Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] UK local chapter

[Ari Jolma]

The Finland local chapter, which was incorporated last year, sends best 
wishes to the, now incorporated, UK local chapter! :)


...and our ALPO2016 (FOSS4G2016 in Finnish) is May 17th in Helsinki.

Best regards,

Ari

21.03.2016, 17:54, Jo Cook kirjoitti:

Hi All,

This is just a heads up that the UK local chapter, having muddled 
along happily as a group of interested individuals for almost 10 
years, is now an unincorporated organisation under UK law, with a 
constitution setting out our aims and powers. If you're interested, 
there's a link to it at uk.osgeo.org . tldr; we 
will support the aims of the global OSGeo foundation.


Under UK law, this is the "least formal" sort of organisation that you 
can have, but it does allow us to have our own bank account. Due to 
circumstances beyond our control, our previous banking arrangement is 
no longer available to us...


... and of course we definitely need our own bank 
account for our fabulous FOSS4GUK 2016 event, at the Ordnance Survey 
offices in Southampton, from the 14th to the 16th of June! 
http://uk.osgeo.org/foss4guk2016/


All the best

Jo



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KT18 7RL, UK
t:+44 1372 744 009 w: astuntechnology.com 
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Starting the build process for OSGeo-Live 9.5

[Ari Jolma]

22.11.2015, 21:18, Cameron Shorter kirjoitti:
We are starting the build cycle for version 9.5 of the OSGeo-Live [1] 
DVD/USB/VM which will be released in March 2016, ready for several 
special events, including FOSS4G-NA, FOSSGIS (Salzburg, Austria), 
among others.


We would like to hear from anyone wishing to add new projects to 
OSGeo-Live, anyone wishing to extend or add translations, or anyone 
who has ideas on how we should shape the upcoming release.


I would like to see the Perl bindings of GDAL in the OSGeo-Live. At 
least in 9.0 they are not installed.


Best regards,

Ari




Key Milestones
11 Jan 2016 All new applications installed, most old applications updated
01 Feb 2016 Feature Freeze (all apps updated)
15 Feb 2016 User Acceptance Test (all apps installed and working)
21 Mar 2016 Final ISO sent to printers

About OSGeo-Live
OSGeo-live is a Lubuntu based distribution of Geospatial Open Source 
Software, available via a Live DVD, Virtual Machine and USB. You can 
use OSGeo-Live to try a wide variety of open source geospatial 
software without installing anything.


[1] http://live.osgeo.org



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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open source / open data related to addressing/geocoding

[Ari Jolma]

21.04.2015, 11:10, Serena Coetzee kirjoitti:

Dear all,

on Thursday this week, I am presenting about open source and open data to the 
Addressing Group of the Universal Postal Union (UPU), a UN organization with 
192 member countries [1]. If you know about interesting open source software or 
open data related to addressing and/or geocoding, let me know. Anything that I 
receive by Wednesday evening, I could include in the presentation.


I made a quick search and it seems that both OGC services, and more ad 
hoc APIs are used for geocoding addresses. Denmark has a more official 
looking service


http://danmarksadresser.dk/

for Finland there is an open test service (some open local datasets are 
more established)


http://api.okf.fi/console/

These have popped up very recently (few years).

Ari

ps: Maybe follow-ups should be only on OSGeo discuss to save bandwidth?



[1] www.upu.int

Regards,
--
Serena Coetzee

Geography Building 3-5
Centre for Geoinformation Science, Department Geography, Geoinformatics and 
Meteorology, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X20, Hatfield, 0028, South 
Africa
email: serena.coet...@up.ac.za Web: www.up.ac.za/cgis
Mobile: +27 82 464 4294 · Tel: +27 12 420 3823 · Fax: +27 12 420 6385


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Nomination for Dan Ames

[Ari Jolma]

+1


Ari Jolma



--



Lähetetty Nokia N9 -puhelimestani



Anne Ghisla kirjoitti 24.7.2013 0:04:
Hello all,

I would like to nominate Dan Ames [DA] as Charter Member.

Dan is the founder of MapWindow [MW], an open source GIS in C#. He is
an active promoter of open source geospatial in environmental
research. I met him at iEMSs conference in Leipzig [i], where he chaired
the session about Geographic Information Systems and geoprocessing
workflows for environmental modelling, with great balance between pure
open source principles and research requirements.

I believe that Dan, as a trusted ambassador for open source geospatial
in academia, would be a valuable addition to the current Charter
Member pool.

[MW] http://www.mapwindow.org/
[DA] http://gisci.isu.edu/dames.html
[i] http://www.iemss.org/sites/iemss2012/sessions_D.html

Kind regards,
Anne
--
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Aghisla

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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] EGU 2013 and FOSS GIS in geoscience, OSGeo, OSGeo Live, Open Source

[Ari Jolma]

On 04/16/2013 11:23 AM, Helmut Kudrnovsky wrote:

Freie Software für Tsunami-Simulation. Open Source in den Geowissenschaften.
https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/o1-digital-leben/id28970?mt=2


ITunes? How do I view these in Linux? Linux - Open Source, you know.

