European GIS Code Sprint

European Code Sprint 2007 is Over - A summary
Back to our offices, back to work, back from Merano. I have a good feeling even if I spent more time in trying to organize than in coding great things.

Thanks to everyone attending the sprint, directly or indirectly:
 * to Geoserver with Andrea Aime (Openplans), Daniele Romagnoli (GeoSolutions) for making the web talk strange formats.
 * to GRASS with Markus Neteler, Martin Landa, Christina Moretto (all from Fondazione Bruno Kessler) for talking about missing earth curvatures in r.los, for reading together at least the first 20 bytes of the GRASS vector header (what about topology? :)) and for all the advices.
 * to JGrass/UDig with Silvia Franceschi, Andrea Antonello (HydroloGIS), Christian Tiso (Ingterritorio), Erica Ghesla (Universita' di Trento), Mauro Giavazzi (Universita' di Urbino), because they were the most present and for some reason almost all ended up to work on GRASS :)
 * to Mapbender with Peter Hopfgartner, Paolo Viskanic (R3-GIS) for teaching us every time a step more of the open source market.
 * to the Openstreetmap crew through Mikel Maron for the mapping party and the fun.
 * to Tobias Vigl for being friend, translating GRASS messages, and helper in all this.
 * to Fabrizio for getting the network done in time for the kick-off.
 * to Luciana and Giancarlo Antonello for the excellent cakes and pizza.

People seem to have liked the sprint. It has been important to meet for the first time for some of them and for others to just meet again. Even if we were not so many, nice pieces of work have been done or at least started:

* Geoserver: integration of MrSID and ECW into Geoserver through GDAL (Andrea Aime, Daniele Romagnioli) * GRASS GIS: o r.los: implementation of Earth curvature (Andrea Antonello) o r.out.gdal: finally write correct GeoTIFF color tables without user effort (Markus Neteler) o Releases: + GRASS 6.3.0RC2 released which includes native Windows support (Markus Neteler) + preparation of GRASS 6.2.3 release (Markus Neteler) o GRASS2SVN migration preparation (Martin Landa) o GRASS messages translation to Italian (Tobias Vigl) * JGrass: design of new Web page of www.jgrass.org (Christian Tiso, Erica Ghesla) * winGRASS: test compilation of winGRASS 6.3.0.RC2 (Mauro Giavazzi) * OSM: integration of the Merano dataset created during Sunday's mapping party (Mikel Maron)

I'm already looking forward to next years GIS code sprint, to which I will love to attend and code like hell... so hands up for next years' organizers :)

We took some pictures of the code you can find them here

European Code Sprint
This event is planned as European follow-up of the Canadian FOSS4G2007 CodeSprint in September. After the great cooperation at the FOSS4G Sprint in Canada, and the interest shown in a European followup, the Sprint will be held. It is thought for those who for whatever reason did miss the Canadian sprint, but also for those who started something in Canada and need to meet again once more after a few months.

Dates

 * 16-17 Nov 2007: South Tyrol Free Software Conference 2007
 * 18 Nov 2007 (Sunday): Outdoor GIS data collection for Free data set
 * 19-20 Nov 2007: GIS Code Sprint

Currently ongoing: 19 Nov 2007

 * Geoserver: integration of MrSID and ECW into Geoserver through GDAL (Andrea Aime, Daniele Romagnioli)
 * GRASS: investigating r.los enhancements (Peter Hopfgartner, Paolo Viskanic)
 * JGrass: design of new Web page of www.jgrass.org (Christian Tiso, Erica Ghesla)
 * GRASS: preparation of GRASS 6.2.3 release (Markus Neteler)
 * GRASS: Vector lib API review (Martin Landa, Andrea Antonello) for JGrass integrationn
 * winGRASS: test compilation of winGRASS 6.3.0.RC2 (Mauro Giavazzi)
 * OSM: integration of the Merano dataset created during Sunday's mapping party (Mikel Maron)
 * some more...

