Geospatial Integration Showcase

The Geospatial Integration Showcase is a practical demonstration of Application and Data Interoperability which underpins FOSS4G presentations and workshops and provides a platform for future initiatives, including:
 * An GeoFOSS demo CD (often called Live CD)
 * Spatial Data Infrastructures
 * Testing suite programs
 * Open Data programs
 * Future conferences
 * Mashups and Boot Camps
 * Application selection decision trees (a tool for System Architects)

The Integration Showcase is the sum of many long term integration projects and is structured to be significantly bigger than a one event demonstrator and all participants are strongly encouraged to think long term.

= Direct FOSS4G goals = FOSS4G's reputation as the international gathering of the Geospatial Open Source tribes, along with its high profile show casing of Open Geospatial systems makes it an ideal forum for users and developers to build then launch long lasting geospatial initiatives.

The showcase direct goals are:
 * To demonstrate interoperability between the full stack of Open Source and Proprietary Geospatial applications.
 * To provide cross-application testing and comparison.
 * To provide baseline applications to underpin FOSS4G & OSGeo presentations and workshops.
 * To facilitate development of Spatial Data Infrastructures.
 * To provide a catalyst to encourage data custodians to publish their data into the Spatial Data Infrastructure & facilitate mashup applications.
 * To simplify deployment and use of Geospatial Data, in particular by supporting GeoFOSS integration into software distributions.

=Showcase themes=

Application Integration
Application Integration is one of the most important themes of the showcase, from the perspective of FOSS4G 2009 at least. This is an opportunity for the community to show off the interoperability capabilities of the various products. This will allow product vendors, whether open source or proprietary, to come to the conference and show their products connecting to the FOSS4G stack. Presentations and workshops can leverage the showcase to access a wide variety of services and data.

GeoFOSS Packaging
Incorporate GeoFOSS in Windows and Linux distributions and stand alone CDs to ease GeoFOSS installation, and provide outreach through live CDs.

Refer to: OSGeo Distribution Special Interest Groups.

Open Data
License variety is not considered a theme for the Integration Showcase; the data served by the showcase will be open licensed, allowing participants to connect to the showcase infrastructure and have full freedom to leverage the available data for any demonstrations, mashups or testing they see fit. This also provides data maintainers an opportunity to publish their data to a robust and versatile infrastructure, and see what uses the industry will find for it.

Workshops
=Why get involved?=

What's in it for Projects?

 * The Showcase is an excellent avenue to show off projects and engage future sponsors.
 * Activities in testing and comparison threads will provide feed back into product testing suites which will improve the products.
 * Cross project integration will help make the Open Source Stack easier to use, make it more attractive, and consequently will engage more users and sponsors.

What's in it for Data Custodians?
For Data Custodians to be sponsored to publish data, they need to describe the data's public value, which in turn is dependent upon developers finding and using the data.

FOSS4G will provide a "Mashup Boot Camp" where hackers are encouraged to showcase and build mashups using Open Data and Open Source tools. This provides an excellent avenue for custodians to publicise datasets.

FOSS4G will be an effective catalyst for many data custodians to engage management sponsorship and commit to a specific deadline.

What's in it for SDI Sponsors?

 * FOSS4G provides an focal point data custodians can use to facilitate bring data online.
 * The showcase is a mini Spatial Data Infrastructure, and hence brings force to bear on key SDI issues like:
 * Robustness
 * Integration

What is in it for FOSS4G

 * A baseline distribution of GeoFOSS software will make it much easier for presenters, and hence ensure a more polished conference.
 * The showcase will be a significant drawcard for delegates and sponsors. Sponsors will have the opportunity to show off their wares, showcase participants will want to present their efforts, users will be very interested to listen and talk to showcase builders.

What is in it for FOSS4G Presenters?
The FOSS4G Audience will be interested to hear details about the various aspects of the Integration Showcase. It will also be powerful to sum up a presentation with "Now go and try it out on the Integration Showcase CD".