Cheers,

Ari



have fun





-
best regards
Helmut
--
View this message in context: 
http://osgeo-org.1560.x6.nabble.com/EGU-2013-and-FOSS-GIS-in-geoscience-OSGeo-OSGeo-Live-Open-Source-tp5047192.html
Sent from the OSGeo Discuss mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Anymore Contributions for the OSGeo Journal Volume 12?

[Ari Jolma]

Landon,

We'll send you an annual report from the Finnish Chapter (In Formation) 
soon. We did put a quite a lot of effort into a FOSS4G bid and there are 
other interesting things worth reporting. Can you give a deadline  
report template perhaps?


Best regards,

Ari

On 04/03/2013 02:38 AM, Landon Blake wrote:
Today I finally started doing the real work of getting Volume 12 of 
the OSGeo Journal published. I've got, or will soon get, annual report 
items from the following:

- Korean Chapter
- Italian Chapter
- California Chapter
- United Kingdom Chapter
- Summer of Code Committee
- Incubation Committee
I would like to try to publish by the end of this April, which will be 
a month behind my goal. Let me know if you can submit an annual report 
for your chapter or software project.

I've got an inteview lined up for Volume 12, but I'm also looking for:
A software project that would be willing to help me with project 
spotlight article.
A case study of an organization that successfully applied open source 
geospatial software.

Please let me know if you can help with either of those items.
Thanks so much for your support!
Landon


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Is Your Project In OSGeo Labs?

[Ari Jolma]

Landon, others,

A comment on the name OSGeo Labs. I just did a Google search with it 
and it brings up also the university laboratories that have been set up 
under the auspices of the ICA - OSGeo MoU. Thus it seems to mean two 
things, and it might be confusing - for example the Slashgeo.org tag 
OSGeo Labs is used for the university labs.


The software stewardship (or how would you call it) is managed by the 
incubation committee and the university laboratory network is managed 
by, hm, the Board (no, it's not managed by the education committee as 
one would guess). This might be just a naming issue but I think it is 
worth noting. But I also think that there could and probably should be 
collaboration between these two initiatives.


Regards,

Ari

(*) http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Labs

On 11/29/2012 02:31 AM, Landon Blake wrote:

I'm in the process of trying to take over as the steward for OSGeo
Labs as part of my duties with the OSGeo Incubation Committee. As part
of this process I'd like to get a handle on the projects that are in
labs. There is a short list of stable and young and experimental
projects on the current Labs wiki page. Since I'm editing that page
today, here is the list:

Stable Projects:
- GeoWebCache
- pgRouting

Young and Experimental Projects
- GeoExt
- GeoFunctions
- Geoinformatica
- OpenGeocoder
- OpenRouter
- Grids
- OSGeo Graphics
- pycsw
- OWSLib
- SemanticGeo
- ZOO-Project

Can you please let me know if you are involved with one of these
projects? I'm trying to determine which projects are in labs, and
then establish a point of contact with each project so I can help them
get ready for official incubation.

Thanks.

Landon

P.S. - If you have thoughts on the purpose and work of OSGeo Labs,
please let me know. I have my own vision, but I'd like to get feedback
from other OSGeo members.
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Is Your Project In OSGeo Labs?

[Ari Jolma]

On 11/29/2012 02:31 AM, Landon Blake wrote:

I'm in the process of trying to take over as the steward for OSGeo
Labs as part of my duties with the OSGeo Incubation Committee. As part
of this process I'd like to get a handle on the projects that are in
labs. There is a short list of stable and young and experimental
projects on the current Labs wiki page. Since I'm editing that page
today, here is the list:

Stable Projects:
- GeoWebCache
- pgRouting

Young and Experimental Projects
- GeoExt
- GeoFunctions
- Geoinformatica


Geoinformatica is my project, it's not young, but it's experimental. 
It's made of a part in C, libral, and several Perl packages, which build 
on GDAL and GTK+ Perl bindings (I also maintain the GDAL Perl bindings). 
The oldest parts are in libral, which date at least 10 years back. 
libral was a simple raster algebra package, but I've added to it a 
simple visualization library to render GDAL rasters and vectors to a 
memory canvas (pixbuf), which can be given to GDK (a GTK+ subsystem). 
I've made an effort to separate this library into a library of its own 
(gvl - also a part of Geoinformatica), but it's not in use.


