IslandWood Code Sprint 2012
Gold sponsor:
Silver sponsors:
Bronze sponsors:
Other/in-kind sponsors:
Flaxen Consulting Z-Pulley SoundGIS
Purpose
This is OSGeo's 4th annual "North American Codesprint" -- a time to bring members of OSGeo-related projects together to make decisions and tackle larger problems.
Previous event have been held in Toronto (2009), New York City (2010), and Montreal (2011).
Agenda
Sunday (Feb 5th)
- 5pm to 10pm: check-in between
- if you plan to arrive earlier than 5pm or later than 10pm, contact mpg to make arrangements
- no meals at IslandWood will be available Sunday night; we will informally arrange to get some pizzas or something as needed
Monday (Feb 6th)
- continental breakfast (in meeting room)
- sprinting
- boxed lunch (in meeting room)
- sprinting
- 5pm: Sustainable Cooking class (drinks/social hour)
- dinner (IslandWood dining area)
Tuesday (Feb 7th)
- continental breakfast (in meeting room)
- sprinting
- boxed lunch (in meeting room)
- sprinting
- dinner (IslandWood dining area)
- evening Nature Walk
Wednesday (Feb 8th)
- continental breakfast (in meeting room)
- sprinting
- boxed lunch (in meeting room)
- sprinting
- dinner (IslandWood dining area)
- evening campfire
Thursday (Feb 9th)
- continental breakfast (in meeting room)
- 9:30am: checkout
- sprinting
- boxed lunch (in meeting room)
Venue
It will be held at IslandWood, a nonprofit retreat center located on Bainbridge Island, an island a few miles west of Seattle in the northwest United States.
Hosts
Rushing in where angels fear to tread, Michael P. Gerlek (mpg) is taking the lead on this event. CUGOS, the local OSGeo chapter, is the hosting organization.
Local volunteers assisting include:
- Michael Rosen (LizardTech / CUGOS)
- Aaron Racicot (Z-Pulley Inc / CUGOS)
- <add your name here!>
Sponsors
Our sponsors for this event are listed at the top of the page. Please take a moment to thank them for their continued support of the North American codesprint!
Budget
Expected costs include:
- facilities rental (conference rooms, etc)
- lodging (on-campus rooms)
- meals
We expect to cover costs in three ways:
- sponsorships
- participant registration fees
- surplus from previous years (approximately $2K)
Registration, Participant Costs
Participants cover only the costs of 4 nights lodging (single room at IslandWood): US$525.
There is no registration fee beyond the $525 for lodging.
All food and venue costs are covered by our sponsors.
Participants will be responsible for paying their own transportation to and from IslandWood.
Contact mpg@flaxen.com to register.
Food
IslandWood has an excellent on-site restaurant/cafeteria that emphasizes local, sustainable, and organic cuisine.
- Breakfast: continental style
- Lunch: boxed lunches
- Dinner: full meal, choice of entrees, beer/wine available
- Morning and Afternoon Snacks: coffee, fruit, cookies, etc, will be provided in the meeting room
Accommodation can be made for any dietary restrictions, just let mpg know.
Communication
All planning will take place on this wiki, on the tosprint mailing list, and on the #tosprint IRC channel.
Projects
These are the projects will be working on:
- GDAL
- MapServer
- libLAS/PDAL
- PostGIS
- TinyOWS
- QGIS
- OpenLayers
Participants
The following have registered for the event:
- Michael P. Gerlek - Flaxen Consulting
- Hal Mueller - Mobil Geographics
- Michael D. Smith - US Army Corps
- Daniel Morissette - MapGears
- Alan Boudreault - MapGears
- Paul Ramsey - OpenGeo
- Olivier Courtin - Oslandia
- Mike Rosen - LizardTech
- Aaron Racicot - Z-Pulley Inc.
