeo codesprint next month!
** Please forward this email to any students or others who might be interested. ** Through the generosity of our sponsors -- especially our gold-level sponsor Mobile Geographics -- we have funding available for a qualified student (or currently unemployed programmer) to come to Seattle for next month's codesprint. To apply for the funding, send email to m...@flaxen.com with a short (250 words max) statement explaining what open source projects you have contributed to and why you want to come to the sprint. Extra credit if you can get someone else from the OSGeo community to recommend you to me. The amount of funding available will cover at least the registration fee (lodging/meals), and possibly some travel expenses as well. (Please include in your email where you would be travelling from.) http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/IslandWood_Code_Sprint_2012 -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] The amicus curiae brief in the Orange County, California public records / geo data court case
I've volunteered to take point on this issue and do the homework, as a first step towards bringing to the Board for approval. I've started a wiki page listing some reading material about the case: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OrangeCounty_Amicus If anyone has any opinions about the issue (either pro or con!), please email me or email the list or add to the wiki. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Dan Putler Sent: Friday, December 16, 2011 9:08 AM To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] The amicus curiae brief in the Orange County, California public records / geo data court case Hi all, I've been in contact with Bruce Joffe who has been working on an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief associated with two court decisions that have gone in completely opposite directions in California, one involving Santa Clara County and the other involving Orange County. The legal point is the same in both cases, is GIS data (parcel data in particular) data or is it software? If it is data, then it is covered under the California Public Records Act, requiring that it be released to the public for reproduction costs, if it is software, it isn't covered, and is subject to licensing fees. The judge in the Santa Clara County case (correctly) determined it was data, while the judge in the Orange County case (incorrectly) determined it was software. The case is now heading to the California Supreme Court, and Bruce Joffe is rounding up potential individuals and organizations to sign on to the amicus curiae brief. More details about the situation was posted on the Directions Magazine daily newsletter on Wednesday. Here is the link to the article: http://www.directionsmag.com/articles/sierra-club-vs-orange-county-pra-lawsuit-update-december-10-2011/219926 My main purpose for posting this information to this list is to determine if there is some mechanism by which the Open Geospatial Foundation can be listed as one of the supporting parties in the amicus curiae brief. I don't know if there is a mechanism for approving this, but this seems like an issue that we should have a strong interest in. Dan ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] 2011 Charter Member Election Results
Nicolas: This is a great idea. Could you please start by stubbing out a wiki page for this, and then others can add onto it? -mpg From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of nicolas bozon Sent: Friday, December 02, 2011 6:56 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 2011 Charter Member Election Results Hello all, As a fresh new charter member, i was precisely wondering if some guidelines for charter membership were available somewhere. I was about to ask in fact, when this thread came up. I knew that voting was one of the duties, but thought that some others may exist. According to me, charter members should also dynamise and promote their respective (and/or prefered) local chapter as much as possible. That would be nice if some experienced charter members could start such guidelines on the wiki or elsewhere where a kind of brainstorming could occur on that topic. My 2 cents Thanks Nick 2011/12/3 Mateusz Łoskot mate...@loskot.net On 2 December 2011 16:30, Dave McIlhagga dmcilha...@dmsolutions.ca wrote: I would suggest that on the contrary, being a Charter Member does come with responsibility -- it may be minimal but is critically important. All that is required is voting for new Charter Members and voting for the Board. Assuming, reasonable efforts have been made to be in touch with Charter Members, I think it's actually important to purge those who don't take this responsibility seriously. I would suggest it's a necessary part of preserving the integrity of the organization. Keep in mind, for many OSGeo is not just a past-time - it's a vested part of our institutions, businesses, and people. I support Dave's opinion here. OSGeo has no resources for mothering its Charter Members. Best regards, -- Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net Charter Member of OSGeo, http://osgeo.org Member of ACCU, http://accu.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Charter nominees -- please speak up!
There are many nominees this year! And since we have such an international slate this year, I expect many of us are in the position I'm in: I don't recognize the names of many of them, much less know of them at least by reputation. If you are a nominee, please consider posting a short statement about yourself and why you think you would be a good representative for OSGeo. You could post to the official nomination wiki page (http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/New_Member_Nominations_2011) or to this discuss list (which always is good to generate some discussion on these sorts of issues), or perhaps both. I'm going to hold off on my vote until close to the deadline, so that I have a chance to hear from many of these great candidates... -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G Travel Hints
I've added a cab-share signup section. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss- boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Daniel Morissette Sent: Friday, September 09, 2011 2:52 PM To: OSGEO discuss Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] FOSS4G Travel Hints We collected and started sharing a bit of info that could be useful for people traveling to Denver for FOSS4G: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2011_Travel_Hints At the moment the most interesting info is about cell phone roaming options and affordable prepaid SIM cards in the US (now I know I got your attention!). Please go ahead and share any hints you may have on other travel related questions. Daniel -- Daniel Morissette http://www.mapgears.com/ Provider of Professional MapServer Support since 2000 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Need graphic arts help for IslandWood codesprint handout
I'm trying to make a one-page advert/flyer/handout for the IslandWood sprint, to be handed out in Denver next week... I know the content that has to be included, but my design skillz are totally not up to it and it looks like a fourth-grade science fair poster. Anyone out there got the talents and a few hours to contribute to this worthy effort? (I'll give you all the credits you want...) -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] North America (Seattle) codesprint -- last chance to save it!
If I was on the board (ahem), I'd be in favor working on such an idea. For small gatherings like this, the amount at risk is relatively low - under $10K, not the huge amount that, say, FOSS4G requires. -mpg From: Daniel Kastl [mailto:dan...@georepublic.de] Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2011 5:10 PM To: m...@flaxen.com; OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] North America (Seattle) codesprint -- last chance to save it! Without being able to attend a code sprint in Seattle, I would like to ask, if this isn't something OSGeo Foundation would be able to cover the risks for. In my opinion this is one of the events OSGeo could support, because it has a high impact on its projects. Leaving such a risk on individuals is likely to make this kind of events difficult to organize. Daniel On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 8:10 AM, Michael P. Gerlek m...@flaxen.com wrote: The goal of hosting the 2012 North American code sprint here in Seattle is, unfortunately, almost dead. To date I have received almost $4K in sponsorship money -- thank you to Airborne Interactive, Anonymous/CUGOS, Development Seed, and LizardTech! -- and almost $4K in the form of seven registrations from individuals. However, this doesn't get us to the $12K needed to reserve the facilities and minimize my risk of defaulting. If you are interested in attending and can pay the $525 fee (registration + lodging + meals) in advance, please contact me. I will try to drum up some more interest down in Denver next month, but the longer we wait the higher the chance the facility won't be available anymore. After FOSS4G, if we haven't raised enough funds, I'll be refunding the sponsorship and registration monies. Details on the event can be found here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/IslandWood_Code_Sprint_2011. Thanks! -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Georepublic UG Georepublic Japan eMail: mailto:daniel.ka...@georepublic.de daniel.ka...@georepublic.de Web: http://georepublic.de/ http://georepublic.de ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] North America (Seattle) codesprint -- last chance to save it!
The goal of hosting the 2012 North American code sprint here in Seattle is, unfortunately, almost dead. To date I have received almost $4K in sponsorship money -- thank you to Airborne Interactive, Anonymous/CUGOS, Development Seed, and LizardTech! -- and almost $4K in the form of seven registrations from individuals. However, this doesn't get us to the $12K needed to reserve the facilities and minimize my risk of defaulting. If you are interested in attending and can pay the $525 fee (registration + lodging + meals) in advance, please contact me. I will try to drum up some more interest down in Denver next month, but the longer we wait the higher the chance the facility won't be available anymore. After FOSS4G, if we haven't raised enough funds, I'll be refunding the sponsorship and registration monies. Details on the event can be found here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/IslandWood_Code_Sprint_2011. Thanks! -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Nomination for Michael Gerlek to OSGeo Board 2011
I've now posted my candidate statement here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Member_Nominations_2011#Michael_Gerlek Thanks again for your consideration. -mpg -Original Message- From: Michael P. Gerlek [mailto:m...@flaxen.com] Sent: Tuesday, August 09, 2011 10:03 AM To: 'OSGeo Discussions' Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Nomination for Michael Gerlek to OSGeo Board 2011 I'm on vacation right now, so this will have to be short -- I'll write something more up when I get home in a few days, but for now let me just make some bullet points: * Thank you to Aaron for the nomination. It's a privilege to be nominated, and doubly so to be in company of so many other nominees. * In addition to the stuff Aaron lists below, I'm working with Howard Butler the PDAL (nee libLAS) project for lidar and point cloud support. It's not a formal OSGeo project today, but as it matures it will hopefully become one someday. * I also worked at LizardTech for a decade, where I championed LizardTech's open source initiatives, including bringing open source libraries into their projects, financially sponsoring OSGeo annually, and rewriting the licenses for their closed-source libraries to be freely distributable within the open source world. * I know of nothing seriously broken within OSGeo today that I want to charge right in and start fixing. Tyler and the board members have done well over the past five years. However, there are two areas I’d like to focus on... * First, as Aaron notes below, I'm one of the folks who runs our local chapter. We've got a great group that meets monthly, and we've been able to put on some great activities -- such as arranging to give talks and panels at local conferences, and putting on our own day-long workshop/conference/sprint at a local university that was attended by many, many people. I'd like to see the board be proactive in getting more local chapters organized and running, as this sort of grass roots work at the individual level is often the best way to introduce people to open source and open data. I've got some ideas on how we could help jump-start things. * Second, I had the good fortune to serve as editor for the Open Sources column in GeoConnexions magazine. We produced two dozen columns over two years, all contributed by members of the OSGeo community, covering everything from libraries and apps to open data and open curricula. I have also just started a smaller, similar column for the Lidar News magazine. OSGeo should work with the media in our industry to identify more opportunities like this. Publishers always want quality content, it's something we can provide for little direct financial cost, and it is a good way to get our message out and seed development of other marketing-like content. Thanks for considering me for the board! -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss- boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Aaron Racicot Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2011 2:22 PM To: discuss Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Nomination for Michael Gerlek to OSGeo Board 2011 I would like to take this opportunity to nominate Michael Gerlek for the OSGeo Board. Michael (known to many as MPG) has been an active member of the OSGeo community from the very first planning meetings in 2006. He has been a Charter member of OSGeo since 2006 and has actively participated in many functions of OSGeo including leading the Visibility committee. Michael also co-founded CUGOS, the regional OSGeo chapter in the Pacific Northwest. He is actively involved in many open source GIS projects, and now dedicates himself to full time consulting work in the open source GIS space through his company Flaxen Geo Consulting. He has a long history in participating with the OGC and could bring unique experience in that arena to the board. Most importantly his participation in the OSGeo board would bring great industry insight, leadership experience, and a true dedication to furthering the OSGeo mission. I strongly encourage the OSGeo community to consider Michael as a valuable addition to the board and the OSGeo family. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Mpg Thanks for your consideration. Aaron -- Aaron Racicot Z-Pulley Inc. aar...@z-pulley.com 360-221-2441 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Nomination for Michael Gerlek to OSGeo Board 2011
I'm on vacation right now, so this will have to be short -- I'll write something more up when I get home in a few days, but for now let me just make some bullet points: * Thank you to Aaron for the nomination. It's a privilege to be nominated, and doubly so to be in company of so many other nominees. * In addition to the stuff Aaron lists below, I'm working with Howard Butler the PDAL (nee libLAS) project for lidar and point cloud support. It's not a formal OSGeo project today, but as it matures it will hopefully become one someday. * I also worked at LizardTech for a decade, where I championed LizardTech's open source initiatives, including bringing open source libraries into their projects, financially sponsoring OSGeo annually, and rewriting the licenses for their closed-source libraries to be freely distributable within the open source world. * I know of nothing seriously broken within OSGeo today that I want to charge right in and start fixing. Tyler and the board members have done well over the past five years. However, there are two areas I’d like to focus on... * First, as Aaron notes below, I'm one of the folks who runs our local chapter. We've got a great group that meets monthly, and we've been able to put on some great activities -- such as arranging to give talks and panels at local conferences, and putting on our own day-long workshop/conference/sprint at a local university that was attended by many, many people. I'd like to see the board be proactive in getting more local chapters organized and running, as this sort of grass roots work at the individual level is often the best way to introduce people to open source and open data. I've got some ideas on how we could help jump-start things. * Second, I had the good fortune to serve as editor for the Open Sources column in GeoConnexions magazine. We produced two dozen columns over two years, all contributed by members of the OSGeo community, covering everything from libraries and apps to open data and open curricula. I have also just started a smaller, similar column for the Lidar News magazine. OSGeo should work with the media in our industry to identify more opportunities like this. Publishers always want quality content, it's something we can provide for little direct financial cost, and it is a good way to get our message out and seed development of other marketing-like content. Thanks for considering me for the board! -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Aaron Racicot Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2011 2:22 PM To: discuss Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Nomination for Michael Gerlek to OSGeo Board 2011 I would like to take this opportunity to nominate Michael Gerlek for the OSGeo Board. Michael (known to many as MPG) has been an active member of the OSGeo community from the very first planning meetings in 2006. He has been a Charter member of OSGeo since 2006 and has actively participated in many functions of OSGeo including leading the Visibility committee. Michael also co-founded CUGOS, the regional OSGeo chapter in the Pacific Northwest. He is actively involved in many open source GIS projects, and now dedicates himself to full time consulting work in the open source GIS space through his company Flaxen Geo Consulting. He has a long history in participating with the OGC and could bring unique experience in that arena to the board. Most importantly his participation in the OSGeo board would bring great industry insight, leadership experience, and a true dedication to furthering the OSGeo mission. I strongly encourage the OSGeo community to consider Michael as a valuable addition to the board and the OSGeo family. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Mpg Thanks for your consideration. Aaron -- Aaron Racicot Z-Pulley Inc. aar...@z-pulley.com 360-221-2441 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] format for raster data distribution, JP2?