Geoinformatica has a very small community, I guess one reason is because 
the Perl geospatial community is small(?) and distributed. Also, maybe 
it's the experimental or personal thing, but maintaining stable APIs or 
a reasonable development path in several interdependent libraries has 
been quite difficult for me. However, I regularly use Geoinformatica 
myself. I use the GUI a bit less because QGIS has become very good and 
because there is not yet useful WMS and WFS GUIs to use the GDAL WMS and 
WFS drivers in it. Lately I've written WxS servers (WMS and WFS are 
functional already) with it - Perl has traditionally very good web/CGI 
support so that's interesting.


I think OSGeo Labs could be a good forum and platform for collaboration 
with academia, especially the OSGeo Academic Network and the emerging 
network of research labs collaborating with OSGeo and FOSS4G in general. 
One issue I have observed is that the developer community in academic 
FOSS4G (and other geospatial) users/members is still a small minority. 
Yes, I'm in academia too.


This may be the best portal for Geoinformatica things in the web

http://geoinformatics.aalto.fi/en/software/

Cheers and thanks Landon for taking this up,

Ari


- OpenGeocoder
- OpenRouter
- Grids
- OSGeo Graphics
- pycsw
- OWSLib
- SemanticGeo
- ZOO-Project

Can you please let me know if you are involved with one of these
projects? I'm trying to determine which projects are in labs, and
then establish a point of contact with each project so I can help them
get ready for official incubation.

Thanks.

Landon

P.S. - If you have thoughts on the purpose and work of OSGeo Labs,
please let me know. I have my own vision, but I'd like to get feedback
from other OSGeo members.
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Future perspectives for OSGeo

[Ari Jolma]

On 05/02/2012 08:32 PM, Paolo Cavallini wrote:

Il 02/05/2012 19:04, Arnulf Christl (OSGeo) ha scritto:

We see new opportunities by starting joint activities with the Eclipse
foundation - which is in the process of spawning activities explicitly
focused on geospatial. They have lots of high level contacts but lack a
noteworthy community. This is where we in turn did exceptionally well,
we are perceived as *the* global voice for open source geospatial.

Hi Arnulf.
Thanks for your thoughts and work. As everybody knows, the free GIS
community is unfortunately split, more or less deeply, in two tribes
(C/C++ and Java). I must admit I do not know the Eclipse community very
well, so my words could be inappropriate, but given the presumably
strong tie between Eclipse and Java, I am slightly worried that the move
you propose would make OSGeo perceived as more Java-inclined. Being the
global voice, as you pointed out, is OSGeo strength, and should not be
missed.


Come on, we're split in much more ways that just C++ and Java. I'm in a 
not very visible (and degrowing?) tribe called Perl hackers (I don't say 
anything about Python users) and split between Windows (dot spatial 
what?) and Linux tribes. Now again more in the Linux tribe thanks to 
virtual machine technology.


But rather than issues that separate us I think there are more of those 
uniting us. Also, technologies (Standards, Swig, porting, multilingual 
virtual machines, standards, ...) for overcoming the moats should be 
supported and used.


I think talking to other FOSS organizations and foundations is a very 
welcome idea. Kudos to those who made the connection to Eclipse.


Cheers,

Ari

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[OSGeo-Discuss] Directions Magazine's predictions

[Ari Jolma]

Phillip Davis pointed out in the edu list interesting predictions on a 
Directions Magazine's podcast: 
http://www.directionsmag.com/podcasts/podcast-predictions-for-the-geospatial-marketplace-2012/219405


A couple specifically about OSGeo:

- OpenGeo will carry the torch (not OSGeo)
- OSGeo will get its act together

We'll see... I think these predictions reflect how the role of OSGeo is 
seen differently by different people. Clearly some people have been 
expecting more while some see a success. I think more the latter.


Regards,

Ari Jolma

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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: RE : Distracting discussions of discussing [was:] What is, North America?

[Ari Jolma]

On 11/25/2011 12:30 PM, Dimitris Kotzinos wrote:

Hi all,

now that the issue on the North America chapter is settled and 
explained, what about forming an European chapter in order to also 
promote inside-EU (especially but not only) cooperation and policies 
for Open Source and Open Standards in Geographic Information?
This would also help people from smaller countries to participate in 
the OSGEO movement and probably provide some possibilities to apply 
for funding at the EU level.


This is an interesting discussion. Also earlier today (European time :) 
there was a mail from Dan Ames, which mentioned FOSS4G mini-conference 
in Netherlands, June 2012. I also think I saw an email about FOSS4G CEE 
(Central and Eastern Europe) very recently.


In Europe there are already a number of established FOSS for 
geospatial/geoinformatics conferences (FOSSGIS and OSGIS come to mind). 
There's also FOSDEM (not digital elevation model but developer's 
European meeting) which could also be used for OSGeo people to meet.


This is probably a good thing and there's no reason to try to coordinate 
it too much. We need many types of conferences and meetings: academic, 
education-oriented, hacker, commercial, etc.


