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52North: New Open Source Geospatial Initiative

posted by Satri on Wednesday October 11, @10:53AM        Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
from the how-obscure-press-release-can-be dept.

Here's a part of the press release: Ann Hitchcock writes "[...] 52°North is an open initiative that strives to advance the development of cutting edge open source geospatial software. The initial focii of the open source technology development are Sensor Web Enablement (SWE), Web Security and Digital Rights Management (DRM). The members anticipate that other streams of work will open up according to community direction. [...]" You can read the full press release below. Now, can anyone tell me if there is a relation between this initiave and the Open Source Geospatial Foundation?

Full press release: Ann Hitchcock writes "Muenster, Germany—On September 21, 2006, representatives from con terra GmbH, Westfaelische Wilhelms Universitaet, the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) and Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI), established the 52°North Initiative for Geospatial Open Source Software GmbH in Muenster, Germany.

52°North is an open initiative that strives to advance the development of cutting edge open source geospatial software. The initial focii of the open source technology development are Sensor Web Enablement (SWE), Web Security and Digital Rights Management (DRM). The members anticipate that other streams of work will open up according to community direction.

“52°North was created to act as an innovative node within the global open source network,” said Prof. Ulrich Streit of the Institute for Geoinformatics, University of Muenster. “We hope that 52°N will attract leading research organizations and individuals in the GIS field to participate in the development of open source innovations and the transformation of these into practical technological solutions.”

52°North is open to anyone who would like to participate. 52°North products will be published as open source under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and for commercial use via a dual licensing model.

The foundation of the 52°North Initiative for Geospatial Open Source Software GmbH was a logical step in order to ensure the sustainability of all partners’ open source activities, to create legal security for developers and users of 52°North software, and to support the initiative organizationally and financially. Although it is a company limited by shares (GmbH), it acts as a non-profit organization. The company’s annual surplus may only be invested in the promotion of science and research, education and training in the field of geoinformatics, the promotion of mutual transfer of knowledge between research and practical application, and the improvement of the availability of geoinformation technology and technology competence in developing and transformation countries. The shareholders receive no profit shares nor other payments from company funds.

To join the 52°North Initiative as a as partner or developer please contact:

52°North Initiative for Geospatial Open Source Software GmbH
Martin-Luther-King-Weg 24
48155 Muenster, Germany
tel: +49 (0)251 – 4747 520
fax: +49 (0)251 – 4747 530
info@52north.org
www.52north.org"

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Open Source Software Components from 52 North [+]

Ann Hitchcock writes "52°North publishes first stable releases - Quality assurance makes the difference! 52°North (http://www.52north.org/ )is proud to announce the first software stable releases which have successfully completed the 52°North quality assurance testing! As an open source software initiative, we emphasize quality management to ensure software's practical suitability and sustainability. This cross-sectional task is anchored in our organizational model and has evoked the creation of a Quality Management Task Force. This Task Force has taken over the task of defining, implementing and continually developing QM processes. Those processes necessary for the quality assurance testing of 52°North software are of particular interest to users and have been successfully applied in the past few months." Read more below. Their Mission makes is clearer: "52°North's mission is to advance the design, development and use of open source software in geoinformatics research, training and application. We will bridge the gap not only between research and application, but also between open source and commercial software."

ITC's GIS Software ILWIS Migrates to Open Source [+]

The OSGeo announce mailing list tells us the Integrated Land and Water Information System (ILWIS) GIS software migrates to open source with 52 North. From the announcement: "In order to create better opportunities for the reuse and deployment of GIS functionality in a wider community, the ITC directorate has recently decided to make current ILWIS software free of charge and to migrate it as such to open source software under the 52°North initiative." See related stories below to learn more about the 52 North initiative and where it stands to OSGeo. These comments on import cartography are also interesting.

Web Processing Service (WPS) Demos 1 comment [+]

Anonymous Voxel writes "An old (but still interesting) news from geoserver blog: Theodor Foerster, of 52North and ITC, has been leveraging GeoServer in his work on generalization of geospatial data using the new Web Processing Service specification. He recently posted some nice new work, including updates to the Web Processing Service web app, as well as a new WPS client written as a plug-in to uDig. Awhile ago he also did some prototypes of integrating the WPS with GeoServer, making the WPS a datastore that could be served out as WMS and WFS. It’s great to see new open source tools being built that can use and leverage the work we’ve done with GeoServer. You can see his work in action, with GeoServer, in the screencast that he’s also posted.