Currently ongoing: 20 Nov 2007
(excellent catering here :-) )


 * Geoserver: integration of MrSID and ECW into Geoserver through GDAL (Andrea Aime, Daniele Romagnioli)
 * GRASS GIS:
 * r.los: implementation of Earth curvature (Andrea Antonello)
 * r.out.gdal: write correct GeoTIFF color tables without user effort (Markus Neteler)
 * Releases:
 * GRASS 6.3.0RC2 released (Markus Neteler)
 * preparation of GRASS 6.2.3 release (Markus Neteler)
 * GRASS2SVN migration preparation (Martin Landa)
 * GRASS messages translation to Italian (Tobias Vigl)
 * and more...

Whom to contact for doubts, questions, ideas, volunteering

 * Andrea Antonello

(add yourself here if you would like to help)

Code Sprint - what's that?
(The following is taken from the page describing the planned Canadian Code Sprint at Foss4G2007.)

A code sprint is usually organized by a group that is using an open source project and wants to see something done. They get the developers to a single location and feed them for a couple of days with the necessities of the hacking life (internet, caffeine, electricity). The communication that happens from face to face hacking usually lasts the project for a year or more. You see this a lot in projects like Drupal etc...

Is this your First Sprint? Here is some background information to get you started:


 * http://www.infrae.com/about/activities/sprintathon/tips
 * http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/python/2006/10/19/running-a-sprint.html
 * Example Sprint (from same people who do GeoServer): http://www.openplans.org/projects/bbq-sprint

To participate, start a section at the bottom of your page for your project.

Who should attend

 * Developers that need to meet the community and discuss issues about a particular project.
 * Developers that have the feeling that knowing the different projects communities gives added value and often saves from doing things twice
 * Power users that are able to contribute documentation, decend bug descriptions and perhaps even help to fix minor issues.
 * Web experts that want to contribute to their favorite projects by helping to set up the web page.

Aims of the SFScon 2007 Code Sprint
For developers:
 * bring different projects to know each other and build up some standard interaction
 * let the teams of each project meet, discuss, design and code together fulltime and non-remotely for a few days (this often pushes projects more than months of email and IRC working)
 * bugfixing

For Power Users:
 * the possibility to meet the developer community and help (and be helped) with documentation and translation
 * the possibility to propose important bugfixes (prior documented and reproducible, only power user accepted)

For everyone out there:
 * Collaborate on the creation of a free dataset by wandering in an ordered way through a defined region with GPS. The dataset should contain as many data as possible, as for example the OSGeo NC dataset of the grassbook does. Moreover climatic and hydrologic/hydraulic data should be integrated in order to support different analyses.

Where is it?
The code sprint will be organized as a post-event of the South Tyrol Free Software Conference 2007 held in Merano (BZ), Italy.
 * SFScon location and GIS Code Sprint location is in Merano, at the "Franz Kafka High school, and can be found here.
 * Beginning: 9.00 on Monday

How to get there?
For trains and planes to get to the sprint please follow this: how to reach Merano

Registration and Accommodations
The registration process for the GIS Sprint has started. If you plan to participate at the Event please fill out the registration form, even if you don't want to take advantage of one of our versatile accommodation packages.

Registering yourself helps us to improve the course of the event.

Here is the link to the SFSCon site, where you can follow the links to the registration form: registration link

Alternative accomodation at Meran (relatively cheap): http://www.kolping.it/meran/en/preise.php

Who will organise the sprint
The Free Software Center of Bolzano, Italy, will take care of the organisative part of the event and investigate sponsorings for some parts of the free dataset.

The OSM datacollection event
As you can see on the OSM wiki, the data collection will be held. Thanks to the OSM guys for their support in this.

Activities:
 * mapping outside to gather an environmental dataset usable for simulations and analyses
 * since the town of Merano will free its data to the OSM community, we will try to get some of the layers into osm

Attending people
'''This list is by no means definitive. People interested in particular projects should contact the project leads below, in order to be sure that they will be present.'''