Well, you've covered most of the tradeoffs - proprietary/open, general availability, etc. At the end of the day, it's hard to beat compressed TIFFs. (lzw-compressed TIFFs are nice too - maybe a bit less supported than jpeg-compressed, but no quality loss) -mpg From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of John Callahan Sent: Friday, July 15, 2011 11:59 AM To: OSGeo Discussions; qgis-u...@lists.osgeo.org Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] format for raster data distribution, JP2? I'm looking for advice on sharing raster data for download. We distribute several raster datasets such as DEMs and orthophotography. Sometimes these are divided into rectangular tiles, sometimes by geography/boundaries. Most of our audience has some level of GIS or CAD experience. We also have WMS services but there are many times where people need the actual data files. I had been creating JP2 files using JP2ECW compression. Great file size reduction with very good quality. However, I'm thinking it may be difficult for people to view these (and more difficult for me to create) due to the restrictions on the codec distribution. The other JP2 options, OpenJPEG and libjasper, seems like they also require users to obtain this codec/driver and install into the software first. Same for the commercial Kakadu and MrSID. netCDF is great but not widely supported; IMG are good but not any advantage over TIFs (except for 4 GB file sizes) Since I want to serve the widest possible audience (and not cater only to our Windows/ArcGIS audience), I'm down to serving TIFs with JPEG compression at around quality=75, which is what I started with years ago! Good quality, decent compression, wide support. Is this the best bet? Is there something else out there I'm overlooking? - John *** John Callahan, Research Scientist Delaware Geological Survey University of Delaware URL: http://www.dgs.udel.edu *** ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] IslandWood 2012 codesprint - Registration open!
The 4th annual North American OSGeo codesprint is scheduled for February 5-9 of 2012, on a small island near Seattle. Full details on the event are available here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/IslandWood_Code_Sprint_2012 We are now accepting registrations at $525/person. Space is limited, so book early! Corporate sponsorships ($750 minimum) help pay the costs this event, and I am very pleased to announce that the event already has $3750 pledged in sponsorship.. But we still need more! If you'd like to be a sponsor, we'd love to have you, and in return we can promise lots of sincere thank you's and favorable mentions in blog posts about the sprint. Checks should be made payable to CUGOS and sent to Michael P. Gerlek 12167 Pleasant Place NE Bainbridge Island, WA 98110 USA Please forward this to anyone you might think be interested. We hope you can join us! -mpg the CUGOS gang Michael P. Gerlek Flaxen Geo Consulting m...@flaxen.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Planning begins for the 2012 North American code sprint
This mail is to announce the start of planning / early call for participation for the 4th annual OSGeo North American code sprint. Held in previous years in Toronto, New York City, and Montreal, we are proposing to hold the next event in Jan-Mar of 2012 on a small island near Seattle. Unlike previous years, this event will not be downtown in a major city with the sprint and dining venues clustered in an urban neighborhood. Instead, we're proposing to hold it on Bainbridge Island at a place called IslandWood -- a unique 255-acre outdoor learning center designed to provide exceptional learning experiences and inspire life-long environmental and community stewardship (see http://islandwood.org/conferences). The event would be different from previous years in that we would be staying on-campus the whole time (lodging, eating, working). This would change the dynamics a bit, but I think for the better. This will also change the cost model for the event, too: it is likely to be more expensive, and people will need to register (and pay) in advance, although we would still intend to have sponsors help cover costs. If you're interested, please subscribe to the tosprint list (http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/tosprint) and voice your support for this plan (or not...). I will use that list to provide more details (esp. pricing, which I should have in a few days). -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Media Sponsorship
+1 here too. I like the idea of providing an avenue for us to pitch articles, etc. I know that in principle anyone can submit a piece to most of the industry pubs, but in practice the editors tend to favor those they have a pre-existing relationship with. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss- boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Seven (aka Arnulf) Sent: Friday, June 10, 2011 1:09 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Media Sponsorship On 06/09/2011 10:35 PM, Tyler Mitchell wrote: Hi everybody, I've been working on an idea to start a Media Sponsorship opportunity for OSGeo. We already do this same idea for FOSS4G each year, so why not try it for the organisation in general? I already know of a few media companies that would be interested in: * providing $x worth of advertising for OSGeo * in exchange for being listed as a Media Sponsor This is also a great way to keep communication open so, for example, OSGeo members can write articles for these companies, we can get our press releases easily, we can have our logo front and centre, etc. Note, I'm not proposing an in-kind sponsorship position, but one with real $ values tied to the arrangement (likely $10k spread over a year). Putting the idea out there - what do you think? Thumbs up or down? Think of any ways to make it more enticing? Tyler Tyler, this sounds like a good idea, nothing to add from my side. Best regards, Arnulf -- Exploring Space, Time and Mind http://arnulf.us ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Finding position based on horizon profile?
Consider the following hypothetical problem: Assume we have a good elevation data set for a large region of the earth -- say, an entire mountain range. Now let's say we have a photograph taken from the ground, the horizon of which shows the profile of a couple of the mountains in that range. Can you tell me where the photograph was taken from? Any pointers to research in this area would be appreciated. -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo Jobs list
A gentle, periodic reminder: OSGeo has a jobs mailing list! You can post there if you...: - want a new job - trying to hire someone for a job - - are searching for a contractor or consultant - want to find work as a consultant or contractor - have opportunities for graduate students - etc As long as it is job related and pertains to OSGeo's charter, it's fair game. This is a moderated, very low-volume list, so subscribing wont' cause undue stress on your inbox. You can sign up (or view the archives) here: http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/jobs -mpg, and the osgeo-jobs list team ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Charter Member Nomination
[disclaimer: I'm the one who nominated Dan] Having admired MapWindow from afar from some time, I had the opportunity to spend a couple days with Dan and his team a few months ago and came away very impressed. Dan is doing a great job in bringing C#/.NET into the OSGeo world via the DotSpatial world, what with bringing a whole library into play and running a conference and yet still pursuing a geo research job. A vote for Dan is a vote for... oh, gosh, I dunno... It's a vote to add a Third Way[1] to the C++ -vs- Java intertribal dialogs? Something like that. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way_%28centrism%29 -mpg From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Daniel Ames Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 2010 11:22 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Charter Member Nomination Hi all, I appreciate being nominated as an OSGeo Charter Member. I've been participating with OSGeo since the 2006 Lausanne conference and am regularly involved in the edu committee and newsletter/journal committee. I've funded sponsorship at Lausanne, Sydney and Capetown and am always giving OSGeo pitches at other conferences I attend. Presently I'm helping lead the OSGeo DotNet programmer community including setting up the OSGeo DotNet mailing list, and helping kick off a new project of OSGeo DotNet programmers called DotSpatial (an API that brings together topology, visualization, data access, etc for the DotNet world). In addition to the DotSpatial project (by the way you can find it at http://dotspatial.codeplex.com) I manage the open source MapWindow project (http://mapwindow.org) which some of you may have heard of. I'd be happy to participate more fully with OSGeo through Charter Membership. (P.S. I'm also organizing the 2011 MapWindow and OSGeo DotNet Conference in San Diego, California in June 2011. Please consider coming!!! See http://www.mapwindow.org/conference/2011/) - Dan -- Daniel P. Ames, Ph.D. PE Associate Professor, Geosciences Idaho State University - Idaho Falls amesd...@isu.edumailto:amesd...@isu.edu geology.isu.eduhttp://geology.isu.edu www.mapwindow.orghttp://www.mapwindow.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Charter member candidates, pls step forward!
Those of you who've been nominated, feel free to announce yourselves with a few immodestly chosen lines about why we should vote for you! There are a lot of seemingly good candidates, but not enough votes to go around... -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs
...it would be easy to determine what the URL for... Alas, it is not clear to me that, even within the US, there is a universally recognized canonicalization of the place name hierarchy, much less the names themselves. For example, you refer to california, as opposed to state_of_california, and yet you refer to city of stockton as opposed to stockton. Further, strictly speaking certain states actually commonwealths (and, similarly, counties are parishes). And let's not talk about geographic entities that the post office recognizes but the local government does not. The mind, alas, boggles. (But maybe I'm reading more into your proposal than you meant, or I'm taking your example too literally?) -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Landon Blake Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2010 4:46 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Representing Places With Intelligent URLs A talk at the recent Location Business Summit and some reading I've done about the semantic web and microformats lately got me to thinking about a standard way to represent places, place names, place data on the web. (I must admit I'm a desktop software guy, not a web programmer.) I thought it would be awesome if there was a way to create a unique URL for places that was somewhat intelligent to humans. If this URL could point to a folder on a server with some basic information about a place, that would be even better. So I took a stab at creating this type of URL for my city, the City of Stockton. Here it is: http://www.standardwebmarkup.org/standard_places/north_america/united_st ates_of_america/california/san_joaquin_county/city_of_stockton/ You can see the URL follows a logical hierarchy, and it would be easy to determine what the URL for the City of Sacramento, San Joaquin County, or Victory Park in the City of Stockton would be. Obviously the continent/country/state/county/city/location URL pattern would have to change for other parts of the world. I put a very simple HTML file with data about the City of Stockton here: http://www.standardwebmarkup.org/standard_places/north_america/united_st ates_of_america/california/san_joaquin_county/city_of_stockton/info.html The current info.html file is just a skeleton. It's more of a place holder right now than anything else. My thought was to also put a WKT file (place.wkt) representing the location of the place and a simple text file (data.txt) with facts about the place at this same URL: http://www.standardwebmarkup.org/standard_places/north_america/united_st ates_of_america/california/san_joaquin_county/city_of_stockton/ Now, if someone wanted to write content about the City of Stockton, they could simply do something like this: a href=http://www.standardwebmarkup.org/standard_places/north_america/uni ted_states_of_america/california/san_joaquin_county/city_of_stockton/S tockton/a If everyone that was putting web content about Stockton online did the same thing, search engine and other tools would be able to link data from this web content to a single location. This becomes even more powerful if we come up with some rules for the content of the info.html file, place.wkt file, and the data text file. Here are some examples: (1) Specify that the place.wkt file have both a point and a polygon WKT representation, or a linestring representation, of the place when appropriate. (2) Specify that the info.html file use a list with alternate place names. This list would be identified with an html class value of alternate_place_names. (3) Specify that the data.txt file contain a relationships section that can contain an optional relationship in the form of: City is the County Seat of County. (Stockton is the County Seat of San Joaquin County.) (4) Standardize the way common place facts are stored in the data.txt file. Population and area are examples. I realize there are some problems with this overall scheme. How do you store a city that straddles a state boundary, for example? Or what if you want to have a URL for the location of the Pacific Garbage Patch? However, I think we could use this system to uniquely identify and describe a lot of places in the world. We could then work on how to handle the edge cases. Is anyone else interested in ironing out the kinks for a system like this? Is there already a system like this in place? (If so, I have just revealed my great ignorance to everyone on this mailing list.) I'm interested in setting something up that could be maintained by a group of geospatial professionals, and not by any one company. I'm not sure how this system I describe would tie in with geonames. My first reaction when I stumbled on geonames is I couldn't find a unique and human understandable URL for a place. Still, I'm interested in microformats and place names, and I'd like to see a system like this that was open and
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but if we could just get enough people to all submit data for their own local areas using arbitrary free-form textual tags and maybe provide a voting mechanism for the best submissions, then we could... Oh, wait -- never mind. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Paul Ramsey Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2010 5:19 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs All attempts to construct simple ontologies end up reinventing RDF .. ? On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 5:12 PM, Christopher Schmidt crschm...@crschmidt.net wrote: How about the fact that although some counties contain cities, some cities exist over the border between multiple counties, and other counties are *contained* by cities? (Queens, Manhattan, etc.) How about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysart_et_al,_Ontario? Any effort to turn the real world into a standard hierarchy will fail, because the world is Fuzzier than you realize. -- Chris ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo Board Election 2010
Perhaps I missed it, but with the exception of Paolo, I don't see any statements from the nominees themselves? We've done that in past years, and I think it has been helpful to some of us. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss- boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Paul Ramsey Sent: Friday, August 13, 2010 1:13 PM To: c...@osgeo.org; OSGeo Discussions; OSGeo-Board Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo Board Election 2010 OSGeo Charter Members, The board election for 2010 has begun. The 2010 nominee list is available here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Member_Nominations_2010 Please take the time to read the full list, then send your votes to c...@osgeo.org. * Only Charter Members are eligible to vote * Choose four names from Board Member Nominations 2010 list Arnulf Christl Frank Warmerdam Venkatesh Raghavan Tim Schaub Lorenzo Becchi Daniel Morissette Paolo Cavallini * Email c...@osgeo.org with a list of up to 4 names * You can cast up to 4 votes, for 4 different people. Multiple votes for one person will be counted as one vote. * Voting closes midnight (your timezone) 25-August-2010 * Results will be posted at Board Election 2010 Results * Contact c...@osgeo.org with questions Thanks, Paul Ramsey OSGeo Chief Returning Officer 2010 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo Board Election 2010