Surely it is a good idea to seek EU funding. In the edu list there was 
some discussion to try to get EU COST funds for collaboration within 
this area (next deadline end of March, we're still seeking for a good 
academic to be the main coordinator).





Although I know that there are already probably enough organizations, 
the way I see things evolving this would probably be much helpful. 
Moreover for me it seems that if we will be organizing major events 
like a North America conference it would become increasingly difficult 
to be able to keep supporting an annual global event like the current 
FOSS4G conference. So an additional idea for consideration might be to 
have a bi-annual global event and in the meantime regional events.

Of course this will not bring the global community closer.


But it would probably make the community bigger and more active, which 
is good.




If there is enough interest to work towards an European Chapter I 
would be happy to contribute.


As you said and I agree, European chapter would be good for smaller 
countries, where a country-specific chapter is often not very viable 
(like Finland :)


But the main thing is that we choose wisely where to spend our energy. I 
don't want to spend it all on institution or organization building, I'm 
much happier hacking.


Ari



Best regards,

Dimitris Kotzinos
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[OSGeo-Discuss] Proj4 texts in spatialreference.org missing +towgs84=0, 0, 0

[Ari Jolma]

Folks,

spatialreference.org (which is a great service) reports the proj4 text 
for for example 3067 without the towgs84 parameters when they are all 
zeros. IMHO they should be reported as proj4 nowadays requires them to 
work correctly. The proj4 epsg file contains them. The zeros are needed 
also in the proj4text field of spatial_ref_sys table of PostGIS.


Omitting towgs parameters (even when they are zeros) causes confusion. 
See for example


http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gis.postgis/24549 (the comment 
This is bewildering. I found this by mere chance).


and I also experienced the same today with PostGIS converting from 2393 
to 3067.


Best regards,

Ari Jolma

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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open StreamMap?

[Ari Jolma]

Charlie,

There are existing global databases of surface water boundaries, water 
quality, DEMs, etc. In some cases more than one. Those could be one 
starting point - license permitting. The other would of course be OSM 
itself, which already contains surface water features. Adding a 
possibility for all to add data like temperature, water level, water 
quality etc. would be interesting. I've seen such attempts, as far as I 
remember they have used Google maps or Bing maps. In fact, Microsoft may 
have been more active in this particular area.


Ari

On 05/28/2011 04:51 AM, Charlie Schweik wrote:

Hi,

I find myself wondering if there is a possibility of starting an open 
stream map project in a similar way to open street map? With the idea 
that this might be connected to an invasive plant species effort too...


It is an interesting idea -- roads are relatively stable. Streams have 
additional attributes, like water levels.


Any reactions or ideas on how this might be started?

Cheers
Charlie Schweik


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[OSGeo-Discuss] FOSDEM

[Ari Jolma]

Dear All,

I haven't seen FOSDEM(1) mentioned in OSGeo discussions. I haven't been 
to one, but it seems interesting, the major European FOSS conference 
perhaps?


It lacks a FOSS4G devroom. However, it has a Perl one, so I'm 
considering submitting a talk there.


There is also something they call Certification Exams(2), which are 
exams with a price tag organized by Linux Professional Institute for 
example. OSGeo edu committee is mainly a university-oriented group and 
training for FOSS4G is a delicate topic, but maybe worth a thought.


Reagrds,

Ari
(1) http://fosdem.org/2011/
(2) http://fosdem.org/2011/certification

--
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Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Aalto University
tel: +358 50 347 6463
Email: ari.jolma at tkk.fi
http://geoinformatics.tkk.fi


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[OSGeo-Discuss] Where to, OSGeo?

[Ari Jolma]

All,

Thanks for a fine FOSS4G conference again to all who organized and 
participated. I wrote the text below after the board f2f
(http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Face_to_Face_Meeting_Barcelona_2010) to 
clear my head and also to perhaps give to the broader community an idea 
of what the board discusses and to present some opinions of mine. I wish 
luck for the new board in its work.


Best regards,

Ari Jolma

Where to, OSGeo?

I've seen, heard, and discussed now twice Tyler's (Tyler Mitchell, OSGeo 
CEO) presentation on OSGeo strategy. First in Nottingham in June and now 
in Barcelona. The presentation is a mind map, and it introduces the 
phases organizations go through as they evolve. OSGeo has clearly been a 
success so far with several successful conferences in a row, growing 
number of foundation projects, and a community that is recognized and 
respected. The question Tyler asks, is, where OSGeo wants to be in, say, 
5 years from now, and how do we know if we have reached our goals.


What I present below draws from those meetings and others and I don't 
claim that any of the ideas below is mine or even new in any way. 
Opinions are mine of course.


OSGeo surely wants to live, and to live means to grow and evolve. Grow 
older, stronger, or bigger? Stronger, think I.


