Borealis Report 2008

On the code side, 2008 was quite an active one for us. First, we plunged head first in the Openlayers world in a bid to replace our current web mapping platform. Our "UI" forays led us into using MapFish and now GeoExt (well, we're following that project for now) and we plan to release a JavaScript web mapping engine for our information system soon. Borealis has been using MapServer and PostGIS for a few years now, but 2008 was also an opportunity for us to experiment with other pieces of very interesting software like GeoServer, FeatureServer and MapFish Server.

On the community side, Borealis became an OSGeo Associate Sponsor in 2008 and we were thrilled enough by that move that we went on to help create the Québec local chapter of OSGeo, which was officially launched late in 2008. We organized the second OSGeo-qc informal "beer and talk" meeting in Magog, our corporate home, and it was a big success. Another informal OSGeo-qc meeting was organized in Trois-Rivières in March 2009 and it looks like OSGeo-qc will be thriving in the coming months, something we're quite happy about.

For the third consecutive year, Borealis attended the FOSS4G conference in 2008. For the first time though we had a commercial booth. As a provider of geospatial data management and integration services to the mining, oil & gas and energy industries, we found the booth handy as a meeting place with the many interested parties we met in Cape Town. Our roots in the FOSS geospatial community are now deep enough that we feel we are ready for a more tangible commitment to the community. We are considering giving a presentation at FOSS4G 2009 and maybe even some code we're cooking will find its way back into some of the OSGeo projects. We're looking forward to continuing our commitment to OSGeo and help provide geospatial FOSS solutions that meet the highest expectations.