New York now has the New York City Open Source Solutions Lab. It's goal is "to show how open-source software can help local and state government agencies in New York state cope with tightening budgets and a difficult economic outlook."
It's a collaborative project of Linux vendor Red Hat Inc., the City University of New York and Intel Corp. Government IT staff can come and test apps and code at the facility in Manhattan at CUNY's Institute for Software Design and Development
Listed apps/tasks to be explored include: "Red Hat Linux, JBoss SOA applications and clustering, global file systems and virtualization systems." How about some GIS to with that?
- Computerworld
Feeds
-
Directions Magazine - Top Stories
-
Directions Magazine - Press Releases
-
geoinformatics.com
-
GISCafe.com CorpNews
-
GISCafe.com Weekly Reviews
-
Geospatial Solutions
-
Yahoo! News (mostly englisch)
-
GISUser.com
-
Mapping Hacks
-
International Journal of Health Geographics - Latest articles
-
OGC News Feed
-
Slashgeo
-
CADwire.net - GIS industry news
-
Information Technology News at iCivilEngineer.com
-
Topix.net
-
ESRI News Feed
-
esri Google Group
-
[Technorati] "GIS" (mostly Englisch)
-
-
Geo: International UK News Articles
-
GIS Lounge - Geographic Information Systems
-
News
-
gis-news
-
-
-
Geobranchen.de
-
con terra - News (deutsche Version)
-
-
-
CeGi GEOcatalog - News (deutsche Version)
-
Geobranchen.de EVENTS - RSS/RDF Feed
-
AECWEB.de-News
-
Geography 2.0: Virtual Globes
-
Ogle Earth
-
Geo Coding
-
GIS CAD Interoperability
-
GIS Matters
-
Richie's Space
-
James Fee GIS Blog
-
All Points Blog
-
AnyGeo - Anything Geospatial
-
Mapperz - The Mapping News Blog
-
Sebastian Pache | Blog for Spatial Technology
-
All geographic information systems jobs | Indeed.com
-
Directions Magazine GIS & Spatial Jobs Board
-
Geographic information systems jobs | SimplyHired
-
Gigajob: neue Stellenangebote: GIS
-
GIS Jobs Worldwide Google Group
-
GeoJobs Network Jobs Feed
-
ICjobs.de Geoinformatik
-
Careerjet
-
Careerjet - keywords:GIS jobs in USA
-
Careerjet - keywords:GIS jobs in Europe
20 items tagged "Source and Open"
Related tags: Street, Map, 1st
All Points Blog
-
OSGEO: New York May Need A Kick
Posted: September 4th, 2008, 2:05pm CEST
Tags: Open Source
-
OGC and OSGeo to Play
Posted: August 27th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST
Tags: Open Source
Here in the duldrums of August comes the news (press release) that OGC will be participating in the FOSS4G conference this fall in South Africa and the focus will be on a memorandum of understanding between the two bodies. The details of the MOU are not detailed.
Some (most? all?) OSGeo projects do indeed implement standards (OGC's and other's), though that's not required to be an official OSGeo project. That said, per the release it's pretty important.
The two organizations agree to expand collaboration and promote the synergy between open standards and open source software in the geospatial domain. The OGC, founded in 1994, is the world's leading industry organization for geoprocessing standards used by the world's providers of geoprocessing software. The OSGeo's goal is to encourage the use and collaborative development of community-led open source geospatial software projects, most of which depend on open standards like those from the OGC.
OGC, per Carl Reed writing in GeoWorld in 2007 doesn't endorse either open source or proprietary licensing.
The OGC doesnt care if software are proprietary or open source. Our goal is that OGC standards help make geospatial or location-based content and services ubiquitousto improve the ability of decision makers to address the many pressing social, environmental and economic issues they face.
Whats important, from the OGCs point of view, isnt the purchasing and licensing details of software products, but their adherence to a shared, open, non-proprietary system for communicating geographically.
OSGeo may need to update its FAQ which includes this statement about the relationship:
What is the relationship between OSGeo and OGC?
There is no relationship between OSGeo and OGC. OGC is a organization for creating GIS standards, while OSGeo is an organization for promoting open source GIS work. That said, a number of parties/individuals in OSGeo work with OGC standards, and vice versa. It is also an explicit goal of OSGeo to support and promote standards, including OGC standards.
-
Open Source Legal Ruling Means Monetary Damages for Copyright Infringement
Posted: August 15th, 2008, 3:18pm CEST
Tags: Open Source
I saw this yesterday, but needed to find an explanation I understood before writing about. Thankfully, my favorite lawyer on IP issues, Andy Updegrove (I met him when I consulted to OGC and he spoke at Directions Media's Location Intelligence Conference in past years), is interviewed by Computerworld, so now I can explain it!
Here's the case:
Kam Industries used some open source code that allows train folks to program chips in model trains. The code was released un an Artistic License. That's not one I know much about - but it's OSI approved and has a copyright from the PERL Foundation. That license requires users to "give credit to the author, identify the original source of the files and describe how the new code has been changed, among other conditions."
