United Kingdom

Mission
The UK local chapter of OSGeo wishes to establish a focal point for developers and users of open source geospatial software within the UK, for networking and advice, and to raise the profile of open source geospatial development within the UK. It wishes to promote open source geospatial software as a viable choice for all types of user. While it has been suggested that a separate local chapter could better serve the particular geographic and logistical requirements of Scotland, the UK chapter wishes to include all regions and countries within the UK and Ireland. If there is significant interest in forming geographically separate chapters, then the UK chapter will promote these sister organisations, assist with formation and growth, and collaborate in the holding of international events.

Objectives


 * To provide a forum for discussion and promotion of Open Source Geospatial Software in the UK, and provide networking opportunities for developers and users
 * To help more UK organisations discover the opportunity of open source geospatial tools, and collate business studies of successful transitions
 * To raise awareness of the benefits of public access to geodata in the UK by collating links to sources of legitimate free data

In addition we would like to work towards the following:
 * A fully-featured open access UK SDI
 * Someday hosting the FOSS4G conference in the UK

Official representative

Joanne Cook Senior IT Support and Development Officer Oxford Archaeology

If the majority of chapter members wish, the post of official representative will be elected on a periodic basis.

Links to Case Studies
Please add any appropriate links here


 * City of Munich move to a completely open source software solution (pdf)
 * Interview with CIO of Oxford Archaeology on the move towards open source
 * Not strictly a Case Study, but a useful discussion on the differences between Open Source Business Models in Europe and the US
 * Actuate Annual Open Source Survey 2008 shows open source is entering the business mainstream in both Europe and the US
 * The British Transport Police are embracing an open source geospatial business model (pdf)

Publicly Available Geodata
In progress- please contact the mailing list if you have any legitimate free sources of geospatial data that you would like to include

Public Geodata for the UK

Also check the CKAN pages for geodata sources- mainly global but some UK. The Open Knowledge Foundation maintains CKAN and is interested in putting more Location in CKAN.

Mailing List
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/uk

Meetings and Events
One really useful role of a UK OSGeo chapter would be as a focal point for organising meetings - evening presentation sessions or short seminars with Q and A afterwards.

Upcoming Events
11th March 2009 The Association for Geographic Information (AGI) Technical Special Interest Group are organising an open source event to be held at the British Antarctic Survey HQ in Cambridge. I assume you have to be a member of the AGI to go, but will ask.

22nd June 2009 Open Source GIS conference. The local chapter are co-organising this event in conjunction with the University of Nottingham Centre for Geospatial Sciences, which is a great chance to find out what's really happening in open source GIS in the UK. See the website for details and get in touch if you want to be involved.

Recent Events
22nd January 2009 British Computing Society Geospatial Specialist Group. Jo talked about OSGeo, and about open source GIS in the UK at the BCS headquarters in London.

29th September - 3rd October 2008: FOSS4G 2008.

24-25th September 2008: AGI Geocommunity 08.

16-17th June 2008: Meetup during the University of Nottingham's Geowebservices workshop.

1st May 2008: UK OSGEO meetup after 1Spatial Conference at Radisson Hotel, Stansted.

8th-10th December 2006: The UK-originated OpenGuides Open Source spatial wiki project meetup and "hackfest" in Oxford - http://dev.openguides.org/wiki/OxfordMeetup2006

 Tuesday September, 26th 2006: Steve Coast of OpenStreetmap fame gave a talk to the BCS entitled Geospatial Open Source Activity. Details at http://geospatial.bcs.org/site/index.php?s=future-events#3

OpenStreetmap also have regular UK mapping parties in different cities

People
Sign up here to show interest! Also join the mailing list so we can be in touch directly.


 * User:Chrisputtick- Yes, definitely worth doing
 * Jo Cook - woohoo!
 * User:Leifuss
 * User:Stuarteve - +1
 * User:JoWalsh
 * User:andyt
 * User:Davidjlock
 * User:Simon - Excellent! All for this!!
 * User:Graeme
 * User:SteveW
 * User::andrewlarcombe
 * User:Gagravarr - involved in OpenGuides and OpenStreetMap in the UK
 * User:Mdgreaney
 * User:Mander - New to all this, but it sounds interesting and I'd like to be involved.
 * User:rollo - sign me up!
 * User:SimonAbele
 * User:Borntopedal
 * User:Jcrone
 * User:AntBeck
 * User:Robert Newnham
 * Suchith Anand
 * User:Bill Wilcox
 * User:JonathanGray
 * User:Amarti
 * Dan Olner: Department at Leeds; blog
 * User:Barryrowlingson
 * User:doublebyte: hi there
 * David Staveley - Archaeological geophysicist, and just starting to get into GIS
 * Matt Walker - Dotted Eyes Ltd.