GeoTools Report 2007

= Project Name =
 * Period covered by report: Jan-Dec 2007
 * Contact name: [User:Jive]

Key Accomplishments

 * An amazing amount of software at FOSS4G was built around the GeoTools library; we were very happy with the community presence at this event
 * We had a 3 day long code sprint after FOSS4G in which we switched over to Java 5 an the GeoAPI feature model. This is the end of a three years of development, months of careful planning and review prior to the even allowed this change to go smoothly.
 * Adrian Custer performed an exhaustive check into what is needed to assign copyright to the OSGeo Foundation, this has allowed us to resume discussions with the OSGeo board.
 * Jody Garnett has started putting together a user guide for the library
 * The introduction of an unsupported directly has revitalized the community; allowing us to capture and share a lot of research work traditionally has been done around the GeoTools library. As an example Eclisia has started making swing widgets around the GeoTools abstractions; something each group of developers has traditionally done in isolation.

Areas for Improvement

 * We made no progress on incubation during the year as we waited for a way forward; this seems to be resolved for 2008
 * We have no time to talk to other Java developer communities, there is a lot of code duplication in this space (and several forks of the GeoTools code)
 * The burden of keeping a build box going for such an active community is punishing
 * Svn access has had bouts of downtown; we are clearning up the repository (of large test data) and considering moving to a newer version of svn on OSGeo hardware. Developers have started playing with distributed version control.
 * There are more answers going by on the user list than are being captured in the user guide; additional help jotting down code examples would be welcome

Opportunities to Help
List areas that could use some help from members and readers of the report:
 * Please try out the User Guide and give us feedback; we want to make sure the you can start hacking

Outlook for 2008
This is the motivational part that is meant to inspire readers to keep their eyes open for great stuff in 2008 :)

GeoTools is looking forward to making 2008 the best year yet. There is lots of exciting development now underway - from embracing Java 5, to rolling our WFS 1.1 support. 2008 will see the long expected return of swing widgets to the GeoTools library.

GeoTools 2.4.0 is available now and marks the last Java 1.4 release of the library.