OSGeo is mostly a voluntary organization, which relies on working 
together and openly. Sometimes this means not so efficient decision 
making and confusion. That's ok, but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't 
try to improve our institutions. For example confidentiality is 
sometimes an issue. Who receives the next Sol Katz award can't be 
discussed openly. But what if somebody comes to us and makes a proposal? 
I feel that it is the business of the proposer to make it public unless 
something else is agreed together. Board is well-defined and it has 
mechanisms for private conversations, but what if the issue should be 
taken to a committee. Committees are not always well-defined. Our 
openness needs to be communicated to others but delicate issues must be 
handled with care.


OSGeo needs funds for its operations. Both growing stronger and bigger 
require money. Some say a lot of new support money can be found, we just 
need to try harder or be more skilled in asking for it. Some say our 
members and partners in the broad sense (subscribers to this list for 
example and perhaps companies) can give money on a voluntary basis. I 
must say I believe more in the latter (but don't dismiss the first) and 
I personally feel more comfortable with it. Another idea is to create a 
new revenue stream from events or other new products.


The concept of a product is interesting, although it is business 
terminology. What is the product of OSGeo? And who are its clients? 
Currently OSGeo has, IMO, two main products: FOSS4G conference and it 
itself, and two main clients: the community (i.e., OSGeo itself) and 
donors. I point out that I don't see the clients or users of the OSGeo 
software projects as clients of OSGeo (unless they are or want to be a 
part of the community). The projects are more like clients and OSGeo 
provides service products to them. How much revenue should play a role 
when new products are considered? If OSGeo wants to grow stronger, then 
the new products should be planned and sold with partners, maybe OSGeo 
itself having only a small role (OSGeo members can have a much bigger 
role). This then would mean that OSGeo needs a more clear idea of what 
an OSGeo partner is (and who can be a partner) and what kind of 
contracts or memorandums to sign with them.


OSGeo is, at least its core is, a foundation for FOS software. How much 
OSGeo should care and work for FOS data, FOS educational content, etc? 
IMO, the baseline is that OSGeo should, and it is already very much 
doing so, feel very deeply about standards-based access to data. This 
will also sometimes mean authenticated access to non-free data. OSGeo 
should also feel very deeply about FOS geospatial software having at 
least an equal footing in educational institutions, both in teaching and 
in research, and both in the sense of using software and software as a 
result of research. OSGeo should encourage going beyond the baseline, 
but that should not be in its main mission.


On a train to Davos, Switzerland,

Ari Jolma
charter member 2006-
board member 2008-2010

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[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: OSGeo Board Election 2010 Results

[Ari Jolma]

On 08/27/2010 09:53 AM, Arnulf Christl (OSGeo) wrote:

Paul,
thanks again for organizing the board elections. It is great that we
could get this done in time prior to FOSS4G so that the new board can
meet there in real life. This promises to become a very productive meeting.

Howard, Ari,
thanks to both of you for serving on the board for two full years and we
hope to continue to see you give advice to the OSGeo board in your
specific domains. We will lack the European and education background of
Ari and miss Howard's direct engagement from our systems committee.

   


Arnulf,

Thanks for the thanks. It has been an honor to serve. However, I still 
plan to attend the board f2f in Barcelona and I will follow OSGeo 
matters and, in case I see the need, present them to the board.


Now that you mention Europe, I do think we have a good community here, 
although divided into many countries and by many languages.


Congratulations to the new Board with new and old members!

From Como, Italy,

Ari

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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Are Ari Jolma and Howard Butler standing for re-election to the OSGeo Board?

[Ari Jolma]

Landon Blake wrote:


I’m just curious, because I didn’t see there names listed on the 
nominations list.




Landon,

AFAIK, nobody have submitted nominations for me or Howard. On the wiki 
there are four nominations and I've seen two more (Lorenzo Becchi and 
Daniel Morrissette) on this list. I think it is a good thing to see some 
change in the board - but I'm also glad to see that Arnulf and Frank are 
available for re-election.


Best regards,

Ari


**Landon Blake**

Project Surveyor

California PLS 8489

Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268

Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658

lbl...@ksninc.com mailto:lbl...@ksninc.com

711 North Pershing Avenue

Stockton, California, 95203



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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Data format frustration - too general!

[Ari Jolma]

berryman kirjoitti:

For instance, I'm not just interested in the location of streets, I'm 
interested in the location of each lane.  I also need to know how street 
topology and traffic direction so that I can make path planning determinations. 
 Finally, it would even be
ideal if I could encode the location of traffic signals, stop signs,
bus-only lanes, etc.

I know that these types of encoding must exist somewhere , because my Garmin GPS 
understands the rules of the streets and can anticipate things coming up.  For instance, 
it might tell me stay in the right lane.  Are there standard data formats for 
encoding this information?  Or is the ability to encode this a non-public extension of 
some more generic standard?  If so, then how do I go about extending some other standard 
for my application?
  