Ah, sorry, I scanned the first couple too quickly then jumped to the end too fast. But, still, there's little or nothing there from too many of the candidates. By this metric, so far Daniel and Paolo get my votes... -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss- boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Daniel Morissette Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 10:23 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo Board Election 2010 Michael P. Gerlek wrote: Perhaps I missed it, but with the exception of Paolo, I don't see any statements from the nominees themselves? We've done that in past years, and I think it has been helpful to some of us. The statements from the others who provided one are *after* the nomination text in the same Wiki page at http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Member_Nominations_2010 -- Daniel Morissette http://www.mapgears.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Local Chapters Mailing List
I'm here from the CUGOS gang (Seattle and environs). -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss- boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Seven (aka Arnulf) Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 12:51 PM To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Local Chapters Mailing List Hello, we have created a new mailing list for Local Chapters. If you are a liaison officer of a Local Chapter or interested in creating one then please hop on this this list: http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/local-chapters It is intended to allow for a dialog on what Local Chapters are and what you thing they can achieve. The overarching vision is to support and integrate initiatives around Free and Open Source Geospatial in the local context. Best regards, Arnulf -- Exploring Space, Time and Mind http://arnulf.us ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: land records management with open source GIS
A friend of mine is working in a SA country that has a new policy that all software at the national level must be non-commercial open source. One of these clauses makes sense, one of them does not. Why would you limit yourself to *non* commercial Open Source? (I parsed the original as meaning non-commercial [and] open source, with non-commercial being a technically incorrect but informally understood term meaning not proprietary -- redundant, in this case, with the use of the term open.) -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating
that projects that have applied for Good... or are mature enough to apply ...But does mature enough mean Criteria 1-3 are met, or that some of the Desirables are met too, or..? -mpg From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Cameron Shorter Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 1:45 PM To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 5 Star OSGeo project maturity rating On 11/06/10 01:59, Michael P. Gerlek wrote: (Along those lines, I'd also ask precisely what ready to start incubation means...) Ready to start incubation implies that projects that have applied for, or are mature enough to apply, can be ranked at the same level as projects in incubation. I propose we use OSGeo's criteria for selecting incubation candidates here: http://www.osgeo.org/incubator/process/evaluation.html (At some point we should revisit OSGeo's checklists, but lets leave that for another email thread and for the moment we use what we have). -- Cameron Shorter Criteria 1. The code is under an OSI approved license (data doc projects need to specify their choice for a type of license). 2. The project is willing to keep code clear of encumbrances 3. The project is geospatial, or directly in support of geospatial applications. Desirable The following are desirable traits of projects entering into the community: 1. Open source software is already reasonably mature (working quality code). 2. Project already has a substantial user community. 3. Project already has a substantial and diverse developer community. 4. Project members are aware of, and implements support for, relevant standards (ie. OGC, etc). 5. Project has linkages with existing foundation projects. 6. Project fills a gap related to software that the foundation supports. 7. Project is prepared to develop in an open and collaborative fashion. 8. Project has contributions and interest from more than just one company/organization. 9. Project is willing to migrate some or all of its infrastructure (code repository, web site, wiki, mailing list, etc) to foundation support infrastructure, and to adopt a website style consistent with the foundation. Geospatial Director Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source http://www.lisasoft.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Mailing list for .NET work?
I'm thinking there might be a reasonable number of .NET folks lurking around here, and that it might be nice to have a mailing list for .NET-specific open source geo work -- what projects are being done, what issues people have, etc, etc. If interested, send email (to me or to list, at your preference) and we'll see how much support there is. [Pls don't hijack this thread for arguing about how open/closed .NET is.] -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] [Fwd: GeoWeb CFP Deadline Is This Friday, March 12th]
[ Some of you know I've been involved in this conference in the past, and indeed am again this year. I like it because it is a very different sort of conference: an unusual mix of industry, academia, government, and other. If you're interested in submitting or have any questions, feel free to ping me. ] -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss- boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 2:44 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] [Fwd: GeoWeb CFP Deadline Is This Friday, March 12th] FYI - if you need an excuse to go to Vancouver, submit your abstracts for GeoWeb this week. Several OSGeo friends are usually there. Tyler --- July 26-30 · Vancouver, B.C. Canada · http://www.geowebconference.org GeoWeb 2010 Conference Submission Deadline Abstracts are Due this Friday (March 12th) Want to be in the Program? Time is Running Out! The deadline is fast approaching. Abstracts can be submitted online no later than 4pm PST Friday, March 12th. The emphasis for GeoWeb 2010 is Going Real Time. GeoWeb is about the technologies for information sharing and collaboration respecting events and activities in the real world. It is about designing our world and reacting to the changes in the world around us. It is about managing our way in the world using the best information about the current and probable future state(s) of the world. All submissions must include a title, theme, a detail abstract (200 words) and a short description (75 words). Presentation sessions will be 35 minutes in length. Workshops will be 3 hours in length and should focus on a key technology or standard. Presenters will be chosen based on a formal selection process led by the 2010 GeoWeb Planning Committee and will be notified of the status of their submission by March 25, 2010. Please note that all approved presenters will be provided with a 25% discount on the registration fee but are responsible for their own travel and expenses. To learn more about GeoWeb, the details for the Call for Submissions, please visit GeoWebConference.org. Questions can be directed to James Sakamoto. Be Connected, Spread the Word Watch previous keynote and invited speakers, make comments, or chime in on a discussion. Stay connected to the GeoWeb Community: ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: IS EVERYONE HERE FAST ASLEEP? was: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] OKF / OSGeo response to the consultation on opening Ordnance Survey data
Ditto - it seemed sort of so obvious that I assumed Our Board would just Do the Right Thing. +2 .mpg On Feb 25, 2010, at 1:30 AM, Chris Puttick chris.putt...@thehumanjourney.net wrote: Sorry Jo; Schuyler, personally I hadn't realised a response would be necessary. I'd assumed it would be a given that OSGeo would be supporting this... So +1 to what Jo said. And come to think of it, +1 to what Schuyler said too! Chris - Schuyler Erle schuy...@nocat.net wrote: On Mon, 2010-02-22 at 16:26 +0100, Jo Walsh wrote: dear a...@osgeo, In sending this mail I'm following the protocol for letters of support coming from OSGeo: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Protocol_for_requesting_letter_of_support As you may have heard, there's a public consultation running in the UK on options for open licensing national mapping data maintained by Ordnance Survey. Is everyone on this mailing list dead? Or asleep? How is it that no one has responded to this inquiry yet? Have we not, at least some of us, been agitating for the proposed outcome for years? Does this issue not, at least in principle, affect us all? Have you all forgotten that your software is awesome, but it's useless -- without data? I want to go on record as being 100% in favor of OSGeo providing a letter of support for this response to the OSGB consultation. The principle of Open Public Data is completely in harmony with the ideals and objectives of the OSGeo Foundation. This is a chance for us to see a change for the better in Ordnance Survey policy, a change that will serve as a signal example to other NMAs around the world. *Please* simply respond to the previous email with at least a +1 or a single word of support, if you'd like to see the OSGeo Board respond to this request in the affirmative. *Please*, for the love of God, don't let us as a community deserve to be ashamed of ourselves for our own ungenerous apathy. According to the Board's protocol for such things, you only have a few hours, so pipe up now, while you have the chance. SDE ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Files attached to this email may be in ISO 26300 format (OASIS Open Document Format). If you have difficulty opening them, please visit http://iso26300.info for more information. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Anyone going to GeoInt this month?
I'm going to be at the GeoInt conference in San Antonio in a couple weeks -- if a few others of you are are, maybe we could meet for lunch or something? -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] And is anyone going to, umm, the PDC show?
Okay, so the odds are pretty slim, but: if anyone's going to PDC (the Microsoft developers conference) next month, I'd be happy to do a meetup there too. (I'm interested in seeing what's new with MSFT's geo support -- Bing Friends -- as it's been a couple years since I've looked into what they're doing. I'm also interested to see what buzz is on their new Codeplex open source initiative...) -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo
I agree, we don't want to compete directly with anyone nor do we want to take an adversarial political stance. However, I'd offer that while the level of awareness of open source GIS offerings has much improved over the past couple years, it still has a ways to go and OSGeo can be a force for good in that area. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss- boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Mateusz Loskot Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2009 7:58 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo Christopher Schmidt wrote: On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 04:28:20PM +0200, Cédric Moullet wrote: I'm sorry (and unhappy) to say that the GIS leaders (ESRI, Autdoesk, Intergraph etc...) don't see OSGEO has an important contradictor: from my point of view, this is what needs to be changed in the next 5 years. If someone wants to compete with ESRI -- that's fine. We should support them insofar as we can with community resources, shared userbases, and feedback. But it is not the job of OSGeo to make these projects successful -- only to help them succeed based on their own efforts. Especially, when one or two of the mentioned companies have supported OSGeo Foundation a lot. A holy war is something that should be avoided at most. It should not be about how to compete and win the market, but about how to effectively collaborate in wide range of areas. Best regards, -- Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo
Local OSGeo chapters are great, but how about existing non-OSGeo groups? Does OSGeo have a strategy to build communication with them? You mean groups like local ESRI chapters, ASPRS chapters, GIS professionals, etc? I'd encourage the local chapters to find such non-OSGeo local groups and offer to crash^H^H^H^H^Hattend one of their meetings and do a presentation on what OSGeo has to offer. -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo
Thinking aloud, a possible contrarian view: A goal like to produce a comprehensive suite of tools [that do X or Y]... doesn't likely fit with OSGeo's broad membership and interests. We are an umbrella organization representing a number of projects, each with its own unique goals and agendas. It is unlikely OSGeo would be able to produce a specific tool just because (hypothetically) the Board says we should: open source folks often don't take top-down direction well, unless it meets their own personal needs and agendas. Which is not to say that an analytical tool suite is a bad idea, just that it seems unlikely to be a worthy goal at that level of the hierarchy. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss- boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of René A. Enguehard Sent: Monday, September 14, 2009 2:35 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Next 5 years for OSGeo What I'd like to see within the next 5 years would be more analytical tools. Most of the projects in OSGeo are very much enablers: they put the facilities in place for people to program their own tools. However, as I have noticed over the years, people are reluctant to move to open source implementations of geospatial software because they are, in effect, losing capabilities. Yes, there is still the potential for the same capabilities to be put back in, but the fact remains they just aren't there. For example, I have never seen any MCDA, PCA, HotSpot Analysis, CART or neural network tools in open source packages. If we were to produce a comprehensive suite of tools offering the standard analytical tools as well as some more advanced ones, then these proprietary offerings wouldn't look as appealing. Moreover, if we had a consolidated toolset which could be used on a multitude of project we would not have to re-invent the wheel for each separate project. Currently, proprietary software generally offers advanced analytic capability out-of-the-box and open source software does not. I see this as a bit of a stumbling block. Another thing, and I was chatting about this in the lab today, is that for particular needs, open source implementations of geospatial software generally don't have much to offer. The generic capabilities are there, or at least enabled for others to program, but special-needs cases there is not much. The example used today in the lab was CARIS HIPS or SIPS. What, if anything, exists in the open source community that could come close to the processing capabilities of this? Still another area with a lack of development is 3D and 4D modeling / rendering / analysis, something like ESRI ArcGlobe with the 3D Analyst package or Myriax Eonfusion. There has been very little work in these domains which are of particular interest to me. Perhaps the amount of people working in these areas is much smaller than the amount of people using something more like general analytic capabilities, but it is an area that needs work nonetheless. The point, and I'd like to make this clear, is not the I'm bemoaning the lack of features and projects in the open source community. I think OSGeo and the open source community have done a tremendous job and should feel, rightfully, proud at what they have accomplished. However, when asked what I'd like to see on the agenda for OSGeo, this is it. I'd like to see a hard push towards analytics to make the various projects we have to offer more directly useful to the average GIS user. In the end, it's really about market penetration. The more useful open source software is, the better a deal it looks like to outsiders and the more people we'll attract. Please note: I don't presume to speak for anyone but myself, IANAL, just my two cents, your mileage may vary, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam. Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) wrote: Hi everyone, a recent chat I was asked about our vision for OSGeo over the next 3 and 5 years. I'd really like to hear thoughts on the matter and pool a few of the ideas together for further discussions amongst committees, projects, chapters and the board. It's also a good way for the board nominees in the upcoming election to get a sense of where other members are thinking these days. Best wishes, Tyler ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Insurance for contractors?
