The Open Source Geospatial Community

2013-04-25 | OSGeo 2013. All rights reserved
Jeff McKenna
President, OSGeo
The Open Source Geospatial Community

Outline
● What is OSGeo?
● FOSS4G
● Community

Why?

source: pcworld.com

Community?
“a body of persons of common and
especially professional interests
scattered through a larger society”

2000 to 2005

What is OSGeo?
● Open Source Geospatial Foundation (www.osgeo.org)
● A non-profit organization
● Legally registered in Delaware, United States
● Started in February 2006
● Today is the leading voice for free geospatial software
● Similar in operation to the Apache Foundation
● Everyone is a volunteer

OSGeo's Mission Statement
“To support the development of open source geospatial
software, and promote its widespread use.”

OSGeo Goals (part 1)
● Provide resources for projects
● Technical
● Legal
● Funding
● Promote freely available data
● Promote project use in industry
● Encourage the use of standards
● Provide a common brand of quality

● Make software more accessible to users
● Provide installers
● Provide support for OSGeo software use in education
● Encourage cooperation between different OSGeo
communities
● Java/C communities
● Unix/Windows communities

● Support use and development in the worldwide
community
● Operate annual FOSS4G conference
● Award the Sol Katz award for service to the community

Sponsors of OSGeo

How to Sponsor OSGeo
1. Foundation sponsorship
● Sustaining sponsor: 50,000 USD
● Principal sponsor: 20,000 USD
● Supporting sponsor: 10,000 USD
● Associate sponsor: 3,000 USD
2. Project sponsorship
3. Conference sponsorship

OSGeo Structure
Committees
Committees
Committees
Board of 9 Directors
and President
Local
Chapters
Local
Chapters
Local
Chapters
Officers
Officers
25 Officers
Local
Chapters
Local
Chapters
Foundation
Projects
Committees
Committees
Committees
elected by Membership147 Charter Members
Charter Members vote
represent
Sponsors

OSGeo Projects (part 1)
deegree
GeoMoose
MapServer
GeoServer
Web mapping
Desktop
Web mapping
GRASS
Quantum GIS
OpenLayers

OSGeo Projects (part 2)
GEOS
GDAL
GeoTools
Geospatial libraries
Metadata Catalog GeoNetwork
PostGIS

Requirements to Become an
OSGeo Project
● Code is under an OSI approved license
● Geospatial software
● Mature software
● Substantial user community
● Diverse developer community
● Support relative standards
● Links to existing OSGeo projects
(see: http://www.osgeo.org/incubator/process/evaluation.html)

OSGeo Labs
● For projects that would like to become OSGeo Projects
● Can use OSGeo infrastructure
● http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Labs

Types of OSGeo Members
Participant
Member
Charter Member
- Have not registered themselves
on osgeo.org site
- Have registered themselves
on osgeo.org site
- Publicly acknowledges their connection
to OSGeo
- Must be voted in by other Charter members
- Have the right to vote in elections of other
Charter members and board members

OSGeo Committees
Education
Website
Conference FinanceBoard
Systems
Marketing
Public
geodata
Incubation

Local Chapters
Italy
Korea
China Germany
British Columbia
Canada
Japan
French
Language
India
New Mexico
United States
Poland
Ottawa
Canada
Quebec
Canada
Japan KoreaJapan
Twin Cites
United States
Spanish
Language
United Kingdom
Cascadia
In formation: Africa, Australia & New Zealand,
Brazilian, Greek, Finland, Portugal, Taiwan

Role of Local Chapters
● Bring a more local context to OSGeo
● Provide networking opportunities
● Provide training and support to local community
● Promote OSGeo through events
● Translate documents, websites, software

OpenStreetMap
MapServer
MapFish
web mapping
GRASS GIS
Quantum GIS OSSIM
desktop GIS
metadata
GEOS
GDAL/OGR
GeoTools
libraries
MetaCRS
PostGIS
GeoMajas
Quantum GIS
MapServer
deegree
OpenLayers
GeoServer
MapGuide OS
deegree GIS
MapNik
Viking
KOSMO
gvSIG
SpatialLite
uDig
Geopublisher
Mapbender
pycsw
GeoKettle
GMT
ZOO Project
FDO
GeoNetwork

Number of OSGeo mailing lists.
(2013-04-25)
197

Number of unique registrants in OSGeo email lists.
(2013-02-01)
19,160

Number of users registered on the OSGeo Wiki.
(2013-04-25)
12,811

Total pages on the OSGeo Wiki.
(2013-04-25)
2,783

Unique visitors to osgeo.org for the month of April
32,013

Google hits for “osgeo”
(2013-04-25)
1,480,000
(17,500 on 2006-03)

ICA-OSGeo Labs Network

• Goal 1 – Establishing research and training
opportunities in open source GIS
• Goal 2 -Provide worldwide learning platform
• Goal 3 – Build teaching and research
infrastructure worldwide

University of Nottingham,UK
University of Girona, Spain
University of Southampton, UK
Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic
Newcastle University, UK
Laboratorio di Geomatica, Italy
University of Warwick, UK
UNEP/GRID-Warsaw Centre, Poland
Federal University of Paraná, Brazil
São Paulo State University (UNESP), Brazil
National Amazonian University of Madre de Dios (UNAMAD), Peru
Universidad de la República, Uruguay
North Carolina State University,USA
University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
Information Center for the Environment, University of California
Laboratorio Nacional de Software Libre, Mexico
UNMC, Malaysia
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Malaysia
National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG), University of the Philippines
Environmental Science for Social Change (ESSC), Philippines
University of Pretoria, South Africa
Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD), Kenya
University of Ghana, Ghana
University of Melbourne, Australia

Community Events
OSGIS 2004, Ottawa, Canada

Community Events

FOSS4G Conference
● Annual event bringing together the OSGeo community
● Events have been held in Switzerland, Canada, South Africa,
Australia, Spain, United States
● Growth in attendance from ~100 attendees in 2004 to
~1,000 attendees
● Regional events now in NA, Europe, India, S.Korea, Japan, and BA

Sol Katz Award
 Awarded annually by OSGeo to those
that have demonstrated leadership
in the community

OSGeo Service Providers
 Small-medium sized companies
offering professional support for
OSGeo projects
 Becoming very important

Is the Community Easy to
Work With?
 “Is my bug fixed?”
 “The documentation is out-of-date”
 “I'm new,...”
 “When is the next release?”

Challenges
 avoid being NA-centric
 attracting innovative projects to participate
 attracting sponsorship to support the
community
 certification?

What Does the
Community Need?
 YOU!
 Helping with documentation
 Testing/providing feedback
 Answering questions on mailing lists
 Sharing your passion

Thank you!
Jeff McKenna
President, OSGeo

The Open Source Geospatial Community

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