INSPIRE conference 2013

Coordination of activities of OSGeo projects at INSPIRE Conference

Links

 * Conference page

Deadlines

 * March 15, 2013 Deadline for submitting paper and workshops proposals (extension given from March 1)
 * March 29 2013 Deadline for submitting poster proposals

Paper proposal
Generic talk about OSGeo projects and their relation to INSPIRE

OSGeo projects and their efforts towards INSPIRE
Jachym Cepicky1, Maria A. Brovelli 2, Margherita Di Leo 3, Angelos Tzotsos 4 add your name5


 * 1) OSGeo Board of directors, Help Service - Remote Sensing, Benesov, Czech Republic,
 * 2) Politecnico di Milano, Campus Como, Italy
 * 3) Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES), Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra (VA), Italy
 * 4) Remote Sensing Laboratory, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
 * 5) add your  affiliation, City, Country

The abstract should not exceed two A4 pages.

The Open Source Geospatial Foundation, or OSGeo, is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to support and promote the collaborative development of open source geospatial software, data and education. The foundation provides organizational, legal and financial support to the broader open source geospatial community. It also serves as an independent legal entity to which community members can contribute code, funding and other resources, secure in the knowledge that their contributions will be maintained for public benefit. OSGeo also serves as an outreach and advocacy organization for the open source geospatial community, and provides a common forum and shared infrastructure for improving cross-project collaboration.

While OSGeo itself does not have any direct relationship to INSPIRE community, members of OSGeo foundation are often deeply involved in the world of the INSPIRE directive. Since the beginning of activities towards INSPIRE, people have been asking questions regarding whether their favorite open source software packages would be able to provide features and capabilities for implementing INSPIRE directive requirements.

Since many members of the OSGeo development teams are located in Europe, and many of them are actively involved in implementing INSPIRE services and geo-portals, there have been many efforts and contributions to OSGeo projects in the direction of adopting the implementation guidelines and the official INSPIRE specifications as those have been evolving through time. With the help of many testers, users and community members, OSGeo projects are offering better INSPIRE support year after year.

This presentation is focused on the introduction of various popular OSGeo projects, which are used for particular tasks within the INSPIRE infrastructure. This presentation will include allied projects as well as projects that are part of the OSGeo ecosystem but did not make it yet to the incubation process for various reasons. A brief account of what happened during the last year of development regarding the INSPIRE directive will be given. A short report of future developments will also be provided, in order to summarize features, which are already agreed in OSGeo communities and which will have direct impact on their usage for INSPIRE.

Keywords: OSGeo, Open Source, MapServer, GeoServer, OpenLayers, deegree, Mapbender, GDAL, GeoNetwork, pycsw, OSGeoLive, NASA World Wind add more here

Workshop proposal
It wouldn't be a classic workshop format but rather a barcamp inside the conference. The aim is to put around a table people from OSGeo and people from INSPIRE, in order to understand each other's world. From the conference website:

''Pre-conference workshops will take place on the 23/24 June. Each workshop or tutorial may be proposed for a single 90-minute session. A typical conference participant may register for up to four 90-minute workshops or tutorials during the workshop day. All workshops and tutorials will be open to all conference participants at no additional cost, however a daily fee will be charged for those attending workshops only.''

Tennis table match: OSGeo vs INSPIRE
Jachym Cepicky1, Maria A. Brovelli 2, Margherita Di Leo 3, Angelos Tzotsos 4, Andrea Aime 5, Paolo Cavallini 6, add your name4


 * 1) OSGeo Board of directors, Help Service - Remote Sensing, Benesov, Czech Republic,
 * 2) Politecnico di Milano, Campus Como, Italy
 * 3) Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES), Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra (VA), Italy
 * 4) Remote Sensing Laboratory, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
 * 5) GeoSolutions, Italy
 * 6) Faunalia, Italy
 * 7) add your  affiliation, City, Country

proposal -- please improve-- 

The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) is a not-for-profit international organization, created in early 2006 to the aim of supporting the collaborative development of geospatial open source software, and promote its widespread use. The foundation provides financial, organizational and legal support to the broader open source geospatial community. It also serves as an independent legal entity to which community members can contribute code, funding and other resources, secure in the knowledge that their contributions will be maintained for public benefit.