I received a surprising number (+20) of responses to this, many off-list. My unscientific summary is as follows: * some people responded privately, indicating they do not have insurance and would rather I not publicize the issue lest their erstwhile employees suddenly take notice :-) * in the US, sole proprietorship is the way to go for simple one-person, garage-based shops * seems that a significant percentage of employers aren't going to ask and/or just don't care, and of those that do ask many will waive it if you explain you're too small to afford it -- this is certainly the case for small employers (big employers may just make it a hard requirement, knowing they will have enough bidders that someone will meet the criteria) * IEEE and possibly other such orgs offer professional liability insurance at reasonable rates, (for some definition of reasonable) * if you're a (US?) govt contractor, seems like you'll almost certainly need to have insurance; if you're bidding for contracts, things get messy fast * and if you're doing contract work that seems to require it, just bake it in as a line item in the contract bid -- see if you can just pass the extra costs along * for longer contracts, some employers will offer the option of taking you on as a temporary employee (which means you're covered by the company's policy) * for some employers, having insurance might give you more credibility as a professional player -- but it also may be that as open source itself gains more street cred, this becomes less critical * and, finally, like all insurance, the odds are overwhelmingly against you ever needing to have to actually USE it... Here's a pretty typical response: Do I carry insurance? No. Insurance adds significant administrative and financial overhead to a one man shop. If you want the one man shop price, you more often than not need to be willing to go without them having insurance. If you think about it, this isn't a bad arrangement anyway. You're not going to give the one man shop such an important thing that you're going to have to turn around and sue them are you? You're one man contract is for doing dirty things that you don't have time or motivation to do, not mission critical business work. If you *are* having your one man contract do mission critical work, you have bigger problems than whether or not they have liability insurance in my opinion. The happy news is that I was able to (oh so gently...) push back to our accounting and HR departments on the insurance requirement, using the above typical response and the prevailing evidence I gathered from this thread showing that most of you don't have insurance and yet, happily, the sun still rises every morning. Thanks to all who responded! -mpg -Original Message- From: Michael P. Gerlek Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 10:03 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Insurance for contractors? In the past I've hired some people for contract or consultant work (both open source projects and more general stuff) -- generally these people have been independent, one-man shops found by word of mouth and reputation, as opposed to hiring someone from an agency. I'm getting pushback now from the administrative side of my company saying that any contractor I hire needs to have proof of insurance. I understand the legal reasons for this, but I'm wondering how many of you out there actually have business/contractors insurance? Do companies you work for insist on it, or not? And how many of you are formally set up as LLCs or sole proprietorships or such? [while this is likely a US-centric issue from the hiring side, I'm interested in international responses too since I've hired some foreigners as well over the years] -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] How not to read a patent
Fresh on the heels of word that Google has patented the idea of a search web page [1] and the recent discussions of the value and meaning of patents here and elsewhere, I offer a link to Rob Weir's great advice on how to read patents [2]. [1] http://gawker.com/5350982/google-patents-worlds-simplest-home-page [2] http://www.robweir.com/blog/labels/patents.html -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Insurance for contractors?
In the past I've hired some people for contract or consultant work (both open source projects and more general stuff) -- generally these people have been independent, one-man shops found by word of mouth and reputation, as opposed to hiring someone from an agency. I'm getting pushback now from the administrative side of my company saying that any contractor I hire needs to have proof of insurance. I understand the legal reasons for this, but I'm wondering how many of you out there actually have business/contractors insurance? Do companies you work for insist on it, or not? And how many of you are formally set up as LLCs or sole proprietorships or such? [while this is likely a US-centric issue from the hiring side, I'm interested in international responses too since I've hired some foreigners as well over the years] -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Insurance for contractors?
Well, this is interesting... I've already received a number of private responses from people who do not have insurance but wish to remain anonymous so their potential employers don't ask about it. Feel free to email me directly with your responses to the below questions, and I'll post a summary in a few days with no names attached. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael P. Gerlek Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 10:03 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Insurance for contractors? In the past I've hired some people for contract or consultant work (both open source projects and more general stuff) -- generally these people have been independent, one-man shops found by word of mouth and reputation, as opposed to hiring someone from an agency. I'm getting pushback now from the administrative side of my company saying that any contractor I hire needs to have proof of insurance. I understand the legal reasons for this, but I'm wondering how many of you out there actually have business/contractors insurance? Do companies you work for insist on it, or not? And how many of you are formally set up as LLCs or sole proprietorships or such? [while this is likely a US-centric issue from the hiring side, I'm interested in international responses too since I've hired some foreigners as well over the years] -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms
To be clear, it's not an effort I have the bandwidth for personally. But if there were qualified developers interested in taking it on, I might be in a position to offer project guidance and a small amount of funding. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Landon Blake Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2009 11:12 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms OK. I'm not an expert on images, but I'd be interested in working with you. However, I avoid C++ like a lethal strain of the Swine Flu. :] I may give some more thought to some of Bob's ideas about making it easier to work with image tiles. Thanks. Landon Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268 Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658 -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael P. Gerlek Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 3:19 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms I've not given it much thought recently, to be honest. I'd need to review the current state of things in OpenJp2 (or whatever it's called) to see where they are at, what changes would be realistic and viable, how amenable they'd be to taking patches versus a fork, etc. Done properly, the work would have no geo specific component at all -- it would just be a new version of some of the internal algorithms. The test case would simply be to encode and decode an 500 GB(?) raw file on a box with 2 GB (?) of RAM. I would certainly not want anyone to have to build a whole new jp2 library from scratch, if that's what you meant. I'd really only be interested in C++ (or possibly mono-safe C#). -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Landon Blake Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 4:11 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms MPG: When you say effort do you mean some sort of library to support JP2 geo side of things? What programming language would you be most interested in? C++? Landon Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268 Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658 -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael P. Gerlek Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 1:59 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms It would not be a good SoC thing, due to the level of expertise and time required. I (LizardTech) would likely be willing to contribute to such an effort. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Fawcett, David Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 8:11 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms I realize that there are likely not a large number of people who have the expertise and experience to write this kind of code. Is this a project that should be shopped around for funding? Google Summer of Code? A grant from our ~benevolent overlord Google? Some other foundation or org interested in open data formats? David. -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael P. Gerlek Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 4:36 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms snip Do you know why there hasn't been a broader adoption of JP2? Not through lack of trying on my part :-) I think the two biggest reasons are: (1) The algorithms for handling large images in memory really are rocket science, and no one in the FOSS community has gotten the itch sufficiently bad enough to go and do the work needed inside the existing open source packages. Hopefully someday someone will. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss Warning: Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against defects including translation and transmission errors. If the reader is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this information in error, please notify the sender immediately. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms
It would not be a good SoC thing, due to the level of expertise and time required. I (LizardTech) would likely be willing to contribute to such an effort. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Fawcett, David Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 8:11 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms I realize that there are likely not a large number of people who have the expertise and experience to write this kind of code. Is this a project that should be shopped around for funding? Google Summer of Code? A grant from our ~benevolent overlord Google? Some other foundation or org interested in open data formats? David. -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael P. Gerlek Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 4:36 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms snip Do you know why there hasn't been a broader adoption of JP2? Not through lack of trying on my part :-) I think the two biggest reasons are: (1) The algorithms for handling large images in memory really are rocket science, and no one in the FOSS community has gotten the itch sufficiently bad enough to go and do the work needed inside the existing open source packages. Hopefully someday someone will. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms
I've not given it much thought recently, to be honest. I'd need to review the current state of things in OpenJp2 (or whatever it's called) to see where they are at, what changes would be realistic and viable, how amenable they'd be to taking patches versus a fork, etc. Done properly, the work would have no geo specific component at all -- it would just be a new version of some of the internal algorithms. The test case would simply be to encode and decode an 500 GB(?) raw file on a box with 2 GB (?) of RAM. I would certainly not want anyone to have to build a whole new jp2 library from scratch, if that's what you meant. I'd really only be interested in C++ (or possibly mono-safe C#). -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Landon Blake Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 4:11 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms MPG: When you say effort do you mean some sort of library to support JP2 geo side of things? What programming language would you be most interested in? C++? Landon Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268 Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658 -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael P. Gerlek Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 1:59 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms It would not be a good SoC thing, due to the level of expertise and time required. I (LizardTech) would likely be willing to contribute to such an effort. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Fawcett, David Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 8:11 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms I realize that there are likely not a large number of people who have the expertise and experience to write this kind of code. Is this a project that should be shopped around for funding? Google Summer of Code? A grant from our ~benevolent overlord Google? Some other foundation or org interested in open data formats? David. -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael P. Gerlek Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 4:36 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms snip Do you know why there hasn't been a broader adoption of JP2? Not through lack of trying on my part :-) I think the two biggest reasons are: (1) The algorithms for handling large images in memory really are rocket science, and no one in the FOSS community has gotten the itch sufficiently bad enough to go and do the work needed inside the existing open source packages. Hopefully someday someone will. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss Warning: Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against defects including translation and transmission errors. If the reader is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this information in error, please notify the sender immediately. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and ProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
Tiling essentially means you can take a large file and compress pieces of it independently. This avoids having to deal with the large memory footprint issues, but it can also lead to seam-line artifacts under certain conditions. Ideally, one would prefer to have the option of compressing large images without resorting to using tiles. Note too that, in addition to the large image issue, many of the JP2 implementations out there are either not fully compliant or are not tuned for performance. A viable solution would need both of these. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Chris Puttick Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 9:37 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and ProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] Well, according to this page: http://jpeg2000.epfl.ch/ v.5.1, courtesy in part Eastman Kodak, provides complete JP2 support at the decoding side - not sure whether that covers the tiling or other geo needs, but doesn't it sound worth investigating? Chris - Christopher Schmidt crschm...@crschmidt.net wrote: On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 08:27:13AM -0700, Landon Blake wrote: Thanks for the information Michael. I am downloading Opticks right now. :] I also found this Java library for JP2, thought I'm not sure how complete/up-to-date it is: http://jj2000.epfl.ch/ Maybe we need a JPEG 2000 page on the OSGeo wiki. Note that JPEG 2000 support is different from JPEG 2000 support which works on geo-sized images. The tiling (or 'paging'? as Michael calls it) support that's supposed to be provided by OpenJPEG2000 has been coming 'real soon now' for about 18 months now from my uneducated observations, and until it's there, most tools using OpenJPEG for JP2s are going to suffering under much the same limitations. -- Chris Landon Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268 Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658 -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Considine, Michael Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 8:09 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and ProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] All, Opticks is an open source remote sensing application and development framework. We recently started the process to add JPEG 2000 support to our framework. We picked OpenJpeg to add JPEG 2000 support to our application. They are also open source. We currently support importing JPEG 2000 files but we are currently limited to the 4GB memory size after decoding. Our plan is to continue development and to upgrade to OpenJpeg 2.0 once they have a stable release. That will allow Opticks to use a pager to display and support much larger files. Michael Considine -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Bruce Bannerman Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 8:15 PM To: 'OSGeo Discussions' Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] IMO: Just another thought on this issue (though we do seem to be recycling arguments over the years...): Assuming that I have a very large archive of spatial data, be it imagery or any other spatial format and that I store my data in a variety of proprietary formats: In ten years from now, can I be sure that: - the company that created, understands, and holds the IP in the data format will still be around? - there will still be software that runs on the then current operating environment, that can read and 'fully exploit' the data in the proprietary standard? - that this future software will work seamlessly with my then current spatial environment? - if all of the above risks prove to eventuate, can I be sure that I'll be able to salvage my data into another format, retaining its complete semantic context? IMO, it is a high risk proposition to lock public (or private) archives away in proprietary data formats. It makes more sense to use open standards and formats that are publically available. Bruce Bannerman -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael P. Gerlek Sent: Friday, 21 August 2009 6:55 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms Some clarifications: - MrSID has both lossy and lossless modes - MrSID is not fractal based; it uses wavelets (and arithmetic encoding) - you can't copyright algorithms; the MrSID source code certainly is, however - MrSID relies on a number of patents, not all