Jody mentioned CityGML, which may have some data model elements for 
transportation data, but I believe each agency or company (Garmin, 
NavTech, etc) have their own data models. I've used one Finnish 
transportation data a bit and its data model was designed specifically 
for the purpose by the Finnish government agency for road 
admininstration. Interestingly, ESRI has just released a white paper of 
highway data management. Google search gives a link to OGC 
transportation pilot.


Books on GIS-T describe the ideas behind developing transportation data 
models.


Best regards,

Ari


Thanks all!
  


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[OSGeo-Discuss] Vandalism on http://gallery.openlayers.org/

[Ari Jolma]

Didn't know who to send this note.

Somebody please fix http://gallery.openlayers.org/

Ari

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[OSGeo-Discuss] Any gurus available?

[Ari Jolma]

Greetings,

I'm organizing a small free GIS event April 21 here in Helsinki. It's a 
regular spring seminar of our professional GIS society and attracts 
perhaps 50 people. I was wondering if anybody with good knowledge of one 
of the more popular free geospatial software packages (Mapserver, 
OpenLayers, uDig, ...) and good presentation skills were in the 
neighborhood at that time and would be willing to give a show? Modest 
expenses will be covered.


Regards,

Ari

--
Prof. Ari Jolma
Environmental Management Information Technology
Teknillinen Korkeakoulu / Helsinki University of Technology
tel: +358 9 4511 address: POBox 5300, 02015 TKK, Finland
Email: ari.jolma at tkk.fi URL: http://geoinformatics.tkk.fi



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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Language Specific Lists Summary

[Ari Jolma]

Christopher Schmidt kirjoitti:

My understanding is that each of these lists would be supportive of
users who, for example, were having a problem with OpenLayers and needed
help getting more help due to their inability to speak English. 


It appears that there are also the following language lists on the
lists.osgeo.org server:

 Dutch -- http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/dutch
 Portugese -- http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/brasil
 Finnish/Swedish -- http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/finland

Would these lists be open to the above?
  


Chris,

In general, Finns, if they can use a computer, can be expected to 
understand and write english. Of course the barrier might be lower to 
ask questions in Finnish. Or Swedish for that matter as it is our second 
official language.


I'm not very aware of how much OpenLayers is used in Finland but my 
guess is that it's or will be growing in the future so I'd welcome 
discussions and questions about OpenLayers in Finnish.


Suomeksi: Chris tässä kyselee voiko OSGeo-suomi listalla kysyä 
OpenLayers -kysymyksiä. Minusta voi, tosin en tiedä minkälainen 
käyttäjäporukka / osaaminen tämän suhteen Suomessa on.


Regards,

Ari

--
Prof. Ari Jolma
Environmental Management Information Technology
Teknillinen Korkeakoulu / Helsinki University of Technology
tel: +358 9 4511 address: POBox 5300, 02015 TKK, Finland
Email: ari.jolma at tkk.fi URL: http://geoinformatics.tkk.fi


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Conference sponsors

[Ari Jolma]

Tim Bowden kirjoitti:

The Aust-NZ team is well under way in planning for the Sydney FOSS4G
2009.  As part of that we're looking at potential sponsors.  We'd love
to grab big, small and in between.  If there's a company you think
should be a sponsor, please drop us a line.

In particular we'd like to get talking to the likes of Nokia


Tim, I've already contacted a FOSS guy at Nokia I know. I asked if he'd 
be the right guy or somebody else to talk about OSGeo - Nokia relations 
and sponsoring in general, but if and when he replies, I'll mention 
FOSS4G 2009 specifically.


Ari


, IBM, HP
etc.  Ok, so they're all big, got lots of money (still, I hope!) and
love open source, but they share another common trait; we haven't yet
been able to get them on board.  If anyone has any good contacts within
those companies, please let us know.

Regards,
Tim Bowden
  



--
Prof. Ari Jolma
Environmental Management Information Technology
Teknillinen korkeakoulu / Helsinki University of Technology
tel: +358 9 451 3812 address: POBox 5300, 02015 TKK, Finland
Email: ari.jolma at tkk.fi 
http://geoinformatics.tkk.fi/twiki/bin/view/Main/AriJolmaHomePage



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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposal: OSGeo Cartographic Library

[Ari Jolma]

Brent Fraser kirjoitti:

Bruno,

  Have a go with my favorite Canadian topographic map
(NTS:082H04, Waterton Lakes ):

Shapefiles:
http://ftp2.cits.rncan.gc.ca/pub/canvec/50k_shp/082/h/canvec_082h04_shp.zip
  


Thanks for the pointer, that's a nice dataset. Opening these 39 layers 
makes me ask why there's no style information? Pardon my ignorance on 
digital cartography, but is it because of standards or something else? 
How do Arc* tools do it?