- Howard Butler - Hobu, Inc
- Dane Springmeyer - Development Seed
- Pete Gadomski - US Army Corps
- David Zwarg - Azavea
- Brian Case (Winkey) - GDAL
- David Middlecamp - Azavea
- Kirk McKelvey - LizardTech
- Thomas Bonfort - TerriScope
- Greg Corradini - ChopShop Geospatial
- (open)
- (open)
- (open)
Agenda
Still tentative, something like this:
Sunday
- arrival throughout the day
- perhaps dinner provided
Monday
- continental breakfast
- sprint all morning
- boxed lunch
- sprint all afternoon
- group sit-down dinner
- evening open/social time at the lodges
Tuesday
- continental breakfast
- sprint all morning
- boxed lunch
- sprint all afternoon
- group sit-down dinner
- evening open/social time at the lodges
Wednesday
- continental breakfast
- sprint all morning
- boxed lunch
- sprint all afternoon
- group sit-down dinner
- evening open/social time at the lodges
Thursday
- departures throughout the day
- continental breakfast
- perhaps lunch provided
Wholesome Recreational Activities
Our host, IslandWood, is a non-profit educational institution dedicated to the environment and sustainable living. As part of their mission, therefore, they require their guest groups to each day participate in educational activity designed around their focus areas.
Our formal activities will be:
Monday - "With the bounty of the IslandWood garden as our inspiration, groups will take sustainability theory and turn it in to practice with the help of our talented culinary team. Cooking sessions may be held in our organic garden, using our wood fired cob oven or in the dining hall." This will be held just prior to dinner, as we will likely be making (and eating) our own appetizers. The cash bar will be open during this event.
Tuesday - "Our Naturalists will lead your group through campus focusing on exploration and discovery of our local ecosystems. Themes for hikes might include flora and fauna, natural history, birding or marine biology." This will be held after dinner. Dress appropriately.
Wednesday - "The best days at IslandWood often end with time to relax and enjoy the soothing warmth of an evening bonfire. At our covered bonfire area, educators and staff will entertain your group with local stories and roast marshmallows over the flames." This will be held after dinner. Dress appropriately.
Other adventures:
- IslandWood covers 225 acres and has lots of trails, including wetlands, beach access, forest, etc. Feelfree to explore.
- There is a very small, funky little shopping center down the hill from IslandWood (it is only a 1 mile walk, but there is a significant hill). It includes a casual restaurant and bar, art-house movie theatre, Thai restaurant, and a small grocery store.
- If you have a car, there are lots of other places on Bainbridge Island to explore. Ask mpg or Mike Rosen for suggestions.
Transportation
Getting to IslandWood is a 4-step process -- but don't panic, it's actually not as complicated as it sounds:
(1) To SeaTac Airport
Participants will be responsible for getting themselves to the Seattle airport.
(2) From Airport to Seattle Ferry dock
From SeaTac, you will need to get to the Colman ferry dock in downtown Seattle. Two options:
- a ~$40 cab ride, from airport to dock
- a ~$3 light rail from airport, followed by a walk of a few blocks to the dock
(3) From Seattle dock to Bainbridge dock
Take the Seattle/Bainbridge ferry. Ferries leave every hour or less all day long, except between about 1AM and 5AM. The walk-on fare is about $7, and you only pay when going in the Seattle-to-Bainbridge direction. Car fare is about $15, and you have to pay both ways.
(4) From Bainbridge dock to IslandWood
Cabs are almost always available at the Bainbridge dock -- a trip to IslandWood is about 10 miles, should be ~$15 or so. (Note that you will likely be sharing a cab with someone else; the island has a limited number of cabs, so they carpool. Just go with the flow.)
There will be some people driving from the airport to IslandWood on Sunday afternoon / early evening. Contact mpg if you want a ride. We'll probably work out something similar for the return trip on Thursday afternoon.
(see also this page for more transportation hints)
If you get stuck somewhere, call or email mpg and we'll work something out to rescue you.
FAQ
Q: I'm new to open source and OSGeo. Can I come too?
This is a heads-down-and-laptops-open working meeting, aimed squarely at writing code/documentation and holding serious technical discussions about OSGeo-related projects. It is a working session for people who are already participants in open source projects. If you're not already participating in one of the projects being worked on, this isn't the event for you. Q: But, that's not very fair. How am I supposed to learn about the projects and meet people?
Each project has portals like mailing lists, wikis, and IRC channels for you to start to meet people and get involved. If you really want to participate in the sprint, you should get involved with the project ahead of time.
Q: Will it be possible to give a presentation during this event?
No, this is not a presentation-oriented event. People will get together in small groups and work on areas of mutual interest within their projects.
Q: I'm just a poor student, but I'm an active member of the <whatever> project and I really want to attend. Are scholarships available?
Maybe -- depends on how our budget turns out. Contact mpg@flaxen.com and we'll see what we can do.