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats andProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
Not a stupid question -- but it doesn't work that way. The artifacts are due to the wavelet processing of the pixels near the tile boundaries, and the boundaries have to be treated reflectively within their individual tiles (in order to keep each tile separate), which means you can sometimes see where those boundaries are. Overlapping doesn't help because the wavelet footprint spans a large width, in order to handle the lower-resolution scales. Which in turn means you need to be able reach far away parts of the image at various (some might say arbitrary) stages in the wavelet pipeline. Just trust me, it is a nontrivial problem to solve. Brighter minds than ours have spent a lot of energy on this problem -- a literature search would reveal a number of PhD theses and patents. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Landon Blake Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 10:45 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats andProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] MPG wrote: Tiling essentially means you can take a large file and compress pieces of it independently. This avoids having to deal with the large memory footprint issues, but it can also lead to seam-line artifacts under certain conditions. Ideally, one would prefer to have the option of compressing large images without resorting to using tiles. This is probably a stupid question, since I know absolutely nothing about image compression, but couldn't you overlap the tiles slightly to avoid the seam lines? This would obviously result in a slightly larger file size because some pixels would be compressed twice. But that might be OK if you were trying to compress a huge image. What about reading chunks of the image off disk, instead of trying to put the whole image in memory? This would be slower, but might make an impossible task possible. We run into this problem with vector datasets to. Some datasets are just to stinking BIG. One of my tasks for OpenJUMP is to write a core module that displays vector data accessed directly from disk, instead of from memory. This will be slower, but it is better than crashing the program because there isn't enough RAM. Things must be more complicated than can be described in an e-mail, because we've got people a lot smarter than me working on these problems. I am just curious. (I tried reading about wavelet compression on Wikipedia yesterday and quickly got a headache.) :] Landon Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268 Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658 -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael P. Gerlek Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 9:36 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats andProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] Tiling essentially means you can take a large file and compress pieces of it independently. This avoids having to deal with the large memory footprint issues, but it can also lead to seam-line artifacts under certain conditions. Ideally, one would prefer to have the option of compressing large images without resorting to using tiles. Note too that, in addition to the large image issue, many of the JP2 implementations out there are either not fully compliant or are not tuned for performance. A viable solution would need both of these. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Chris Puttick Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 9:37 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and ProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] Well, according to this page: http://jpeg2000.epfl.ch/ v.5.1, courtesy in part Eastman Kodak, provides complete JP2 support at the decoding side - not sure whether that covers the tiling or other geo needs, but doesn't it sound worth investigating? Chris - Christopher Schmidt crschm...@crschmidt.net wrote: On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 08:27:13AM -0700, Landon Blake wrote: Thanks for the information Michael. I am downloading Opticks right now. :] I also found this Java library for JP2, thought I'm not sure how complete/up-to-date it is: http://jj2000.epfl.ch/ Maybe we need a JPEG 2000 page on the OSGeo wiki. Note that JPEG 2000 support is different from JPEG 2000 support which works on geo-sized images. The tiling (or 'paging'? as Michael calls it) support that's supposed to be provided by OpenJPEG2000 has been coming 'real soon now' for about 18 months now from my uneducated observations, and until it's there, most tools using OpenJPEG for JP2s are going to suffering under much the same limitations. -- Chris Landon Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268 Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658 -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File FormatsandProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
Someone earlier in this thread spoke about some of these technologies being somewhat obsolete what with the new network and bandwidth speeds available for publishing. I think the comment was that by hiding the data behind a server, you can reduce the users' exposure to a myriad of file formats, some possibly proprietary. It's a good point. You still need to store the data on the servers, though, so the technologies themselves are by no means obsolete -- it's just a question of who has to deal with them. -mpg From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Bob Basques Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 12:28 PM To: OSGeo Discussions; Ivan Lucena Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File FormatsandProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] All, Can someone remind me again, are we talking about saving space, or making it easier to implement something . . . :c) I personally prefer nice simple internal pyramided tiles with indexing, about 10% extra space, and very good performance. Someone earlier in this thread spoke about some of these technologies being somewhat obsolete what with the new network and bandwidth speeds available for publishing. bobb Lucena, Ivan ivan.luc...@pmldnet.com wrote: But you can't compress data types other than byte in JPG. Can you do that in JP2K? ---Original Message--- From: Landon Blake lbl...@ksninc.com Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open FileFormatsandProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] Sent: Aug 21 '09 12:42 Paul, I was wondering the same thing. It seems a little like choosing to drive a Honda Accord, or a Ferrari. The Ferrari is a lot faster and comes with a better looking trophy wife (or husband), but the Honda is a lot easier to fix. (Try finding an affordable Ferrari mechanic in Stockton, California.) To tie this back into our original discussion, it seems like the government should be choosing to drive a Honda Accord when it can, instead of the Ferrari. I guess you'd really have to crunch the numbers and see if the savings in bandwidth/disk space costs were really worth the compression savings that result from a proprietary compression scheme (wavelet black magic). The problem with this is a lot of the benefits that come from the Honda Accord (open image format + open compression algorithm) aren't easily calculated in dollars and cents. Still, this speaks to an important truth I have discovered in open source development: Simple is better, even when it isn't necessarily faster and smaller. I'd rather have code that I can understand, or a file format that a programmer in 20 years will understand, than a Ferrari you can't drive unless you have a PHD and did a thesis on wavelet compression. :] Landon Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268 Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658 -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Paul Ramsey Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 10:36 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File FormatsandProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] So hung up on wavelets, we are. Internally tiled TIFF with JPEG compression and similarly formatted internal overviews can achieve 10:1 compression rates without noticeable image quality reductions, and as an added bonus can be decompressed a heck of a lot faster than wavelet-based formats. The wavelet stuff is k00l, in that there is no need for an overview pyramid (it's implicit in the compression math) and much higher compression rates can be achieved. But operationally, you can go a long way with the more primitive (open image format + open compression algorithm) approach. P. ___ Discuss mailing list disc...@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss Warning: Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against defects including translation and transmission errors. If the reader is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this information in error, please notify the sender immediately. ___ Discuss mailing list disc...@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File FormatsandProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
Yes, JP2 supports signed and unsigned types of up to ~24 bits. And lots of channels (bands). And alpha masking. And arbitrary metadata blobs (geospatial and otherwise). -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Lucena, Ivan Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 12:22 PM To: OSGeo Discussions; OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File FormatsandProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] But you can't compress data types other than byte in JPG. Can you do that in JP2K? ---Original Message--- From: Landon Blake lbl...@ksninc.com Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File FormatsandProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] Sent: Aug 21 '09 12:42 Paul, I was wondering the same thing. It seems a little like choosing to drive a Honda Accord, or a Ferrari. The Ferrari is a lot faster and comes with a better looking trophy wife (or husband), but the Honda is a lot easier to fix. (Try finding an affordable Ferrari mechanic in Stockton, California.) To tie this back into our original discussion, it seems like the government should be choosing to drive a Honda Accord when it can, instead of the Ferrari. I guess you'd really have to crunch the numbers and see if the savings in bandwidth/disk space costs were really worth the compression savings that result from a proprietary compression scheme (wavelet black magic). The problem with this is a lot of the benefits that come from the Honda Accord (open image format + open compression algorithm) aren't easily calculated in dollars and cents. Still, this speaks to an important truth I have discovered in open source development: Simple is better, even when it isn't necessarily faster and smaller. I'd rather have code that I can understand, or a file format that a programmer in 20 years will understand, than a Ferrari you can't drive unless you have a PHD and did a thesis on wavelet compression. :] Landon Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268 Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658 -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Paul Ramsey Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 10:36 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File FormatsandProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] So hung up on wavelets, we are. Internally tiled TIFF with JPEG compression and similarly formatted internal overviews can achieve 10:1 compression rates without noticeable image quality reductions, and as an added bonus can be decompressed a heck of a lot faster than wavelet-based formats. The wavelet stuff is k00l, in that there is no need for an overview pyramid (it's implicit in the compression math) and much higher compression rates can be achieved. But operationally, you can go a long way with the more primitive (open image format + open compression algorithm) approach. P. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss Warning: Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against defects including translation and transmission errors. If the reader is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this information in error, please notify the sender immediately. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo friendly countries to live in
Like the subject of patents from a couple weeks ago, we need to be careful of painting these things with too broad a brush. I've got to have MicroStation to work with CALTRANS, AutoCAD to work with my local city, ESRI to work with the County's GIS department, and software from LizardTech to use the imagery distributed by USDA for my County in MRSID format. To make it even more pleasant, AutoDESK breaks its file compatibility every other version or so, which means my company gets to purchase a license upgrade if we want to keep dealing with our government clients. Money talks in United States politics, and I'm sure the big boys in the software development throw plenty of greenbacks around when it suits there purpose. I'm not sure what you mean by this -- lobbying? Campaign contributions? Yes, MrSID is widely used in parts of the federal government but it is certainly not the case that LizardTech has ever thrown plenty of greenbacks around to get anyone to use our file format. (I doubt the various owners of ECW ever have either.) I'm not saying there is a malicious intent on government agencies to make life difficult. But I certainly don't see a widespread effort to embrace open source for its benefits, or to look for any alternatives to the widely established monopolies. In the case of one very prominent use of MrSID in the US federal government, an open standard solution was explicitly considered as an alternative, but it was notably rejected in large part because of the lack of penetration and technical expertise in the target marketplace and ecosystem. I actually see a lot of explicit government consideration of open standards and open source software -- and it gets better every year. However, adoption of new technologies (when done right!) requires evaluation of a myriad of criteria, only one of which is open access. -mpg (not speaking officially for LizardTech) -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Landon Blake Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2009 9:10 AM To: punk...@eidesis.org; OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo friendly countries to live in I'm a long ways from Washington DC and a lot closer to the Silicon Valley, which may be a reason why I perceive different attitudes. I do think the new US Administration seems friendlier towards open source software. Still, when I think about the fight over using ODF in Maryland and other similar situations I realize open source software still has an uphill battle in many parts of the United States. This may even be truer in the geospatial arena than in others. Autodesk and ESRI may be great corporate citizens, but there is no doubt in my mind that the control software monopolies, especially in the government market. This isn't just true at the federal level, but at the state and local level as well. I've got to have MicroStation to work with CALTRANS, AutoCAD to work with my local city, ESRI to work with the County's GIS department, and software from LizardTech to use the imagery distributed by USDA for my County in MRSID format. To make it even more pleasant, AutoDESK breaks its file compatibility every other version or so, which means my company gets to purchase a license upgrade if we want to keep dealing with our government clients. Money talks in United States politics, and I'm sure the big boys in the software development throw plenty of greenbacks around when it suits there purpose. I'm not saying there is a malicious intent on government agencies to make life difficult. But I certainly don't see a widespread effort to embrace open source for its benefits, or to look for any alternatives to the widely established monopolies. (I do know of a couple cases where some state agencies in California are making an effort to use open source GIS desktop software.) Things may be very different in the web-mapping world. I'm talking about desktop software, since that is what I deal with 98% of the time. But, like you, I speak from personal experience, and don't have any hard facts or statistics to back up my wild claims. :] Landon Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268 Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658 -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of P Kishor Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2009 7:53 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo friendly countries to live in On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 9:37 AM, Landon Blakelbl...@ksninc.com wrote: Cameron wrote: Canada looks preferable to the US. I wonder how much the Canadian GeoConnections program is responsible for Canada's strong OSGeo industry. I believe governments in Canada are much more supportive of open source software than governments in the United States. In my experience, the attitude towards open source software held by many organizations
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms
