OSGeo News

The OSGeo Conference Committee is happy to announce the call for hosting the FOSS4G 2012 event. With the excitement building for the upcoming event in Denver, and after such a wonderful event in Barcelona last year, OSGeo again plans on making the 2012 event *the* geospatial conference of the year. Please see the following page for the actual request for hosting document: http://www.osgeo.org/conference/rfp/

Important Dates:

Thank you.

OSGeo Conference Committee

The Open Source Geospatial Foundation would like to open nominations for the 2011 Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software.

The Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software (GFOSS) will be given to individuals who have demonstrated leadership in the GFOSS community. Recipients of the award will have contributed significantly through their activities to advance open source ideals in the geospatial realm.

Sol Katz was an early pioneer of GFOSS and left behind a large body of work in the form of applications, format specifications, and utilities while at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. This early GFOSS archive provided both source code and applications freely available to the community. Sol was also a frequent contributor to many geospatial list servers, providing much guidance to the geospatial community at large.

Sol unfortunately passed away in 1999 from Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, but his legacy lives on in the open source world. Those interested in making a donation to the American Cancer Society, as per Sol's family's request, can do so at cancer.org.

Nominations for the Sol Katz Award should be sent to SolKatzAward@osgeo.org with a description of the reasons for this nomination. Nominations will be accepted until 23:59 UTC on August 19th. A recipient will be decided from the nomination list by an OSGeo designated selection committee.

The winner of the Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software will be announced on September 16th at the FOSS4G 2011 conference closing plenary in Denver, Colorado, U.S.A. The hope is that the award will both acknowledge the work of community members, and pay tribute to one of its founders, for years to come.

It should be noted that past awardees and selection committee members are not eligible.

Past Awardees:

• 2010: Helena Mitasova
• 2009: Daniel Morissette
• 2008: Paul Ramsey
• 2007: Steve Lime
• 2006: Markus Neteler
• 2005: Frank Warmerdam

Selection Committee:

• Jeff McKenna (chair)
• Daniel Morissette
• Frank Warmerdam
• Markus Neteler
• Steve Lime
• Paul Ramsey
• Sophia Parafina
• Helena Mitasova

Day-Long Offering Provides an In-depth Introduction

DENVER, May 9, 2011 -- The Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) conference offers a full-day introduction for newcomers at the 2011 conference, which will be held Sept. 12 - 16 in Denver, CO, USA. FOSS4G is the premier international conference focused on open source geospatial software.

The broad introduction to the world of geospatial open source software takes place on Tues., Sept. 13. The maturity of the software in recent years rivals closed source software, and it is being used by a wide range of commercial and government organizations for many mission-critical applications. If your organization is paying for geospatial software and you haven’t yet evaluated open source software, this is a great way to find out more.

The introduction will address common questions and misconceptions about open source software, including:

• Is the software really free? (Yes)
• Do its capabilities really compare with closed source software? (Yes)
• Can I get support? (Yes)
• Can it work together with my existing closed source software? (Yes)

Several case studies will be presented, with details on the tools deployed, how they were implemented, and the results that were achieved. There will also be a panel discussion that focuses on the various business models for making money using open source geospatial software.

The day will work equally as a standalone event, or as a way to get up to speed for the subsequent FOSS4G conference, which provide three more days of detail on software and projects, and an opportunity to meet the leading developers and companies working in open source geospatial.

Learn more about the introductory day-long session at http://2011.foss4g.org/intro-details/

The community voting system is now open for the FOSS4G 2011 program:
http://community-review.foss4g.org
All are welcome to help review abstracts and indicate a level of interest in each proposal. The conference committee will use the results of the vote to help choose which presentations to accept, and to assign appropriately sized rooms based on level of interest. Voting will be open this week and next, closing on May 8th.

It is a great pleasure to announce that we have 21 students accepted at
OSGeo Google Summer of Code [1] !
We wish them a productive summer, a real-world experience of open source
development with the guidance of their mentors and the community.

All the best!
Anne
OSGeo SoC Administrator

Related URLs:

[1] http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/projects/list/google/gsoc2011 -
filter by Organisation

We are very happy to make the official Call for Presentations for FOSS4G 2011. Abstracts will be accepted from February 2nd to April 15th. For more information on the regular and academic programs, see our Program Overview page (http://2011.foss4g.org/program/).

After the deadline, there will be a community voting mechanism to help select the final program. There is always very tight competition for these spots, so make sure your abstract is clear, engaging, relevant and has an attention grabbing title. With more than 300 proposals expected for half as many slots, voters will have a lot to wade through - make your abstract count!

See the Program Overview page (http://2011.foss4g.org/program/) or jump right to the abstract submission form (http://2011.foss4g.org/abstracts/).

-Local Committee, Denver, FOSS4G 2011