The author of the code, Robert Jacobsen felt Kam Industries violated the terms and violated the software's copyright. A requested injunction to stop Kam from using the software was denied in US District Court. The news this week: the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned the ruling.
The big deal: when infringement happens, the infringee (the holder of the license) can argue copyright copyright infringement not just breach of contract. Why's that significant? Now to Mr. Updegrove:
That distinction is important, says Andy Updegrove, an attorney with Gesmer Updegrove LLP in Boston who studies licensing issues. Under contract law, the remedy is monetary damages, which aren't likely to amount to anything involving open-source software that is given away, Updegrove says.
However, statutory damages - money awarded for a violation of law - can be awarded for copyright infringement without requiring proof of monetary damages, Updegrove says. Also, people can recover attorney fees for copyright infringement cases, he says.
"And, most importantly for licences such as the GPL, it means that your rights to use the copyrighted work at all disappear," Updegrove says, referring to the General Public License, widely used for open source software.
-
Podcast: Autodesk Series #1 - Asset Intelligence and Visualization
Posted: July 23rd, 2008, 9:51am CEST
Enclosure: [download]
Tags: Open Source
In the first of a series of podcasts from Autodesk, three of the company's leading technologists provide a foundation for understanding how government agencies can better utilize geospatial information. Geoff Zeiss, director of technology, David Kingsbury, Sr. Industry Manager for State and Local Government, and Pete Southwood, Geospatial Technical Evangelist conduct a roundtable discussion of Autodesk's Feature Data Object, or FDO, an open source solution that is embedded in many of the company's industry solutions. Autodesk's ability to integrate CAD, GIS, spatial databases, Excel spreadsheets, and imagery is truly unique and crosses into engineering design, which forms the foundation of integrated asset intelligence.
For more information on FDO see:
The Autodesk website or the Open Source Geospatial Foundation website.
Subscribe to Podcast RSS
Listen Now (to download, right click on the link at left and choose "save target as")
Missed any podcasts? Want to subscribe via iTunes, Yahoo, etc? Here's the index with all the info.
AnyGeo - Anything Geospatial
-
Adeona - Open Source location tracking for your laptop
Posted: July 17th, 2008, 10:29pm CEST
Tags: Open Source
First their was LoJack, no a new open source solution for tracking your portables - Adeona. From the project... Adeona is designed to use the Open Source OpenDHT distributed storage service to store ...
[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
All Points Blog
-
NC County Implements MapGuide Open Source
Posted: July 11th, 2008, 2:42pm CEST
Tags: Open Source
I've been patiently waiting for a story like this since MapGuide Open Source (and its commercial counterpart MapGuide Enterprise from Autodesk) received positive reviews from tech folks. Now Chatham County, NC has moved onto the platform saving $20,000-$40,000 in software costs and annual fees, per Jeremy Poss, GIS specialist. The article doesn't mention the previous technology used but in an e-mail Poss highlighted past technologies from Understanding Systems Inc. (USI), now a owned by HTE Sungard and an app built on ESRI technology by TerraVerge.
The site looks quite elegant, though I was unable to view the map in Safari. I could do queries, however.
- Chatham Journal -
Linux GPS/GIS Tutorial
Posted: July 9th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST
Tags: Open Source
James Gray writes an easy to follow tutorial: GPS and GIS: A Great Combination, Part I at the LinuxJournal. The GIS part is handled by QGIS. -
Garmin's Linux Source Code Available
Posted: July 8th, 2008, 2:51pm CEST
Tags: Open Source
-
Oxford Archeology Goes Open Source
Posted: May 28th, 2008, 1:38pm CEST
Tags: Open Source
Since there are rarely open source "win" press releases, its valuable to note when organizations choose such solutions.
Per Search Enterprise Linux:
...it's only natural that the cost-conscious, nonprofit $24 million company would turn to open source software to run the heart of its operations, from capturing and storing archaeological data to running routine business functions -- even its telephone system.
...
Chief Information Officer Chris Puttick. "And open source is the best long-term cost-saver and gives us the ultimate flexibility to adapt without restriction."
...
[The CIO begain] starting with the servers, most of which now run on Ubuntu (some 6.06 Long Term Support [LTS] and others on 8.04 LTS), and the free version of VMware, then trying the OpenOffice desktop application and the PostgreSQL open source database, which has an add-on for a geographic information system (GIS).
...
Additional changes are still under way, including migration to open source GIS packages, including gvSIG, QGIS and/or GRASS,...
AnyGeo - Anything Geospatial
-
ScapeToad cross-platform, open-source cartogram software
Posted: May 16th, 2008, 5:33am CEST
Tags: Open Source
The scapetoad dev team has informed me about an interesting cartogram software. ScapeToad is a cross-platform, open-source application written in Java, using the ESRI Shapefile format for input and...