Some clarifications: - MrSID has both lossy and lossless modes - MrSID is not fractal based; it uses wavelets (and arithmetic encoding) - you can't copyright algorithms; the MrSID source code certainly is, however - MrSID relies on a number of patents, not all of which are owned by LizardTech - reading MrSID does not require any fees; we have libraries you can download, although they are not open source That said, some editorial comments (although I'm now wishing I hadn't been so quick to rise to Landon's bait :-) - Some of you know the history of trying to open source MrSID; I won't go into that here, except to say that LizardTech doesn't own all of the required IP needed to make that happen. - If we are speaking of the NAIP data, then no, it is not exclusively available in MrSID format; it is also shipped as GeoTIFFs. - JPEG 2000 is a very robust open standard alternative to MrSID, and a number of players already support it (including LizardTech), but not enough to make it viable for certain domains like NAIP. - some of you also know the history on open JP2 support: there is today no open source implementation of JP2 that is suitable for geo work. Alas. -mpg From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Eric Wolf Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 2:15 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms The MRSID format is a very special case - and perhaps an opportunity for a new FOSS file format. MRSID is a lossless, fractal-based, multi-scale raster compression format. LizardTech has the algorithms to encode and decode MRSID locked up in copyrights, and I believe, patents. Even companies like ESRI shell out big bucks to LizardTech to be able to read and write the MRSID format. I guess I missed the context of the discussion. Is the government releasing certain data exclusively in this format? If so, I think the argument can be made against this practice. The different in compression between MRSID and gziped TIFFs isn't really that great in this day of cheap disks and fat pipes. -Eric -=--=---===---=--=-=--=---==---=--=-=- Eric B. WolfNew! 720-334-7734 USGS Geographer Center of Excellence in GIScience PhD Student CU-Boulder - Geography ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms
Landon asked: When you said there is today no open source implementation of JP2 that is suitable for geo work do you mean that there is no open source library that can read and write JP2? If so, who is using the format? There are a few implementations of JP2 around. The Kakadu library, which is extremely compliant and featureful and robust (and correspondingly extremely big and complicated and scary) is the best-known package: it is available only via licensing fees. LizardTech uses Kakadu, in fact, and a number of geo vendors use either Kakadu directly or LizardTech's packaging of it. The ER Mapper folks had a JP2 solution at one time, but I never understood their licensing terms to be OSI compliant -- and since they got bought out by Leica I've sort of stopped tracking that issue. If anyone has any current info, I'd like to hear it. There are a couple truly open source libraries, but none have been written in such a way as to be able to support geo-sized imagery (500MB, say). Doing the wavelet algorithms efficiently for large data sets requires rocket science. Do you know why there hasn't been a broader adoption of JP2? Not through lack of trying on my part :-) I think the two biggest reasons are: (1) The algorithms for handling large images in memory really are rocket science, and no one in the FOSS community has gotten the itch sufficiently bad enough to go and do the work needed inside the existing open source packages. Hopefully someday someone will. (2) MrSID (and, perhaps, ECW) are widely used and supported. Philosophical motivations aside, MrSID and ECW have historically gotten the job done and so the need for JP2 just isn't as high as it otherwise might be. That said, NGA is a good counter-example. They support JP2 in a number of areas already and have mandates to broaden that support. -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms
I'll mention too the question of patents and JP2, since this thread is bound to get into THAT issue too before long :-) Some of the algorithms within the JP2 standard (from ISO) are patented. However, the companies in question have agreed to not exercise their rights on those patents for any implementation of the standard. That is, if you write a ISO-compliant JP2 encoder, Company X won't come after you. This is a good thing, and is not uncommon practice for some standards groups. It's better for us than the RAND (reasonable and non-discriminatory) clauses that get used by some groups. However, there is an interesting philosophical consideration for the open source community here. Let's say I write a nice, compliant MpgJp2 library on Monday and open source it. Landon looks at my code and, smart cookie that he is, realizes that he could improve the overall compression ratio by tweaking one of the core algorithms. He forks my code, makes the change, and posts the SunburnedJp2 library to the web on Tuesday night. Cool. We like that. Open source in action. But wait -- Wednesday morning, he finds an email from Company X's lawyers in his inbox: he is now in violation of X's patent, because he is not using the patent within the bounds of a compliant JP2 encoder. He broke the file format. [You break it, you buy it?] It's not a JPEG 2000 library anymore. Some open source partisans may therefore consider the JP2 standard to not be truly open enough. I'm sure there are other standards with this same problem, although I don't know of any offhand. -mpg From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Landon Blake Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 2:57 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms MPG: Thanks for the clarification. When you said there is today no open source implementation of JP2 that is suitable for geo work do you mean that there is no open source library that can read and write JP2? If so, who is using the format? Do you know why there hasn't been a broader adoption of JP2? (I should also add the MPG helped me publish a short article in support for open file formats, so I know he is on our side.) :] Landon Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268 Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658 From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael P. Gerlek Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 1:55 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms Some clarifications: - MrSID has both lossy and lossless modes - MrSID is not fractal based; it uses wavelets (and arithmetic encoding) - you can't copyright algorithms; the MrSID source code certainly is, however - MrSID relies on a number of patents, not all of which are owned by LizardTech - reading MrSID does not require any fees; we have libraries you can download, although they are not open source That said, some editorial comments (although I'm now wishing I hadn't been so quick to rise to Landon's bait :-) - Some of you know the history of trying to open source MrSID; I won't go into that here, except to say that LizardTech doesn't own all of the required IP needed to make that happen. - If we are speaking of the NAIP data, then no, it is not exclusively available in MrSID format; it is also shipped as GeoTIFFs. - JPEG 2000 is a very robust open standard alternative to MrSID, and a number of players already support it (including LizardTech), but not enough to make it viable for certain domains like NAIP. - some of you also know the history on open JP2 support: there is today no open source implementation of JP2 that is suitable for geo work. Alas. -mpg From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Eric Wolf Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 2:15 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms The MRSID format is a very special case - and perhaps an opportunity for a new FOSS file format. MRSID is a lossless, fractal-based, multi-scale raster compression format. LizardTech has the algorithms to encode and decode MRSID locked up in copyrights, and I believe, patents. Even companies like ESRI shell out big bucks to LizardTech to be able to read and write the MRSID format. I guess I missed the context of the discussion. Is the government releasing certain data exclusively in this format? If so, I think the argument can be made against this practice. The different in compression between MRSID and gziped TIFFs isn't really that great in this day of cheap disks and fat pipes. -Eric -=--=---===---=--=-=--=---==---=--=-=- Eric B. WolfNew! 720-334-7734 USGS Geographer Center of Excellence in GIScience PhD Student CU-Boulder - Geography
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Patent for feature of paper map.
note While I have no absolutely no familiarity with the patent in question, something I've said here before perhaps bears occasional repeating: Patent and IP law is a very deep and complex subject. The vast majority of us laypersons are not qualified to read and evaluate patent claims; what is reported in the popular press is often a very watered-down or simplistic interpretation of what is actually being claimed. Some patent claims do indeed turn out to be riddled through with obvious prior art, but in order to really know that typically requires one to be experienced in the field of use *and* have thorough understanding of the legal language used in the claim constructions. By all means we should all continue to bring down bogus patent attempts, but we in doing so we all need to be careful of making any hasty or unfounded allegations. /note -mpg (ianal) -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Bill Thoen Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 7:14 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Patent for feature of paper map. You might be surprised what people might be able to get away with, though. There's been repeated attempts to patent web mapping for example, and if it wasn't for the efforts of a few dedicated people, there would now be patents in both Britain and the USA on displaying maps over the web. But the threat is not dead yet, believe it or not, and it may culminate in a battle between Microsoft and Google sometime in the near future. Check out Daniel Morissette's blog entry for Feb 21, 2009, Microsoft Patents the Map at http://www.systemed.net/blog/?p=68. If Microsoft really uses the Multimap patent to put the bite on Google, then you can bet your bippy that it'll affect your web mapping business too. If reading that article brings your blood to a righteous boil, and you want to know more about who really invented web mapping, see Carl Reed's 2004 article, Intellectual Property, Patents, and Web Mapping: Historical Perspective at http://portal.opengeospatial.org/files/?artifact_id=28360. - Bill Thoen GISnet - www.gisnet.com Brian Russo wrote: I've seen legends similar to that before; afraid I can't offer anything solid in terms of prior art examples but it's hardly as revolutionary as they seem to think. Pretty absurd if you ask me; On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 7:34 AM, René A. Enguehard ahugen...@gmail.com mailto:ahugen...@gmail.com wrote: I suspect they might be applying for the patent but in for quite a surprise when it gets rejected. Features for maps would be very tricky to patent and, more importantly, not in the interest of the general public. As such the patent applications would probably get rejected. Would we really want people patenting things like projections, north arrows, scale bars or legends? I don't think it would be productive and suspect any patent office in its right mind would see it the same way. Patents were created to help people protect their ideas for a length of time so they could reap the rewards of their work and refine it without fear of being copied or undercut. This works very well for many things but fails miserably for conceptual things like maps or layouts for books or posters. This is why many patent offices now require people to patent systems rather than things. I don't see how a wrap-around map could be explained as a system. René IANAL Landon Blake wrote: The latest issue of the ACSM Bulletin had an interesting article about a map matrix that wraps around the edge of a paper map. It seems the company that is using this feature of hard copy map design is applying for a patent. I didn't even think you could get a patent a feature of a paper map. It got me wondering who holds the patent on the use of a north arrow and scale. At any rate, here is the article if you are interested in reading it: http://www.webmazine.org/issues/current/documents/wrap.pdf I couldn't find the patent application, or I would have posted a link to it. Let me know if you have any comments. Landon ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] FYI - US Cong. Hearing on Geospatial Information
(I'm not sure why, but I actually have a sad desire to get up early to watch this next week...) -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Julia Harrell Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 3:03 PM To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] FYI - US Cong. Hearing on Geospatial Information Might be of interest to some on the list This U.S. Congressional Oversight Hearing on the Management of Geospatial Information will be webcast live on Thursday, July 23rd at 10 AM EDT, as well as archived for later viewing. http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/index.php?option=com_jcalproItemid=27extmode=viewextid=278 Many thanks to Dave Smith for finding the link. Now who would have ever thought that an oversight hearing on Geospatial Information Governance should be buried down in a Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources ... ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Military OSS
Atlanta in August? ...As long as they've got good air conditioning! .mpg On Jul 1, 2009, at 7:21 AM, Mark Lucas mluca...@mac.commailto:mluca...@mac.com wrote: Hi All, I am helping to setup a Military open source software conference in @ GTRI in Atlanta in August, no suits/ties, just a bunch of techies doing the right thing: http://www.mil-oss.org/http://www.mil-oss.org/ if you can make it, great! Even better if you speak! I'd like to see if we can get some other OSGeo projects to participate. Military Open Source Software (Mil-OSS) Working Group · 12th - 13th August 2009 · Atlanta, Georgia KEY NOTES Open Source the US Department of Defense Daniel Risacher Associate Director Information Policy and Integration, DoD CIO Bio | LinkedIn Keep It Stupid Stupid: The KISS Principle for DoD Acquisitions Major James D. Neushul I MEF Future Operations, Commo / IMO LinkedIn OPEN AGENDA GEOSPATIAL OSS PROJECTS GENERAL OSS PROJECTS MISC TOPICS Chair: John Scott Mercury Federal Systems Bio | LinkedIn Chair: Heather Burke SPAWAR Charleston LinkedIn Chair: Joshua L. Davis Georgia Tech Research Institute Bio | LinkedIn Current Topics: FalconView, STAR-TIDES... Current Topics: Drupal, Ballistic Missel Defense Benchmark, JBOSS, I MEF Webportal... Current Topics: VMWare GIT, SCHOLAR Mark Lucas Principal Scientist RadiantBlue_JPEG_300x100fixed.jpg 516 E New Haven Avenue Melbourne Fl 32901 (321) 266 1475 (cell) mailto:mlu...@radiantblue.commlu...@radiantblue.commailto:mlu...@radiantblue.com --- http://www.radiantblue.comhttp://www.radiantblue.com http://www.ossim.orghttp://www.ossim.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.orgmailto:Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] GoeConnextions column - CFP
Time for my periodic reminder about OSGeo's monthly column in GeoConnexions magazine. We've published 22(!) articles to date, covering everything from the major OSGeo packages to business-related issues to thoughts on standards and file formats. I'm always on the hunt for more material, so if you've got an idea for an article you'd like to write, just let me know. [Hint: some of you bloggers might consider extending and polishing up some stuff you've already written -- think code reuse.] Aside from the advantage of a platform to promote open source in our industry, the author receives a small honorarium associated with each column we print (much of which has in turn been donated back to OSGeo's coffers). See http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/GeoConnexion_Column for past articles and editorial info, and note especially the liberal reprint policy. Thanks for your continued support. -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Open source TIN code?
Following up on my post, for anyone interested: the news isn't good. Most of the responses I got were pointers to Isenburg's and Shewchuck's work, such as http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~quake/triangle.html and http://www.cs.unc.edu/~isenburg/sd/ I did know about these, and they are indeed good stuffs, but folks should be aware that they are *not* open source libraries. A lot of people think their work is free but to the best of my knowledge it is not. (Triangle is copyrighted by the author and may not be sold or included in commercial products without a license; Isenburg's code has the copyright assigned to him with no accompanying BSD-like or GPL-like assurances.) I also was given pointers to.. * FIST (http://www.cosy.sbg.ac.at/~held/projects/triang/triang.html), but the web page explicitly says FIST has not been released into the public domain (by which I assume they mean copyleft). * GRASS (http://grass.osgeo.org/grass64/manuals/html64_user/v.delaunay.html), which is under GPL * TerraLib (http://www.dpi.inpe.br/terralib/html/v320/html/group___math_const.html), which is under LGPL * Sexante (http://bezdek2009dp.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/myAlgorithmSextante/src/es/unex/sextante/vectorTools/) which is also GPL Finally, Ben Discoe has a site (http://vterrain.org/Implementation/Libs/triangulate.html) listing a bunch of links that I've not yet dug into. I'm hoping to find something in there I can use. If anyone has any other suggestions, or is aware of inaccuracies in my above statements, pls let me know. Thanks. -mpg -Original Message- From: Michael P. Gerlek Sent: Monday, March 02, 2009 10:17 AM To: 'OSGeo Discussions' Subject: Open source TIN code? The Community has need of BSD-licensed source code for TIN generation (in 3-space). It doesn't have to be really good, just good enough for some simple demo apps (for example, full-on Delauney support not needed). I know there are a bunch of TIN algs out there on the net in various places, but I don't have much experience with any of them. If anyone has any pointers, I'd appreciate it. Thanks -- -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Open source TIN code?