OSGeo also serves as an outreach and advocacy organization for the open source geospatial community, and provides a common forum and shared infrastructure for improving cross-project collaboration. The foundation's projects are all freely available and useable under an OSI-certified open source license.

Under its umbrella, OSGeo gathers the main quality geospatial open source applications, available for the full range of geospatial use cases, including storage, publishing, viewing, analysing and manipulating data.

In the first part (60 minutes) of the workshop, of the duration of 90 minutes, a series of short presentations will be given, in which the lead developers of various software communities will position themselves "against" INSPIRE, pointing out the relevant capabilities as well as the issues deriving from the INSPIRE directive implementation. The second part (30 minutes) will be dedicated to the discussion, as a round table between the developers and the members of the INSPIRE Technical Committee. The expected number of active participants (speakers) is 15-20. The main audience is GFOSS developers and users + INSPIRE people.

The following topics will be treated:
 * 1) complexity of INSPIRE technical guidance and OGC standards
 * 2) potential mismatch between INSPIRE specs and national standards
 * 3) optimisation of communication channels on Inspire between OSGeo and INSPIRE
 * 4) setting up a tracking system for INSPIRE implementations
 * 5) setting up wiki pages (multilingual) to make INSPIRE documentation more readable
 * 6) how to test and validate INSPIRE compliancy
 * 7) how to change/simplify INSPIRE technical guidance in practice
 * 8) how to contribute to INSPIRE Maintenance
 * 9) automation of INSPIRE adoption through support in the various software packages
 * 10) how an implicit support for INSPIRE in any kind of software will give a big boost to the adoption of the directive even outside EU

Notes on Workshop Description and Goals
''250 words or less suitable for posting on the web. Please include in the description if the session will involve lecture, hands-on exercises, group exercises, etc., whether any take-home materials will be supplied and indicate whether participants should bring a laptop computer or anything else to the workshop.''


 * Duration 90 minutes
 * Round table (to the aim of smoothing the edges of INSPIRE)
 * Lead developers on one side (various technologies) and members of the INSPIRE Technical Committee on the other
 * 15-20 expected participants
 * 60 minutes of quick presentations (3 minutes / 1 slide each)
 * 30 minutes heated but constructive discussion on the issues raised
 * Possible topics:
 * complexity of INSPIRE technical guidance and OGC standards
 * potential mismatch between INSPIRE specs and national standards
 * optimisation of communication channels on Inspire between OSGeo and INSPIRE
 * setting up a tracking system for INSPIRE implementations
 * setting up wiki pages (multilingual) to make INSPIRE documentation more readable
 * how to test and validate INSPIRE compliancy
 * how to change/simplify INSPIRE technical guidance in practice
 * how to contribute to INSPIRE Maintenance
 * automation of INSPIRE adoption through support in the various software packages

Notes on Intended Audience and any Required Skills or Interests
technicians, managers, policymakers, etc., whether introductory or advanced, what skills if any participants should possess


 * possibly, free of charge for speakers (to be checked if feasible)
 * for OSGEO projects that cannot attend we should gather a couple of slides from each positioning itself "against" INSPIRE
 * main audience: GFOSS developers and users + INSPIRE people: implicit support for INSPIRE in any kind of software will give a big boost to the adoption of the directive; even outside EU

Exploratory meeting
G+ hang out on Thursday 14 March at 4 pm CET

Who is participating

 * Margherita Di Leo
 * Heikki Doeleman (not yet confirmed)
 * Dimitris Kotzinos (interested in helping out with the workshop - cannot make the hangout)
 * Stephan Meissl (planning to join hangout - currently not planning to travel)
 * Angelos Tzotsos (planning to join hangout - currently not planning to travel but interested to contribute text/presentation material/OSGeoLive support)
 * Jachym CEpicky (planning to join hangout - interested in helping out with the workshop)
 * Maria Brovelli
 * Jose Garcia

-- Please add your name here

Additional notes
Exploring the possibility of fee reduction / budget allocation to cover the costs of speakers... (ongoing tentative)