Projects without lead were crossed. To re-activate them, add yourself.


 * Andrea Antonello
 * Markus Neteler
 * Arnulf Christl
 * Jo Walsh
 * Mateusz Loskot
 * Maurizio Napolitano
 * Lorenzo Becchi
 * Silvia Franceschi
 * Paolo Viskanic
 * Peter Hopfgartner
 * Christian Tiso
 * Paolo Cavallini
 * Martin Landa
 * Adrian Custer
 * Milo van der Linden - The Netherlands
 * Fran Peñarrubia (Sorry, I can't)
 * Stefan Steiniger (seems to be difficult for me too)
 * Simone Giannecchini (probably only a day of the code sprint)
 * Andrea Aime
 * Schuyler Erle
 * Gabriel Roldan

We feel that there is a huge need for a developer meeting that could bring together different projects, that really need to interact if they want to have a glorious future.

What do I need for the sprint? - wishlist
Please add useful ideas for things that we might miss during the organisation:


 * flipcharts
 * a good and stable internet connection
 * enough network cables
 * enough extension cords
 * some way to do good remote participation (any idea? IRC will be there)

Virtual participation via IRC etc.
Too far away? Get virtually connected through IRC (#osgeo)! No IRC client software or strange firewall? Use the Web based IRC client (choose your Nickname and the #osgeo channel).

Projects attending the sprint plus involved people
Projects without lead were crossed. To re-activate them, add yourself.

Goals
Start the project to create a website/repository for gis-scripts used with the gfoss software (GRASS, Qgis, gvSIG, GDAL, uDIG ...)

A collaborative tool where anyone can: For example look | userscripts.org
 * upload scripts
 * download scripts
 * use tags descriptions
 * search
 * comment
 * vote
 * have API

Attending

 * Maurizio Napolitano

Attending

 * Mateusz Loskot
 * Simone Giannecchini I have got a ouple of question on Java SWIG bindings

Goals

 * speed up GRASS/GDAL plugin

GRASS

 * Markus Neteler
 * Martin Landa
 * Brad Douglas Attending via IRC #grass

Goals

 * release GRASS 6.2.3
 * populate GRASS 7 SVN at OSGeo with content
 * get rid of annoying bugs from bug tracker
 * work with JGrass/uDig on GRASS Vector integration
 * speed up GRASS/GDAL plugin
 * continue Italian/whatever translation of software
 * work on wxPython GUI
 * finish lib/gmath linear algebra updates

Attending

 * Fran Peñarrubia (Sorry, I can't assist. Maybe some other from the team can go. I will ask and let you know) :-(

Goals

 * Driver to connect with GRASS vectorial data?
 * Cooperation with JGrass?.
 * Develop some useful examples to start working with gvSIG.

Attending

 * Andrea Antonello
 * Silvia Franceschi
 * Christian Tiso
 * Adrian Custer
 * Simone Giannecchini
 * Martin Landa
 * Emanuele Lattanzi
 * Mauro Giavazzi

MAPBENDER
Mapbender currently is mainly driven by German developers and use cases from the public administration. Participation in this event is an attempt to broaden interest at a European level as there is a lot of potential in the Mapbender project to solve issues raised by INSPIRE.

Attending
''This is a preliminary set of participants who might be able to attend. Please add yourself.''
 * User:Arnulf Christl
 * Paolo Viskanic
 * Peter Hopfgartner

Goals
This is a preliminary set of ideas, one or two of them might have a chance to get acted upon.
 * plan to set out on a RESTful path
 * further develop i18n activities (which has been spawned in the region that this development sprint is planned to happen)
 * use Mapbender as a web based configuration tool for OpenLayers

Attending

 * Stefan Steiniger - as it will be to difficult for me to come down from Berlin on Sunday/Monday I have decided not to join for now. (but I may show up...)

Goals

 * not yet specified

Attending

 * Schuyler Erle

Goals
The inexorable march to OpenLayers 2.6?

Goals

 * get rid of annoying bugs from bug tracker