The OSGeo Foundation: New Initiatives and Challenges

Venkatesh RaghavanOsaka City UniversityOSGeo Foundation

Firstly, an number quiz!

12, 17, 390, 1141, 2004

What do these numbers mean?

2004-2017

FOSS/GRASS User Conference 2004, Bangkok

Jeff, Markus and ?, FOSS4G-Europe 2017, Paris

FOSS4G*: A worldwide phenomenon*since 2004

Now locally brewed in many countries

Events in Japan

will be a teenager next year. Let’s make our teenage yearsas enjoyable and memorable as our childhood!

• OSGeo is a not-for-profit software foundation

• Provides projects financial, organizational and legal support

• OSGeo does outreach and advocacy to promote

• Global adoption of open source geospatial technology

• Partnerships for open approach to standards, data and education

• OSGeo is a community-driven volunteer organization

• Membership from around the world.

Name: OSGeo; Date of Birth: 4 February, 2006; Address: Planet Earth

Empowering everyone with open source geospatial

Thanks to Markus Neteler for the graphics

Foundation

• Working with Industry/Academic/Governments in:

• Open Source: a collaborative approach to software development.

• Open Data: freely available to use as you wish

• Open Standards: interoperability, avoiding vendor lock-in

• Open Education: removing the barriers to learning and teaching

• Open Science: share data & software for reproducible research

OSGeo Status Overview

Open, free membership:

4,886 members registered on wiki, as of 2017_08_01_24

29476 OSGeo mail server unique subscribers 2017_08_01Thanks to for data Jeff McKenna

390 elected charter members: developers, activists, advocates, distribution by year, region andcountry

http://bl.ocks.org/jsanz/raw/779f9b9954b92461fa50/Thanks to Jorge Sanz for the graphics

Website/rebranding

@gwf2017

Tested & mature software for meeting any geospatial need

Try it, Learn it and feel free to use!

Open Source & Proprietary Software

• We use the same language and tools

• We strive to achieve geospatial interoperability

• We Open Data

• Same goal, paths are different

2017 - Conferences17 FOSS4G Industry/Academia/Government supported events

● FOSS4G Asia, January 26-29, 2017

● GFOSS Italy, February 8-11

● FOSGIS Germany, March 22-25

● FOSS4G SE USA (Knoxville, TN) May 19

● FOSS4G Finland, May 23

● OSGeo Irish Local Chapter symposium, May 26

● SIG Libre Spain June 1,2

● FOSS4G-NL Groningen NL, June 28

● FOSS4G-JP Hokkaido - June 30

● FOSS4G Africa June 28 - July 1

● FOSS4G Europe July 18 – 22

● FOSS4G Brazil, 27-29 July

● FOSS4G -2017 August 14-19

● FOSS4G-Korea, August 30 – September 1

● FOSS4G-Tokyo/Osaka September 15-16 and October 15-16

● FOSS4G+SOTM Argentina October 23-28

Source http://www.osgeo.org/event , news and other on-line resources

Industry Sponsors

1Spatial2ndQuadrant

AutodeskBorealis

CamptocampFirst Base

Solutions Inc.INGRES

thinkWhere

ChameleonJohnIGN, FranceINPE, BrazilKarttakeskusLizardTechMetaspatial

Ordnance SurveyPCI GeomaticsWhereGroup

2017

http://www.osgeo.org/sponsorship

Previous Sponsors

Professional Service Providershttp://www.osgeo.org/search_profile A few logos out of many....

Tie-ups with Global & National Organizations

More coming…

United Nations Committee

UN Open GIS Initiative• to identify and develop open source geospatial

software and services that meet the

requirements of UN operations, taking full

advantage of the expertise of mission partners

including partner nations

• technology developed by contributing nations,

international organizations, academia, NGOs,

and private sector.

• kickoff meeting in Brindisi, Italy, March 2016

Working Groups

• Spiral 1 – UN Open Geo-Portal (US DoD and

Boundless)

• Spiral 2 – Capacity Building (GeoForAll)

• Spiral 3 – Geo-Analysis (OpenGDS)

• Spiral 4 – Data Acquisition (OPenGDS)

GeoForAll: co-creation of knowledge through academia-industry collaborations

Establishing research and teaching opportunities in ‘Open Geospatial Science’

Build global open access teaching and research infrastructure

Provide worldwide learning platforms and training opportunities

Establish collaborations between Academia, Government and Industry around Open Geospatial Science and Education

How to JoinVisit http://www.geoforall.org/how_to_join/

121 labs worldwide as of 13 October, 2017

Mentor organization since 2007.Most of mentors from Industry.

GeoForAll Labs: OSGeo outreach project

Teaching open source development to students (between ages 13-17)from around the world

2017 Student Awards

1st place: Hyung-Gyu Ryoo and Soojin Kim, Pusan National University, South Korea,

“Development of an extension of GeoServer for handling 3D spatial data,” Available

at: http://scholarworks.umass.edu/foss4g/vol17/iss1/6

Congratulations, Ryoo & Kim!! Welcome to FOSS4G-Kansai 2017!!

Europe Region Chairs: Maria Brovelli and Peter Mooney

Maillist http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geoforall-europe

North America Region

Chairs: Helena Mitasova, Charles Schweik, Phillip Davis Maillist

http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geoforall-northamerica

South America Region

Chairs: Sergio Acosta y Lara and Silvana Camboim Maillist

http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geoforall-southamerica

Africa Region

Chairs: Rania Elsayed Ibrahim, Serena Coetzee and Bridget Fleming

Maillist http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geoforall-africa

Asia Region (including Australia) Chairs: Tuong Thuy Vu and Venkatesh Raghavan

Maillist http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geoforall-asiaaustralia

Regional Groups

Software

Data

Standard

Hardware

+ + =FR

EE

& O

PE

N

FOSS4G = Free & Open Source Solutions for Geoinformatics

FOSS4G

•Do we need to envision a more amicable

balance between corporate culture and volunteer

driven organization?

•Can our global event be more affordable?

•Can we do more to speed up project incubation?

•How do we track status of graduated projects?

•Why is the OSGeo discuss list so quite?

Some Challenges:

The grammar of the FOSS4G

- FOSS4G as a noun, represents an active entity, driven

by Academic/Industry/Government Collaboration to

exploit the value created by Open Innovation.

- FOSS4G as an adjective, characterizes a technology

development model for geospatial enablement of our

planet and empowerment of citizens.

- FOSS4G(ing) as a verb, denotes the action of making

a smart choice for your Geospatial needs.

Have fun keep Open-Sourcing (verb)!!

• Who “Leads” Government-Academia-Industry collaborationEqual partners on the road to geospatial innovation

• Need for broader community engagementsSprints, publications, certification, internship for students…

• Steps required to change mindset?Increase awareness of Open Source Licenses.

• Open Source can be commercial?Government-Academia-Industry all can gain

• Government-Academia-Industry collaboration success stories?OSGeo Software projects, GeoForAll, UN-OpenGIS, FOSS4G.

Few thoughts

Thank You!