European Network

A page to define a common set of interests between all European Chapters...

= Active Chapters =
 * mailing list
 * url
 * subscribers: #
 * legally recognized or not
 * Brief History
 * Successful realities of Gis-FOSS in the country (es: GRASS development in Trento, IT; gvSIG community in Valencia, OSM in England, ecc.)

mailing list

 * URL
 * number of subscribers: about 140

legally recognized or not
not yet

brief history
Related OSGeo page.

Successful realities of Gis-FOSS

 * GRASSWikiCZ

mailing list
Dutch mailing list

legally recognized or not
not yet

brief history
Related Nederlandse OSGeo page.

Successful realities of Gis-FOSS
OpenSourceGIS.nl

mailing list

 * URL
 * number of subscribers: about 182

legally recognized or not
In September 2007 by OSGeo, French legal association from august 2008.

brief history
Create in 2006 after the Lausanne FOSS4G. This first group communicated about the Francophone Local Chapter to propose to everyone interesting in this local chapter, then we were present to the main french Trade show in april 2007. One of our biggest project is the translation of the OSGeo Journal. Finally our formal proposal has been accepted on September by the OSGeo Board.

Related OSGeo page.

Successful realities of Gis-FOSS

 * CartoWeb et Communauté CartoWeb

German language Chapter (DACH)
DACH: Germany (D), Austria (A), Switzerland (CH)

Mailing List

 * inofficial mailing list
 * number of subscribers: 60, Note: through lot of activities several mailing-lists exist, efforts to bundle them were taken but with less success.
 * the other mailing list
 * number of subscribers: 49, Note: through lot of activities several mailing-lists exist, efforts to bundle them were taken but with as little success. 48 subscribers are probably identical anyway...

Legally Recognized or Not
OSGeo D-A-CH is not yet legally recognized, but discussion about the task is ongoing. GAV e.V. FOSSGIS e.V. is a formal entity in Germany and GAV and OSGeo memberships overlap. Therefore the need to formalize the German language OSGeo Chapter is not high.

Brief History
The DACH-area (German language) is a very active part of the OpenSource-GIS Community. Several companies and projects acting at this field long before the creation of OSGeo. GAV (GRASS-Anwender-Vereinigung e.V.) was founded in 2000 and worked on the support of Free GIS-software and geodata. Projects like http://freegis.org have startet even earlier. The community also has strong support by companies (i.e. WhereGroup, MapMedia, Intevation, in medias res, delphi imm, ..) who organize the annual German language conference FOSSGIS. In 2008, this conference took place in Freiburg (Breisgau) in southern Germany in the hope to attract more people from Switzerland, Austria and France. The profit that was earned from all previous conferences has been sponsored to the GAV and is used to support the work of the OSGeo in DACH. By decision of the charter members, the name of GAV e.V. was changed to FOSSGIS e.V. on 20. Sept 2008 to better reflect the scope or the organization.

Related: OSGeo DACH Wiki page and FOSSGIS e.V. Wiki

Successful realities of Gis-FOSS

 * FreeGIS Portal
 * GAV (GRASS-Anwender-Vereinigung e.V.)
 * FOSSGIS (Annual Conference)

mailing list
not yet

legally recognized or not
not yet

brief history
created in 2007

Related OSGeo page.

mailing list

 * URL
 * number of subscribers: more than 260

legally recognized or not

 * yes, as Associazione Italiana per l'Informazione Geografica Libera GFOSS.it (Geographic Free/Open-Source Software)
 * approved by OSGeo board

brief history
Legally recognized as Italian Association since February 2007, the community has a longer history around GRASS Italian Community and its meetings since year 2000. The mailing list is active since April 2005. Primary efforts are community knowhow, software localization, events organization, FOSS GIS lobbying in general.

Related OSGeo page.

Successful realities of Gis-FOSS

 * GRASS in Trento: http://grass.itc.it
 * JGRASS in Merano: http://www.jgrass.org
 * others: ?!?

brief history
Related OSGeo page.

Successful realities of Gis-FOSS

 * http://geo-spatial.org/

mailing list

 * URL
 * number of subscribers: more than 160 (Oct 17, 2007)

legally recognized or not
no

brief history
Start from Girona March 2007, mailing list, OSGeo portal translation, Libro SiG.

Related OSGeo page.

Successful realities of Gis-FOSS

 * gvSIG: ...
 * Sextante: ...
 * Libro SIG

mailing list

 * mailing list

brief history
Related OSGeo page.