Yeah, I have anecdotal evidence Isenburg gave the OK (Hobu noted it on the liblas list), but he didn't specify exactly for *what* he was okay with from the tools collection which makes me nervous. If he were to say all of it, then we're all set (I just care about the TINner inside lasview). Sometimes it's a pain when you try to play by the rules :-( -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Mateusz Loskot Sent: Monday, March 23, 2009 4:55 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Open source TIN code? Traian Stanev wrote: It's probably worth sending an email to Isenburg to ask for the actual licensing restrictions of his stuff. It was developed under an NSF grant, so he may not have much choice but to allow it to be used in a BSD-like way. We have already walked [1] that way in libLAS and it wasn't easy, a little roller coaster. [1] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/liblas-devel/2008-October/000355.html Best regards, -- Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net Charter Member of OSGeo, http://osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] GeoConnexions column -- see your name in print!
Cameron (and anyone else curious): We mail out 14,000 copies of the magazine across the globe, including distribution in delegate bags at every Geospatial technology related event that is happy to do a media swap with us (which is most events). This ensures your DVD will be seen by an up to date audience, who are currently ACTIVE in the marketplace. The prices shown include all handling, hand-glue into the 14,000 magazines, and mailing costs. Option 1 Glue the DVD onto the FRONT COVER of the magazine, then have a full page inside the magazine for further information about the DVD's content, and your own promotion. Cost: 6976 USDollars Option 2 Glue the DVD onto page 5 of the magazine - this same page will also be for your own marketing message. Cost: 6496 USDollars Probably not in the budget for this year... -mpg -Original Message- From: Cameron Shorter [mailto:cameron.shor...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2009 12:08 AM To: Michael P. Gerlek Cc: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] GeoConnexions column -- see your name in print! Michael, Writing about the LiveDVD would be good, it might encourage 1/100 readers to download the DVD and try it. Actually including the LiveDVD in the magazine would be a huge bonus for OSGeo. Every second reader would try the DVD out, and I'd expect high uptake from readers of Open Source from this experience. Yes, you are right, someone would need to fund the DVD print run, and much as I'd like to say otherwise, I think the OSGeo marketing budget would only be able to contribute a token percentage of the costs. Are you able to run the idea past the magazine? Michael P. Gerlek wrote: Cameron- Did you mean putting a CD into the magazine itself, or just writing about the idea? The latter would be great, we could do that. I don't have control over the former issue, though -- that would likely require some monetary cost from OSGeo or the magazine to burn and insert the CDs, no? -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Cameron Shorter Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2009 5:34 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] GeoConnexions column -- see your name in print! Michael, Computer magazines often include a free CD like the latest Ubuntu distribution, along with a two page spread about the software on the CD. We have a Geospatial LiveDVD which could fit that bill, and which the community could tweak to include Linux as well as Windows software. Is this of interest to you? Michael P. Gerlek wrote: As some of you know, OSGeo runs a monthly column in GeoConnexions magazine about open source issues. We've done 18 articles to date, which have resulted in some good PR (and a bit of cash) for our foundation. If you are interested in submitting a future column, or even just ideas for a column, please let me know! Some details and links to previous columns can be found at: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/GeoConnexion_Column. -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Cameron Shorter Geospatial Systems Architect Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source http://www.lisasoft.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Top ten myths for open source in geo?
Thanks to all who replied! I've posted all the replies (with private replies anonymized) to the wiki -- feel free to edit as you think of more. http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Top_Ten_Myths -mpg -Original Message- From: Michael P. Gerlek Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2009 9:30 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: Top ten myths for open source in geo? I've already gotten a bunch of great replies, off-list and on-list, but I think I may not have been clear in my mail: I'm specifically looking for myths that might be directly related to the geo side of the open source world. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael P. Gerlek Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2009 8:54 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Top ten myths for open source in geo? Gentlepersons: I'm doing an article addressing the top ~10 myths/misperceptions about open source for geo. There are a number of such pieces already out there about open source in general, from which I'll borrow heavily, but I'd like to have half the list be myths specific to the geo and GIS world we're playing in. Do you have any nominations? Which issues are not well understood? What questions do you most frequently get asked? Thanks in advance - -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] GeoConnexions column -- see your name in print!
In order to estimate a cost, the magazine people need to know (exactly) how much each insert (DVD + sleeve?) weighs. Anyone with a good scale? -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Cameron Shorter Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2009 6:30 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] GeoConnexions column -- see your name in print! Paulo, A LiveDVD already exists! It was handed out at the FOSS4G 2008 booth, and we have handed it out at a few Australian conferences. Also, every delegate at FOSS4G 2009 will be given a LiveDVD. Details about the DVD are at: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc#Arramagong_LiveDVD Paulo 'Pmarc' Marcondes wrote: 2009/1/22 Cameron Shorter cameron.shor...@gmail.com: Michael, Writing about the LiveDVD would be good, it might encourage 1/100 readers to download the DVD and try it. Actually including the LiveDVD in the magazine would be a huge bonus for OSGeo. Every second reader would try the DVD out, and I'd expect high uptake from readers of Open Source from this experience. Cameron, having a propper printed DVDs (or CDs for that matter) would be a huge bonus, and quite a marketing effort. Think 'conference handouts'. -- Cameron Shorter Geospatial Systems Architect Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source http://www.lisasoft.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] GeoConnexions column -- see your name in print!
I'll ask. -mpg -Original Message- From: Cameron Shorter [mailto:cameron.shor...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2009 12:08 AM To: Michael P. Gerlek Cc: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] GeoConnexions column -- see your name in print! Michael, Writing about the LiveDVD would be good, it might encourage 1/100 readers to download the DVD and try it. Actually including the LiveDVD in the magazine would be a huge bonus for OSGeo. Every second reader would try the DVD out, and I'd expect high uptake from readers of Open Source from this experience. Yes, you are right, someone would need to fund the DVD print run, and much as I'd like to say otherwise, I think the OSGeo marketing budget would only be able to contribute a token percentage of the costs. Are you able to run the idea past the magazine? Michael P. Gerlek wrote: Cameron- Did you mean putting a CD into the magazine itself, or just writing about the idea? The latter would be great, we could do that. I don't have control over the former issue, though -- that would likely require some monetary cost from OSGeo or the magazine to burn and insert the CDs, no? -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Cameron Shorter Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2009 5:34 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] GeoConnexions column -- see your name in print! Michael, Computer magazines often include a free CD like the latest Ubuntu distribution, along with a two page spread about the software on the CD. We have a Geospatial LiveDVD which could fit that bill, and which the community could tweak to include Linux as well as Windows software. Is this of interest to you? Michael P. Gerlek wrote: As some of you know, OSGeo runs a monthly column in GeoConnexions magazine about open source issues. We've done 18 articles to date, which have resulted in some good PR (and a bit of cash) for our foundation. If you are interested in submitting a future column, or even just ideas for a column, please let me know! Some details and links to previous columns can be found at: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/GeoConnexion_Column. -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Cameron Shorter Geospatial Systems Architect Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source http://www.lisasoft.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] GeoConnexions column -- see your name in print!
Cameron- Did you mean putting a CD into the magazine itself, or just writing about the idea? The latter would be great, we could do that. I don't have control over the former issue, though -- that would likely require some monetary cost from OSGeo or the magazine to burn and insert the CDs, no? -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Cameron Shorter Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2009 5:34 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] GeoConnexions column -- see your name in print! Michael, Computer magazines often include a free CD like the latest Ubuntu distribution, along with a two page spread about the software on the CD. We have a Geospatial LiveDVD which could fit that bill, and which the community could tweak to include Linux as well as Windows software. Is this of interest to you? Michael P. Gerlek wrote: As some of you know, OSGeo runs a monthly column in GeoConnexions magazine about open source issues. We've done 18 articles to date, which have resulted in some good PR (and a bit of cash) for our foundation. If you are interested in submitting a future column, or even just ideas for a column, please let me know! Some details and links to previous columns can be found at: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/GeoConnexion_Column. -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Cameron Shorter Geospatial Systems Architect Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050 Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254 Think Globally, Fix Locally Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source http://www.lisasoft.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Mini-conf in Seattle? (was: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] some post-FOSS4G thoughts)
(In Seattle, we go out for a latte.) This is a quick troll to see who'd be interested in coming to (and/or helping organize) a mini-conference in Seattle in spring of '09. Send me email, and I'll follow up later with a summary. -mpg -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jody Garnett Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2008 5:15 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] some post-FOSS4G thoughts Jody Garnett wrote: In Canada we go to the pub. Jody Although that said; a regional conference would be fun ... we are still struggling to have any kind of meetings for the bc chapter. I am amazed at all these other groups that have had yearly conferences since rocks were beginning to cool. One down side with the whole conversation track here is the idea of splitting into multiple venues is that the open source projects cannot always field community members to attend everything. The original post talked about minimizing expense; breaking into several venues actually updates the expense from where I am sitting. Jody ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Beta-test the GEospatial Applications Registry(GEAR)
It doesn't say who is actually running this site -- is it a govt entity, corporate, non-profit...? Also, the terms of use and privacy policy links aren't clicky. -mpg -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Arnulf Christl (OSGeo) Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 7:40 AM To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Beta-test the GEospatial Applications Registry(GEAR) FYI. Maybe they will appreciate some humble Open Source contributions. == In support of the Geospatial Line of Business, an FGDC-coordinated activity to streamline geospatial activities across the US federal government, a GEospatial Applications Registry (GEAR) is being prototyped as a directory of software applications that are pertinent to government business processes. The objective is to provide a listing (Wiki) of software products and encourage comments (blog-style) with evidence of implementation. Nominations of software in GEAR does not constitute endorsement by the government, but provides an interesting and useful way to learn about available software of all types. Software envisioned for the GEAR include open source and commercial applications, as well as commercial offerings. Extensions or add-ons to existing software can be documented and clarified through a dependencies section. Initially we expect a small number of government-originated applications to be registered, but we are inviting the broader GIS implementer community to help us test and build-out the content in GEAR within the next 2-3 weeks. A typical entry should take less than 30 minutes, less if you are fluent with the product being described. Keep in mind that this is only Beta software in a testing phase, but we welcome your honest and complete entries. These will get propagated into the final GEAR deployment when it goes public in October. All entries will be reviewed by a government team and, once approved, made visible for search and browse. Your assistance is greatly appreciated! The URL: http://gear.morphexchange.com == -- Arnulf Benno Christl http://www.osgeo.org (OSGeo Board Member) +50.7342N +7.0707E ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] GeoInt meetup?
If any of you kindly OSGeo folks are going to GeoInt next month in Nashville and would be interested like to do a meetup-ish thing, drop me a line and maybe we can arrange something. -mpg ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Looking for OSGeo Slide Show/Presentation Material
(note from the sidelines: I was the one who started the Library, going back a couple years ago, but haven't maintained it in a long time. It definitely needs some love, and would welcome a volunteer to take it over.) -mpg -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jacolin Yves Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2008 6:36 AM To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Looking for OSGeo Slide Show/Presentation Material Le Thursday 28 August 2008 15:19:30 Markus Neteler, vous avez écrit : On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 1:30 PM, Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... So I think it should list ALL the items, or at least offer a convenient way to filter the contents without having to change all the web language [1] http://www.osgeo.org/node/764 Wouldn't it be more appropriate to collect the material in the Wiki? There is a page already: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Library and easy to maintain. Above node page is now sort of stand-alone without context. Just me few cents, Markus Hi Markus and all, It seems there are some issue about Library. First I never aware of this wiki page (I missed it), and one tell me to upload all my files into the OSGeo Library, I am not really happy to move more than 20-30 files to the wiki pages which is not the purpose of such tools (imho). The beggining of the wiki page tell me: Some presentations are found **outside the osgeo.org domain**: That's mean for me that I will found only files outside of the OSGeo domain. Which is only true for the first item. The third line point to the www.osgeo.ogr/library, so this is not really a stand-alone without context ;) Also I asked to add the Library item, unfortunately I did not create a ticket for this :/ Finaly, when people looking for information about osgeo, they do not have to be redirected to the wiki page which are working and unofficial information (imho). Also wiki are aims to hosts comunautary works. I may be wrong but it is my way to think about the different OSGeo website. Best regards, Y. -- Yves Jacolin --- http://softlibre.gloobe.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Chickens, Boards and Export Restrictions
Aside I interrupt here to point out that of late the Board has been faced with some significant questions about the aim and scope of our organization. This is a good thing: it is what the Board is there for. We the Charter Members are tasked with electing new board members shortly, and thus have a chance to directly influsence those discussions. I look forward to seeing those nominated put forward their positions on these issues so we can all vote knowledgably. /Aside -mpg -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Paul Ramsey Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 9:28 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Chickens, Boards and Export Restrictions On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 8:56 AM, Arnulf Christl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: One critique is that the board of directors does not make decisions easily and quickly which could be seen as a weakness (chickens) [1]. A consensus decision making process necessarily limits the scope of an organization to the minimal vision, the place where everyone's beliefs intersect, which can be quite small indeed. Tyler has been doing well at rolling in some sponsors over the last months, I hope that as ED he feels he can bring some proposals forward in the coming months to spend that money and some of the FOSS4G money in effective ways. That you see our inability to do things as a good thing only speaks to your minimalist vision, what you want to do, and what OSGeo can do, line up pretty OK, I guess. I see OSGeo pissing away chances to galvanize open source in the marketplace, to spur the kind of credibility that will float all our boats. You say potato, I say potato. P. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Voting for new OSGeo Charter Members openuntil 6th June 2008
+1 from here too. All 18 may be indeed be worthy, but moving the goal post once the ball is in play sets a dangerous precedent. -mpg -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Venkatesh Raghavan Sent: Saturday, May 31, 2008 11:14 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Voting for new OSGeo Charter Members openuntil 6th June 2008 Lorenzo Becchi wrote: Dave Patton wrote: Changing the policy may be appropriate, but not during the process. +1 to Dave. I don't think it's a good idea to change policy now. +1 to the above. Venka ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] No news on the election?