I think that's one crucial point in this thread. We all do have our 
favorite software and want-to-have-software for creating a map or 
geovisualization from this. Maybe a common goal would be to write a 
specification how to create a map from this data -- note that there is 
an infinite number of maps that one could create. I'd like to have a 
file or files associated with datasets like this, that I'd just open in 
my favorite software and it'd show me a map and not data.


The second thing would be to have a free OSGeo map symbol set, which the 
map description file would refer to and the software use when creating 
the map.


Do I make any sense?

Cheers,

Ari

--
Prof. Ari Jolma
Geoinformatiikka / Geoinformatics
Teknillinen Korkeakoulu / Helsinki University of Technology
tel: +358 9 451 3886 address: POBox 1200, 02015 TKK, Finland
Email: ari.jolma at tkk.fi URL: http://www.tkk.fi/~jolma


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposal: OSGeo Cartographic Library

[Ari Jolma]

Brent Fraser kirjoitti:

Ari,

  Traditionally, there has been no widely adopted
vendor/system-independent format for specifying style
information.  Hopefully now that there is an organization
(the OGC) addressing open standards for geographic data
(including styling: SLD) there will be more support for a
styling standard.
  


I looked around in the web a bit and found this:
http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/b584484743vk910g/
(I don't have access to Cartographica so can't read this).

ESRI seems to have .mxd files, which is their map definition file. It's 
a binary format and probably not documented. Then they have ArcXML (AXL) 
which serves the same purpose () as Mapserver mapfiles. BTW, mapfile 
format is a result of a lot of thought and practical experience. I 
believe some tools (QGIS?) can export mapfiles (can they import them?).


OGC Styled Layer Descriptor specification does not impress me, and it's 
WMS implementation specific.


GDAL has feature style specification: 
http://www.gdal.org/ogr/ogr_feature_style.html It has recently gained 
some new interest.


In my work I deal a lot with scientific data and geovisualization type 
of thing, and it would be very useful to be able to import and export 
visualization information files from desktop apps. Sometimes the problem 
solving could be based on shared development of such files.


Just thinking out loud,

Ari


--
Prof. Ari Jolma
Geoinformatiikka / Geoinformatics
Teknillinen Korkeakoulu / Helsinki University of Technology
tel: +358 9 451 3886 address: POBox 1200, 02015 TKK, Finland
Email: ari.jolma at tkk.fi URL: http://www.tkk.fi/~jolma


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposal: OSGeo Cartographic Library

[Ari Jolma]

Markus Neteler kirjoitti:

Dear OSGeo,

I would like to launch the idea of an OSGeo Cartographic Library to
share concepts, source code and regression tests:

http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Cartographic_Library
  


I proposed a year ago to develop a geospatial graphics library based on 
Cairo 
http://www.intevation.de/pipermail/freegis-list/2007-April/003142.html


I'm still very much interested in this. Cairo would provide a single API 
to render to an image buffer, on PDF and others. It has good support for 
rendering text with various fonts and there are high-level language APIs.


Currently Cairo can be used in Geoinformatica to render geodata, 
legends, etc. on a map. I'm already using that a bit and will use it 
much more in the future.


What I think is needed first, and would be the core content of the 
library is 1) a mapping of style information into Cairo commands, 2) 
capability to render cartographic symbols on maps, and 3) a mechanism to 
allow plugins that add legends etc. on the map, 4) symbol and label 
placement algorithms. Second need would perhaps be support for various 
geovisualization methods.


1) is rather straight-forward, I guess, using OGC Styled Layers standard
2) I'm not sure, there seems to be free resources like 
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1999/of99-430/ which offer symbols in EPS -- I 
don't find support in Cairo to render EPS on surfaces

3) is rather straight-forward
4) start from simple and existing codes

Cairo is of course just one technology and not suited for all needs in 
this domain. Furthermore, the data provider can be made separate from 
the library, but I'd like to start with and use GDAL (OGR in fact) as 
the default.


Anyway, I'd like to finally get going with this and start drafting an 
API. Any ideas how to proceed? Set up a svn repository somewhere?


Regards,

Ari

--
Prof. Ari Jolma
Geoinformatiikka / Geoinformatics
Teknillinen Korkeakoulu / Helsinki University of Technology
tel: +358 9 451 3886 address: POBox 1200, 02015 TKK, Finland
Email: ari.jolma at tkk.fi URL: http://www.tkk.fi/~jolma


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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Use cases for FOSS-GIS in universities

[Ari Jolma]

Tim Michelsen kirjoitti:

Hello,
I don't know if this is the right place to discuss this but I just start.


We have OSGeo-edu, a working group and a list. The edu-list might be a 
better place to discuss this, so I include all your message in this and 
set replies to [EMAIL PROTECTED]




At my university open source is little used in eductaion and research. 
There are only a few single warriors who care about it.


