Library

Welcome to the Library!

This is the scaffolding for OSGeo's CC-based Reading Room.

The documents referenced herein can be found here

Contents

• Holmes_2005a - "Open Source for Spatial Data Infrastructures", by Chris Holmes; focus on Africa, GIS; 18 slides [remix: yes] [format: PPT, ODP]

• Holmes_2005b - "Concept Demonstration: Implementing GEOSS Architecture using Open Standards and Open Source Software / Open Source for Spatial Data Infrastructures", by Chris Holmes; “The User and GEOSS Architecture” Workshop, 30 Oct. 2005; 25 slides [remix: yes] [format: PPT, ODP]

• Holmes_2005c - "What Spatial Data Infrastructures can learn from Open Source", by Chris Holmes. "The emergence of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) products and soutions is becoming a key factor, especially in emerging economies, in determining how and who should build Information Infrastructures such as SDI. We consider initial software costs for creating an SDI as tending toward zero regardless of whether the FOSS or proprietary option is taken, with the long-term advantages offered by FOSS matterializing as increased sustainability, independence, stakeholder buy-in, and adaptation within an ever-changing IT environment [...]" 22 pages [remix: yes] [format: DOC, ODT]

• Holmes_2005d - "Towards a Free and Open Source Spatial Data Infrastructure", by Chris Holmes, Allan Doyle, Mick Wilson; from GSDI-8, 2005; 9 pages [remix: yes] [format: PDF]

• Holmes_2006a - "Return on investment of Open Source Software / An Ever-increasing Return on Investment", by Chris Holmes; from Location Intelligence 2006; 5 slides [remix: yes] [format: PPT, ODP]

• Mitchell_2005 - Presentation by Tyler Mitchell for Where 2.0 (San Francisco, 2005), called "Open Source Geo Tools". It introduces a handful of open source GIS tools/APIs. The first couple slides show some (pseudo-animated) architecture ideas. The rest of the slides were simply prompts and visual cues for the talk (no text or outline points). [remix: yes] [format: PPT, ODP]

• Raghavan_2006 - "Present Status of Free and Open Source Web GIS", by Venkatesh Raghavan, March 2006; 25 slides [remix: yes] [format: ODP]

• Ticheler_2005 - FOSS and OpenSDI - A presentation on Free and Open Source Software in the context of an OpenSDI (Open Source based Spatial Data Infrastructure). The presentation uses the LEGO® Metaphor as used in “Towards a Free and Open Source Spatial Data Infrastructure.” (C. Holmes et al, 2005); 36 slides [remix: yes] [format: PPT]

• Walsh_2006 - Response to the Geospatial Line of Business RFI, by Jo Walsh et al, May 2006; 8 pages [remix: yes] [format: DOC]

Rough Goals and Groundrules

(taken from the CFP, sent by mpg on 2 May 2006)

The following is sort of an experiment, so please bear with me.

Your Visibility Committee is setting up a "library" of content related to OSGeo activities, and we would like you to contribute. We know that there is a lot of very good content out there -- and so our idea is to be able to collect a number of presentations, talks, etc, under terms of a CC-like license so that other OSGeo members can use them in order to create/derive/remix/mashup their own custom presentations, talks, etc.

The sort of content we are looking for includes, but is not limited to:

• papers
• slide presentations
• web-based presentations (e.g. for tutorials)
• podcasts
• ...?

The topics we are looking to cover include anything that touches on OSGeo, e.g. the intersection of Open Source and GIS:

• overviews of what our Foundation is and does
• why open source is good, in the GIS world
• surveys of open source geo packages
• presentations on specific OSGeo member projects
• etc

As we intend this to be a "permanent" library, higher quality material is preferred over random wiki pages of notes and scribblings. That said, if all I can get is a bunch of outlines for talks written up in ASCII, I'd be happy with that. If in doubt, go ahead and submit it.

We're going to see how it goes and what happens, but for now the groundrules will be:

• The actual "library" will live on the OSGeo site as a simple Wiki page with summaries and links. I would prefer to host the actual content at osgeo.org -- if you can't abide by that, you can send me a link and I'll use that.

• For now, unless otherwise indicated, if you submit material I will assume you consent to a "free-to-remix-this-content-as-long-as-you-give-me-credit" policy. (I'm sure there's a formal CC term for this, but I need to do the research on that.)

• I'm not going to fight any file format wars at this point: whatever format is submitted will be what we use, at least for now. PowerPoint,PDF, LaTex, troff, HyperCard, whatever.

• Languages other than English are encouraged! (although you'll need to give me a short one-sentence summary in English of what the content is about...)

• Also, I think we should exclude from this CFP any material that is more "course-work" oriented, as that falls under the purview of the Educationand Curriculum Committee.)

For now I'm just focused on getting a critical mass of content to launch this, but if you have any suggestions for how to organize and host this material later on, I'd be happy to hear them.

Thanks in advance for your contributions!