Avalanche – thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/ecb/

So what’s going on and why? In the traditional GI space the interest in open source is just exploding. I can list a dozen public sector bodies from small local authorities to the largest counties to government departments and agencies who are all now saying “we need to look at open source”. They aren’t all about to change in the next few months (although several will) but they are no longer questioning the robustness of open source software or the availability of enterprise level support (some proprietary vendors should take note). Now these organisations are starting to explore the benefits and freedom that open source offers them and of course in a time of austerity the cost savings can be massive even if open source is not free!

There is lots happening in the open data space too, interest in OSM just keeps on growing and I have recently joined the advisory board of a new venture, Open Cage Data, started by Ed Freyfogle and his team at Lokku. I’m going to write some more on this soon.

There is so much open geo goodness going on in the UK in September that we have renamed it Maptember! For starters there is State of the Map, FOSS4G, the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team’s hack week, a QGIS codesprint, OSM plus and the 1st UK QGIS User Group meeting. Have a look at the Maptember web site for more details.

So will I see you in Maptember?

Warning – Avalanches can be very disruptive

• Most of the keynote speakers have now been announced, and we’re delighted with the range of experience and perspectives of those who have agreed to help set the tone
• The Academic Track submissions period is now closed, and the process of selecting papers for publication and presentation is underway
• Proposals for workshops can still be submitted until the end of March, with another two weeks beyond this (until 12th April to be precise) for proposals for presentations – we’ve had a number of good proposals already, but we are keen to maximise opportunities for hands-on learning and sharing, so don’t hold back if you’ve got an idea!
• Early bird registration runs until 31st May, but some accommodation types are limited, so get in early if you want the best choice

In the meantime, we’ve busy working on facilities, entertainment options, the hackathon on 16th Sept, and attracting more sponsors (we’re pretty happy with those who’ve signed up so far). And remember, September has officially been designated Maptember in the UK with a whole host of great events, so book out the month now (assuming you haven’t already).

• 22nd February for the Academic Track
• 31st March for Wokshops
• 12th April for Presentations

Remember that one of the themes of the conference will be ‘Geo for All’, so if you’ve got something to say about how new users, developers, and others can be brought into the world of FOSS4G, we’d love to hear it.

As in previous years, there’ll be a Community Voting period in the second half of April when everyone will have the chance to review the presentation proposals.

And please share this news as widely as you can so that we can all get a great selection of sessions to choose from.

You can get a good feel for the event by checking out the geocom hashtag on twitter. Look out for the p0rnbots, who infiltrated the feed early on but made some scarily pertinent comments!

Day One started with an excellent keynote from Tim Stonor of Space Syntax Ltd. Go see wikipedia for a definition of the term if you’re not familiar with it (I wasn’t). Tim’s talk was mainly about spatial connectivity in city planning, and using path accessibility to predict how people will use spaces, both inside and outside. Really interesting and thought-provoking, and it turns out that there’s a QGIS plugin for it!

I then went to a stream on “sharing best practices”, which was really about how to get GIS deployed in large organisations, to people that are not familiar with it’s use. So what are these “best practices”? Bribery, ambushing them at the coffee pot, and giving them the data as Excel spreadsheets, apparently. Whilst I winced at some of the comments (one speaker concatenated Google with Open Source and made half the audience fall off their seats), the general idea is sensible- give people the data in the form that they are comfortable with to start with, and then slowly introduce newer elements. People are just trying to do their job, after all.

I spent the afternoon helping at a joint Ordnance Survey/AGI Tech SIG workshop on using open data with open source software, in which we introduced a whole new set of people to the joy of QGIS.

I don’t think I need to say anything about the evening events- I’ll just say that you potential FOSS4Gers don’t need to worry, these AGI people do know how to party!

The stand-out papers for me on Day Two were all to do with delivering GIS for the London Olympics. Nothing ground-breaking, but just GIS done really well, at a grand scale. An honourable mention also goes to Steven Feldman, incidentally FOSS4G 2013’s conference chair, with an Open (Data, Standards and Source) 101, to prepare GeoCommunity people for next year’s event.