A quick look at the List shows that we've got an impressive a cadre already. But, to misquote, I'll admit that I don't know half of you half as well as I should like: I am sure there are many good candidates out there still lurking, but perhaps too shy to speak up on his or her own behalf. If so, take heart! -- feel free to ask to be nominated, either privately to one of the charter members (http://www.osgeo.org/charter_members) or publically to this list. -mpg -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mateusz Loskot Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 4:45 PM To: Discuss@lists.osgeo.org Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] No news on the election? Hi, A few days ago [1] Jo announced here the Election 2008 has started. Today, nomination closes and during next 5 days charter members will vote. So, we are in the middle of quite important event for the foundation but it hasn't been announced on the osgeo.org news. Shouldn't we make some noise about the voting soon? [1] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2008-May/003658.html -- Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net Charter Member of OSGeo, http://osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Sign the Hague declaration
I'm not looking to start a debate, but... We call on all governments to: 1. Procure only information technology that implements free and open standards; 2. Deliver e-government services based exclusively on free and open standards; 3. Use only free and open digital standards in their own activities. I'm certainly sympathetic to the desires this declaration seems to express, but this seems to go too far by using words like only and exclusively. There are undoubtedly cases where extant open standards are not as mature, stable, featureful, mission-safe, etc, as the relevant proprietary solutions, and so as a pragmatic matter governments must rely on the proprietary works in those cases. -mpg -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Chris Puttick Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 11:28 AM To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Sign the Hague declaration Hi all A new group is being formed to promote open digital standards, starting with a declaration regarding the importance of digital standards being truly open: http://www.digistan.org/hague-declaration:en Please read it and sign if you agree. I'm sure most working with spatial data would have encountered problems with the core areas where standards are missing or not being supported properly. Think GIS projects. Or CAD. I'm sure there are others... Cheers Chris -- Files attached to this email may be in ISO 26300 format (OASIS Open Document Format). If you have difficulty opening them, please visit http://iso26300.info for more information. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposal: OSGeo Cartographic Library
(Is GeoPDF open now? I was under the impression that they were claiming IP in there, but my info is a couple years old.) -mpg -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rushforth, Peter Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 11:56 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposal: OSGeo Cartographic Library Hi, This is an interesting discussion! In the XML world, the answer to graphics rendering is SVG + XSL-FO, generated by XSLT scripts according to styling rules. XSL-FO is then rendered via a formatting objects processor, like Apache FOP. I'm of the opinion that a pipeline like: GML +/- (any XML data) + SLD/FE + WMS graphics = XSLT = SVG+XSL-FO - pdf, (?geopdf anyone?) would make for a killer map scripting environment. Plus, it has the added benefit of being based on standards or de facto standards across the board, with open source solutions available in each area. I will sign up for the discussion too! Cheers, Peter Rushforth Technology Advisor / Conseiller technique GeoConnections / GéoConnexions 650-615 Booth St. / rue Booth Ottawa ON K1A 0E9 E-mail / Courriel: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone / Télephone: (613) 943-0784 Fax / telecopier: (613) 947-2410 Use Cases: -- I. Interactive Browsing (e.g. web mapping) 1. Good-looking web maps (more control of grid/graticule labeling) II. Ad-hoc Authoring (one-time GIS style layout using GUI) 1. Good-looking printed (ps,pdf,etc) maps automatically providing grid/grat, scalebar, legend, north arrow, SRS description - provide an API to exiting GIS apps? III. Automated Mapping (script driven) 1. Map Series (single page, identical layout) 2. Map Atlas (mostly map with some text, multi-page) 3. Map-centric documents (mostly text with some map, multi-page) 4. Route Alignment Sheets (rotated (non 90 deg) to fit page) Brent Fraser GeoAnalytic Inc. Calgary, Alberta ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo Buttons
Dan- In general, yes, you are allowed to use the logo. There are guidelines posted on the web (not sure where..) spelling out proper usage, etc. -mpg From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Daniel Ames Sent: Monday, March 03, 2008 10:10 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo Buttons Arnulf, Thanks for the clarification on the logos. I was hoping to prompt this topic thread with my posting. Also useful would be some guidelines on how and where OSGeo logos can be used on other web pages, particularly in light of the self selection/opt in membership approach. Are all members (i.e. anyone who registers on osgeo.org) allowed to use the OSGeo logo on their project/personal/corporate web pages to help identify their interest in OSGeo? Should the logo be linked to a particular page on osgeo.org? Should the original logo be used or some modification of it? Thanks, Dan On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 4:10 AM, Arnulf Christl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, March 1, 2008 01:40, Daniel Ames wrote: Tyler et al, I just ran across this previous post about specialized OSGeo logos for members, supporters, etc. to place on their respective web sites. Not sure if there is still such a need, but here is an attempt: http://www.hydromap.com/download/OSGeoMemberLogos.zip Dan Hi, these logos must have slipped my attention. We should not circulate them any further to maintain a clean brand. Current OSGeo policy does not differentiate outside recognition of members and charter members so that we do not have a need for separate logos. Charter members are only required internally for votes into the board of directors. It has been discussed that the OSGeo logo should be available with an additional tag line Sponsor. It seems that the need to differentiate between graduated and incubating projects is not seen as that important. Jeroen will send a new set of logos around anytime soon. We should discuss them at the next meeting. Best regards, Arnulf. On Wed, Oct 17, 2007 at 10:42 AM, Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 17-Oct-07, at 2:53 AM, Mateusz Loskot wrote: Hi, Do we have anything like official OSGeo banners or buttons members can put on their website? Not really, but we do have need for a few different variations of them. They can built on top of the OSGeo logos (http://osgeo.org/logos) Specifically I've been wanting to have ones for: * Member * Charter Member * Supporter * Sponsor and probably some more... Any volunteers to do up some prototype buttons or badge graphics? :) Tyler ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Daniel P. Ames, PhD, PE Geospatial Software lab Department of Geosciences Idaho State University - Idaho Falls [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.hydromap.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Arnulf Christl http://www.wheregroup.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Daniel P. Ames, PhD, PE
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] 'lossless' JPEG2000
So that's 10GB of data, using tiles, at 100MB memory? That's good, and maybe requiring tiles for larger images is something I could get used to. What's the speed like? We use both the GMLJP2 standard and the GeoTIFF-tag approach. Gosh but I'd to get behind an open source geo-aware JP2 solution. -mpg From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of François-Olivier Devaux Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008 1:50 AM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 'lossless' JPEG2000 Hi Michael, We made some tests with tiles of 1000*1000 pixels, with 1 tiles, and the memory used is about 112 MB for the encoding and 114 MB for the decoding. If you don't want to use tiles, I don't think OpenJPEG can beat the commercial applications like Kakadu. What standard do you follow for metadata ? OGC GMLJP2, or do you include GeoTIFF information in a JP2 file like Luratech suggested to the JPEG committee ? Cheers, François Michael P. Gerlek a écrit : François: When you say Mega-Images (- geo-sized images), just how big are you talking about? If you are in the 10-100GB range, I/LizardTech would be very interested in talking with you about the project, and also about supporting some of the geo metadata conventions. (Especially if you can do GB-sized data sets in less than 1GB of RAM without requiring the image be tiled!) ((Do you have any benchmark data you can share?) -mpg -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of François-Olivier Devaux Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 12:47 AM To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] 'lossless' JPEG2000 Hi, Norman Vine has pointed to me this discussion about JPEG 2000, and I thought it might be interesting to give you a small overview on JPEG 2000 and present the OpenJPEG library on which we are working. FIELDS WHERE JPEG 2000 IS USED JPEG 2000 is becoming the reference in image compression for professional applications, where precision and flexibility is really necessary. The most know field using JPEG 2000 is Digital Cinema, where JPEG 2000 has been favored against MPEG2 and H.264. Linked to that field, High Quality Broadcast applications are also turning to JPEG 2000 because of its quality and scalability (low resolution versions can be extracted directly from a high resolution sequence without any re-encoding, and JPEG 2000 sequences are encoded in intra which eases video editing). More close to your field is Archiving, where we are feeling a trend to select JPEG 2000 as compression algorithm http://www.egov.vic.gov.au/index.php?env=-inlink/detail:m1780- 1-1-8-s-0:l-9669-1-1-- Medical imaging applications, where lossless compression is a important requirement, are also taking full advantage of JPEG 2000 remote browsing possibilities (with the JPIP protocol) http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/aware-inc-to-demonstra te-groundbreaking-medical-imaging-streaming-solution-at- himss08,290686.shtml - JPEG 2000 FEATURES The JPEG 2000 features that are interesting for GeoSpatial Imagery is of course the ability to achieve lossless compression, the scalability (lower quality and resolutions as well as spatial areas can be extracted from a compressed file, without
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] 'lossless' JPEG2000
François: When you say Mega-Images (- geo-sized images), just how big are you talking about? If you are in the 10-100GB range, I/LizardTech would be very interested in talking with you about the project, and also about supporting some of the geo metadata conventions. (Especially if you can do GB-sized data sets in less than 1GB of RAM without requiring the image be tiled!) ((Do you have any benchmark data you can share?) -mpg -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of François-Olivier Devaux Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 12:47 AM To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] 'lossless' JPEG2000 Hi, Norman Vine has pointed to me this discussion about JPEG 2000, and I thought it might be interesting to give you a small overview on JPEG 2000 and present the OpenJPEG library on which we are working. FIELDS WHERE JPEG 2000 IS USED JPEG 2000 is becoming the reference in image compression for professional applications, where precision and flexibility is really necessary. The most know field using JPEG 2000 is Digital Cinema, where JPEG 2000 has been favored against MPEG2 and H.264. Linked to that field, High Quality Broadcast applications are also turning to JPEG 2000 because of its quality and scalability (low resolution versions can be extracted directly from a high resolution sequence without any re-encoding, and JPEG 2000 sequences are encoded in intra which eases video editing). More close to your field is Archiving, where we are feeling a trend to select JPEG 2000 as compression algorithm http://www.egov.vic.gov.au/index.php?env=-inlink/detail:m1780- 1-1-8-s-0:l-9669-1-1-- Medical imaging applications, where lossless compression is a important requirement, are also taking full advantage of JPEG 2000 remote browsing possibilities (with the JPIP protocol) http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/aware-inc-to-demonstra te-groundbreaking-medical-imaging-streaming-solution-at- himss08,290686.shtml - JPEG 2000 FEATURES The JPEG 2000 features that are interesting for GeoSpatial Imagery is of course the ability to achieve lossless compression, the scalability (lower quality and resolutions as well as spatial areas can be extracted from a compressed file, without the need of decompression the entire file), the high precision (most codecs can at least handle 16 bits per component, and up to 256 components) and the fact that the core coding system can be obtained free of charge. JPEG 2000 also has an inherent robustness higher than most compression schemes (JPEG, ...) and a great protocol to interactively remotely browse images called JPIP. - OPENJPEG OpenJPEG, is an open-source JPEG 2000 library. It has been very recently remodeled by the CNES and the french company CS to meet the requirements of applications using Mega-Images (- geo-sized images). Independent access to tiles has been improved, in order to increase the library encoding and decoding performances. This new version should be made accessible to users at the beginning of March. We are very happy of the performances of this new version, and are open to new contributions. Regarding other JPEG 2000 open source solutions in your field, the GDAL library has a JPEG 2000 module that is based on Jasper, which is a great library, but has unfortunately not evolved for the last years. - Cheers, François ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