We have serveral departments that use GIS programs. Each of them buys 
normally the licences for Arc*


Most students make their way into one program after attening a number 
of classes on how to push the buttons of that program. But when they 
come back to it after a while all this is lost since they haven't 
learned the logic behind. To my thinking, getting into the many FOSS 
programs forces students to lokk behind and learn concepts rather than 
functions.


I suspect everybody thinks and says this but then go on and produce 
exercises that are basically pushing the buttons or copy-paste. I often 
use the latter approach. My experience is that unless you use a single 
program from the beginning to end through many courses, it's not 
feasible to expect that the students know the program/add-on well enough 
so they can focus on the concepts rather than specifics of the program. 
At least in the exercise itself where time is limiting. And when you 
start arguing for _one program_ over many courses, it is very easy to 
speak in favor of the industry leader, which is used everywhere and 
with which students get marketable skills.




Another thing is the question of resources. Instead of buying licences 
from big companies that money could be saveed to by data loggers, 
equipment or pay a FOSS-developer.


Most projects buy expensive tools when they only want to produce some 
maps to display the survey fields etc.


So, my question is:
* Is there a possibilty set up a university wide infrastructure on 
FOSS that enables whoever neeeds it to handle geodata and analyse it 
even when they are not educated GIS specialists (rather geo/agric 
scientists)?


I guess this can be done, but at least in our case different departments 
and students/faculty in them are very different, at least in their 
attitude towards software. A general rule seems to be that CompSci 
students embrace easily Linux but NatResMgmt students embrace Windows. 
Of course there are exceptions, but departments, even units are quite 
independent in their decisions and in an individualistic and free 
environment like university it is impossible to dictate what any faculty 
uses in their research/teaching. You can try of course and I wish you 
good luck.



* Naive idea/vision:
1) computing center of the university employs a GIS 
specialist(s) who act as service force for other disciplines (set up 
of geodatabases, introductory courses)

2) computing center sets up a server with GRASS, postgis, etc.
3) those who need geo processing will install a tailored cywin 
or eny other environment to access the latest version of the FOSS GIS 
software on the server via -X forwarding or simply access their data 
in the postgressdb from various clients.
4) data in the postgressdb could be shared according to given 
access rights
= there infrastruture is just there, those who need take to whatever 
level they'd need it.


* Question: would it be possible to implement such a scenario?

* Are there already such cases out there?

* Why not take the nice example of the various projects that deliver 
FOSS for schools (Edubuntu, Skolelinux, etc.) and adapt this to the 
world of FOSS4G?

* Who or what are the thoughts of OSGEO on this?


Keen to hear your opinion, thoughts, experineces, critics, etc.


I've been using quite a bit a stack that I've built myself 
(Geoinformatica, 
http://geoinformatics.tkk.fi/twiki/bin/view/Main/GeoinformaticaSoftware). 
My experiences are a bit mixed, I think especially the programming part 
(mostly copy paste Perl code into a text input box in a GUI) is very 
challenging for all my students (I've required that only from Master's 
students but these are often civil engineers who are not required to 
learn programming at all). However, I like very much to use it since I 
know it completely (which I can't say of the proprietary products that 
we have available), and I believe that at least _I_ can focus on the 
concepts rather than on the interface in my lecturing/leading an exercise.


I've been forced to port the software to Windows and it is now quite 
easy to use in our University's Windows class system since it does not 
require a specific installation, it runs from any directory. However, 
since PostGIS data storage requires installation, I've not yet used it, 
but probably need to do that for the next semesters. Similarly, I'm just 
only getting to start using Mapserver in my teaching. With these server 
products (PostGIS and Mapserver) the requirement is that we and 

[OSGeo-Discuss] Clarifications on the use of geospatial data in Europe

[Ari Jolma]

I'm trying to understand the legislation, EU directives, and so on as 
they apply to the use of geospatial data.


One thing that especially irritate me is the status of derivative work. 
Assume, that I have a raster DEM and then I use gdal_countour to make a 
contour line dataset from it. The countour lines are clearly a 
derivative work but there are (probbaly) no common bytes between the two 
datasets. What right does the one who has (sui generis) rights on the 
raster DEM have on the contour lines? What rights do I have?


Similarly, If I make a visualization (a map) from geospatial data, I may 
get a copyright on the map but the one who has rights on the geospatial 
data still must have some rights, yes?


If I compute from the raster DEM average elevations of some larger areas 
and make a table of that, does the owner of the rights to the raster DEM 
still have some rights on that table?


If I describe the terrain verbally, what then? :)

I guess there must be guiding legal principles that I'm missing.

Cheers,

Ari

--
Prof. Ari Jolma
Geoinformaatio- ja paikannustekniikka / Geoinformation and positioning
Teknillinen Korkeakoulu / Helsinki University of Technology
tel: +358 9 451 3886 address: POBox 1200, 02015 TKK, Finland
Email: ari.jolma at tkk.fi URL: http://www.tkk.fi/~jolma


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