“GIS done well” probably sums up the event for me, actually. There were very few papers saying “look at this cool new shiny thing that I have developed”, but a lot about consolidating and delivering GIS across large organisations. I’d say that the enthusiasm for “open”, and QGIS in particular, bodes well for a meeting of minds next year too.

Free – thanks to Brad Stabler http://www.flickr.com/photos/bstabler/

This week I spent 2 days at the OSGeo UK Chapter event in Nottingham. OSGIS 2012 was a fun combination of workshops and presentations.

OSM-GB ran a workshop showing how to use their WMS and WFS in QGIS and even though I thought I knew how useful the services could be I was impressed by the simplicity of filtering and querying against the WFS, one of the attendees came up with a neat business use case that they were taking away to test. More on that in another post soon.

On the second day Ian James gave an inspiring talk about Ordnance Survey’s adoption of Open Source Geo in parts of their business. Rather than attempting to summarise, this slide from his deck captures the key reasons.

Why Open Source GI? Why now? – slide from Ian James of OS

One bit that prompted quite a bit of discussion after the session was

• Cost Savings (but it’s not free)

Whenever comparisons of open source and proprietary business models come up it seems that the “It’s not free” line will get in there pretty quickly (you can guess who might raise that one). Well of course open source isn’t free when used in an enterprise environment, it’s just that the commercial model of the businesses providing services around open source is different to that of proprietary vendors. Potential clients have a choice to make and Ian James outlined some of the factors that were influencing Ordnance Survey’s adoption of open source.

In the coffee break I suggested that perhaps the open source geo community should consider dropping the F in FOSS4G (Free and Open Source Software for Geo) to avoid the potential misrepresentation of the Open Source business model. Although OSS4G doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. Arnulf Christl (past chair of OSGeo and now on a temporary assignment at Ordnance Survey) suggested that we might be using the word free in the wrong way as in beer not speech and that perhaps we should be using it as in Freedom. That set the wheels spinning for FOSS4G 2013 and the kick off session that we were holding the following day. You will have to wait for some more info in the next couple of months but I think “The Freedom to ….” might feature in our plans.

Just in case the twitter storm hasn’t reached your corner of the world FOSS4G, the international conference of OSGeo, will be in Nottingham from 17th to 21st of September 2013. If you want to keep track of what we are planning have a look at

• The FOSS4G web site which is a bit thin at the moment but will be flourishing and sparkly within a few weeks
• The FOSS4G pledge site where you can volunteer to help – web stuff, action groups, outreach, academic reviewers, you name it we need it
• The bid that the UK team submitted is here
• The FOSS4G 2013 Wiki which has minutes of our meetings
• For regularish updates and discussion join the FOSS4G 2013 mailing list
• Follow us on twitter at @FOSS4G

A year of planning has started so that you will have “The Freedom to …”

No, despite some of the hysteria it is not repeat not like hosting the World Cup or even the Euros, let alone winning it. Repeated tweeting of

https://twitter.com/FOSS4G4uk/status/214758780104224769

was completely unjustified as is this video

http://youtu.be/UtzdE669BfY

Let’s be honest it only a geoconference, it’s not as if we have won a cup or something. But it is going to be a wonderful week in September 2013 starting with AGI GeoCommunity (16th and 17th) and following straight through to FOSS4G (17th to 21st) – there will be code sprints and talks and parties and workshops and discussions and hackathons and a massive GeoCamp and Robin Hood might get a look in. And who knows, there are several other geo events looking for a home in 2013 perhaps they may decide to rock up in the UK and sync around our dates? OSM I’m looking at you.

So you want to get involved, of course you do. We will need sponsors, helpers, artists, money, expertise, resources, ideas, papers, t-shirts, beer, more sponsorship, a giant marquee and entertainers for starters. There is room for the all European geocommunity (the people not the event) to participate in making this a success, you can stick your name on the list at the pledge page or if you are a big hitting potential sponsor mail me here

So all together now

“It’s coming home, it’s coming home, FOSS4G is coming home …..” (even though it never lived here)

Get in there!