Eventually we’re hoping to be able to offer some integration between GeoServer and his WPS work, possibly as a plug-in to GeoServer that makes it really easy to install both, and to do common data configuration through our web gui. In the past we’ve also talked to the FROGS WPS community about possible integrations as well. Since we’re evolving GeoServer to be a platform it makes a lot of natural sense to be able to bring WPS in to the mix, in some form. It looks like the FROGS people are also leveraging Spring, which may help compatibility as well (we haven’t talked to them for awhile so I suppose we can just cross our fingers that they’re looking at what we’ve done). So if anyone has the time or the money to get a WPS integrated with GeoServer, let us know, as we’ve got some great pieces to work with."

GLCN, 52' North and Canada's GeoBase Newsletters & National Hydro Network [+]

Catching up my September emails, here's the Global Land Cover Network has released their bulletin #12 (don't ask about the dates! ;-), the 52'North open source geospatial initiative has released their second newsletter, but I haven't found it on their website. Meanwhile, Canada's GeoBase launched their first newsletter [pdf], not long after the announcement of Canada's National Hydro Network: "The National Hydro Network describes and models the elements of the interior, surface water systems of Canada. It contains two representations of water: a linear network which is a logical representation detailing surface water movement; and, a more traditional cartographic representation of hydrographic elements such as lakes, rivers, and streams."

52 North Open Source Geospatial Initiative's Third Newsletter [+]

The 52° North open source geospatial software initiative has released their third newsletter. The topics covered are: "1 - INTERGEO 2007 2 - FOSS4G 2007 3 - OGC compliant WPS 4 - Participation in OWS-5." The introduction: "52°North looks back on an eventful first year as a company. We facilitated the maturation of two new communities, ILWIS and Geo-processing, thus increasing our number of full-fledged communities, developers and software releases. In addition, the Security community broadened its focus to incorporate and implement new concepts in geo-rights management. Our partners continue to prove their expertise by actively participating in the OGC standardization process and by producing innovative code based on current standards." See also related previous stories about 52° North below.

Doing ESRI-like GIS with Open Source GIS? [+]

Spatially Adjusted links to an interesting discussion over the OSGeo-Discuss mailing list about open source careers and whether open source GIS software are up to par vs commercial GIS [Nabble link]. SA picks an insightful quote from Paul Ramsey, formerly of the Refractions fame: "My general synopsis: for server-side, for scriptability, for automation, for web-based, open source wins for most use cases, given a technically savvy user; for ad hoc, for cartographic production, for a user who is used to a point-n-click experience end to end, proprietary still wins."

Slashgeo regularly covers open source geospatial software. I copied some previous related stories below. With 52 North, the OSGeo and all the open source geospatial software such as the widely used GDAL, we can say open source geospatial software is in a healthy situation. Note that we also cover commercial geospatial software, including from ESRI. Editor's note: I usually read the OSGeo list myself and share interesting bits with our users, since I've been away from office, expect more thorough coverage after the summer. Meanwhile, there's always submissions.

• ESRI and Open Source

  (Score:2)

  by Satri (3) on Monday October 16, @04:38PM (#1030)
  ( http://alexandreleroux.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday March 17, @05:07PM )

  All Points Blog saw the story and asks about ESRI involment [allpointsblog.com].
  • Re:ESRI and Open Source

    (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Voxel on Tuesday October 17, @08:48AM (#1031)

    All Points Blog did not ask about ESRI involvement. It stated the facts in the release. Perhaps you were thinking of another blog post on the topic?

    [ Parent ]
• More from ESRI-Germany

  (Score:2)

  by Satri (3) on Thursday October 19, @02:00PM (#1038)
  ( http://alexandreleroux.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday March 17, @05:07PM )

  Read more directly from ESRI-Germany [esri-germany.de] (via the OSGeo discussion mailing list).
• 52 North and the Sensor Web

  (Score:2)

  by Satri (3) on Monday October 23, @08:49AM (#1043)
  ( http://alexandreleroux.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday March 17, @05:07PM )

  Vector One shortly discuss 52 North and their focus on the sensor web [geovisualisation.com].
• More blogs on 52 North

  (Score:2)

  by Satri (3) on Monday October 23, @08:56AM (#1044)
  ( http://alexandreleroux.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday March 17, @05:07PM )

  There's David Maguire [blogspot.com], Spatially Adjusted [feedburner.com] and import cartography [zcologia.com].