IslandWood Code Sprint 2012

Gold sponsor:



Silver sponsors:





Bronze sponsors:





Other/in-kind sponsors:

Flaxen Consulting      Z-Pulley

= 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)


 * 5:00pm to 10:00pm - check-in
 * 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)


 * 8:00am - continental breakfast (in meeting room)
 * 8:00am to noon - sprinting
 * noon - boxed lunch (in meeting room)
 * noon to 4:00pm - sprinting
 * 4:00pm to 5:00pm - Sustainable Cooking class (drinks/social hour)
 * 5:00pm to 7:00pm - dinner (IslandWood dining area)

Tuesday (Feb 7th)


 * 8:00am - continental breakfast (in meeting room)
 * 8:00am to noon - sprinting
 * noon - boxed lunch (in meeting room)
 * noon to 5:00pm - sprinting
 * 5:00pm to 7:00pm - dinner (IslandWood dining area)
 * 7:00pm to 8:00pm - evening Nature Walk

Wednesday (Feb 8th)


 * 8:00am - continental breakfast (in meeting room)
 * 8:00am to noon - sprinting
 * noon - boxed lunch (in meeting room)
 * noon to 5:00pm - sprinting
 * 5:00pm to 7:00pm - dinner (IslandWood dining area)
 * 7:15pm to 8:15pm (or later) - evening campfire & guest speaker

Thursday (Feb 9th)
 * 8:00am - continental breakfast (in meeting room)
 * 9:30am - checkout
 * 8:00am to noon - sprinting
 * 11:00am - boxed lunch (in meeting room)
 * 12:00pm - hard stop, meeting room closes
 * departures

= 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)
 * &lt;add your name here!&gt;

= Sponsors =

Please take a moment to thank them for their continued support of the North American codesprint!


 * 1) Airborne Interactive
 * 2) Anonymous CUGOS
 * 3) Azavea
 * 4) Borealis
 * 5) Development Seed
 * 6) LizardTech
 * 7) Mobil Geographics
 * 8) OpenGeo
 * 9) qpublic.net
 * 10) Terra GIS
 * 11) Zonar
 * 12) Z-Pulley
 * 13) Flaxen Consulting

= 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 and Drink =

IslandWood has an excellent on-site restaurant/cafeteria that emphasizes local, sustainable, and organic cuisine. All meals are included as part of the sprint:


 * 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.

Dinner on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday will include a cash bar. Two drink tickets per person will be provided (courtesy our sponsors); after that, it will be $4 for beer and $5 for wine. The beer is from local microbrews and the wines are all from local vineyards.

One mile away, there is a nice restaurant/bar and a Thai restaurant as well.

There are a number of other restaurants and bars elsewhere on the island; ask mpg or Mike Rosen for suggestions.

We cannot bring our own food or alcohol into the meeting areas or dining room. mpg will explain the policy for bringing private alcohol into the common areas at the residence lodges.

= 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:


 * 1) Michael P. Gerlek - Flaxen Consulting
 * 2) Hal Mueller - Mobil Geographics
 * 3) Michael D. Smith - US Army Corps
 * 4) Daniel Morissette - MapGears
 * 5) Alan Boudreault - MapGears
 * 6) Paul Ramsey - OpenGeo
 * 7) Olivier Courtin - Oslandia
 * 8) Mike Rosen - LizardTech
 * 9) Aaron Racicot - Z-Pulley Inc.
 * 10) Howard Butler - Hobu, Inc
 * 11) Dane Springmeyer - Development Seed
 * 12) Pete Gadomski - US Army Corps
 * 13) David Zwarg - Azavea
 * 14) Brian Case (Winkey) - GDAL
 * 15) David Middlecamp - Azavea
 * 16) Kirk McKelvey - LizardTech
 * 17) Thomas Bonfort - TerriScope
 * 18) Greg Corradini - ChopShop Geospatial
 * 19) David Bronaugh - Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium / University of Victoria
 * 20) Benjamin Campbell - Excensus
 * 21) Matt Perry - EcoTrust

= 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. We will have a guest speaker, Greg Geehan, taling about the geology of Bainbridge Island and the Puget Sound: Greg attended the University of Washington and has a Ph.D. in Marine Geology from Scripps Institute of Oceanography. He worked in the oil industry for more than 20 years in a variety of locations around the world. The bulk of his career revolved around the geological evaluation of oil and gas reservoirs. He led research groups and managed the application of mapping and modeling techniques aimed at increasing the recovery of hydrocarbons. Greg retired in 1999, and has lived on Bainbridge since then.''

Other (independent) 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. Three options:


 * a ~$40 cab ride, from airport to dock; takes about 20 minutes
 * a ~$3 light rail from airport, followed by a walk of a few blocks to the dock; takes about an hour
 * rent a car and drive; takes about 20 minutes

(3) From Seattle dock to Bainbridge dock

Take the Seattle/Bainbridge ferry. Ferries leave every hour or less all day long, from about 5AM to about 1AM. 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. The crossing time is about 35 minutes.

(4) From Bainbridge dock to IslandWood

Two options:
 * Cabs are almost always available at the Bainbridge dock -- a trip to IslandWood is about 5 miles, shouldn't be more than about $20. (Note that you will likely be sharing a cab with someone else; the island has a limited number of cabs, so they sort of carpool. Just go with the flow.)
 * If you have your own car, you can drive it in 10-15 minutes. The address for IslandWood is 4450 Blakely Avenue.

''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 &lt;whatever&gt; 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.

= Carpooling =

Sunday (Airport to IslandWood)


 * rides available
 * mpg will be driving from SEA airport after lunch to IslandWood


 * rides wanted
 * Hobu, arriving SEA at 10:30am