This document summarizes the open source Landis-ii project, which simulates forest succession and dynamics over large landscapes. It tracks various forest data types over time. The project uses C# and has over 15 extensions. The document discusses the project details, technology used including its SVN repository, legal Apache 2.0 license, documentation needs improvement for new developers, the author's small proof-of-concept contribution to convert text files to XML, and challenges in working with the large codebase within an eight week school term.

1. Landis-ii
My first foray into open source

2. Stacy Watts
Portland State University
CS 561 - Open Source Software
Development
Final Presentation

3. Project Information
Project page: http://www.landis-ii.org/
Developer group:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!foru
m/landis-ii-developers
User group:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!foru
m/landis-ii-users
Code repository and bug tracker:
http://code.google.com/p/landis-
extensions/

4. About LANDIS-II
Simulates forest succession,
disturbance, climate change, and
dispersal across large landscapes.
Tracks many types of forest data:
species types, Carbon, Nitrogen, etc.
Long running project with over 15
extensions (plugins)
Internationally used in forest research
More extensive details on project
website

5. Technology
Primarily written in C# for Windows
cmd
Large SVN repository with many tags
and branches
Input are plain text files in a particular
format and raster maps
Output is migrating from csv and plain
text to XML
Bug tracker not incredibly active

6. Century Succession

7. Century Succession

8. Legal
Apache 2.0 License
You do click a license to accept fair use
of the product on installation of the core
or any extension.
License file is at the top of the Google
code repository, before you can
checkout the code base.

9. Documentation
Site describes as well documented, but
is a tough project to just pick up
First new developer guide was created
end of July 2014
Details what a dev needs to do to get
started with the project
Needs additional work for less
experienced developers to get started

10. My Contribution
Small compared to the entire project
spanning over 10 years.
Proof of concept for text input file to
XML conversion.
Eventual eye to making the system
cloud-hosted
Would require possible web interface
Outputs already being translated to XML
Meets their needs

11. School Timeline
Eight week summer term (too short)
Week 1 identifying potential sub project
Week 2-3 working with a primary
contributor on scope and design
Weeks 4-7 learning the code base,
style, conventions and actually starting
to write code
Week 8 Presentation

12. Gotchas
SVN repo: very large, unwieldy to just
dive in
Project references didn’t work off the
bat, required finneagling, questions,
poring over existing group posts for
similar issues
Unfamiliar code base took longer to
ramp up

13. Thank You!
Robert Scheller
For taking time to work out an idea with
me that might fit into the summer.
Lesley Bross
For your own advance guard summer of
code work. The developer guide even its
first form was invaluable.
Jamey Sharp
Guidance on the navigation of a large
new project.

14. Questions?