[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
All Points Blog
-
Podcast: Technologies that Will Impact Geospatial in the Coming Years
Posted: May 13th, 2008, 8:00am CEST
Enclosure: [download]
Tags: Open Source
The editors look outward to find technologies that will impact how geospatial products and practices will change in the next 12 to 24 months. Some of the suggested technologies are already appearing in cutting edge products, others are not yet implemented in geospatial solutions, but we expect to see them soon.
Subscribe to Podcast RSS
Listen Now (to download, right click on the link at left and choose "save target as")
Read the show notes
Missed any podcasts? Want to subscribe via iTunes, Yahoo, etc? Here's the index with all the info. -
Candidates Tackle GIS in Race for Lake County (IN) Surveyor
Posted: April 29th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST
Tags: Open Source
The incumbent is pro GIS having invested in it quite a bit. The Gary Post-Tribune describes it as "a computer mapping system similar to Google Earth that can put large amounts of information into an interactive map."
Two others want to cut back on the GIS budget. One candidate wants "to "slash" spending on the GIS, and build it with free software, rather than the proprietary software used by the county's consultants."
Another wants the focus to be on flooding thus he said, "I don't think (GIS) should be a priority."
It says quite a lot about the state of geospatial that such issues should be raised to the public during a local election.
AnyGeo - Anything Geospatial
-
What makes Software green?
Posted: April 22nd, 2008, 8:38pm CEST
Tags: Open Source
What makes software green? Is it the packaging, or perhaps the people that use it? Maybe it's open sourced, perhaps developed by a company with sustainable practices, or maybe it's simply the name?...
[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
All Points Blog
-
Free Geo Event In Ottawa
Posted: April 14th, 2008, 7:00am CEST
Tags: Open Source
Andrew Ross at Ingres passed on this event invitation. This sounds great - and I think it's time to have such meetings in other locations... any takers?
I would like to announce a free ($0) geospatial event on June 2nd and 3rd in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. This event hosted at the campus of Carleton University. It is an outreach event to showcase the best of open source geospatial software and give attendees the opportunity to listen to industry speakers.
The event is being organized by OSGeo, Ingres, and Carleton University. It is known as Geocamp2008 (also known as osbootcamp6). More information can be found at the osbootcamp web site under osbootcamp6. It can also be found under OSGeo's events calendar for June. This event takes place the day before the Geotec conference in Ottawa. -
Open Source Solution for Currier in NZ
Posted: March 31st, 2008, 1:00pm CEST
Tags: Open Source
Geographic Business Solutions (GBS) doesn't want to compete with GPS players like Navman and Armada. The good news: they can offer up flexible, on-off solutions. The company took eight weeks to deliver a tracking system.
[It] allows Urgent Couriers' dispatchers to pinpoint the location of every courier on a map, zoom in on couriers and view all relevant job information. The allocation of jobs to each of the company's 85 contractors is also assisted by GPS ensuring that couriers closest to jobs are efficiently assigned to pick-ups, preventing the need for them to double back to jobs, and saving on time and fuel.
...
The new GPS system for Urgent Couriers is based on open source database PostgreSQL (with PostGIS) and an open source mapserver, UMN Mapserver. GBS built the interface and web functionality in Internet Explorer (7) and configured it to fit Urgent Couriers' dispatch system.
- m-net.com
-
IBM Invests in PostGreSQL
Posted: March 26th, 2008, 5:24pm CET
Tags: Open Source
For those who've not been following, Sun [corrected, originally said Oracle, oops] acquired MySQL, the folks behind the open source database, that among other things, supports spatial. Today word that IBM is part of a funding round for EnterpriseDB, one the big companies involved with PostgreSQL, another open source database. PostGIS adds spatial functionality to PostgreSQL.
via SlashdotI -
Not the usual players competing for NZ DOJ/Te Puni Kokiri GIS
Posted: March 26th, 2008, 12:45pm CET
Tags: Open Source
"Oracle, Microsoft and open source look likely to fight it out for a GIS project to serve users in both the Justice Department and Te Puni Kokiri [New Zealand Government's principal adviser on the Crown's relationship with iwi, hapu and Maori]." The two groups are looking to work together on one set of requirements.
- Computerworld New Zealand -
MapStudio OS: Google Code to Manage MapGuide Open Source
Posted: February 29th, 2008, 8:15pm CET
Tags: Open Source
MapStudio OS is a Google open source project (LGPL license) that does what MapGuide Studio (an Autodesk products does, roughly). I thought the OS tool for this was going to be Web Studio from DM Solutions.
via a comment at SlashGeo
AnyGeo - Anything Geospatial
-
Get Ready for Google Summer of Code 2008
Posted: February 25th, 2008, 7:10pm CET
Tags: Open Source
Once again Google has announced another cool, Google Summer of Code 2008, the pioneering program that funds college students to write open source software during their summer vacations. From...
[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
All Points Blog
-
No NYC Crime Data for EveryBlock...Yet and More on EveryBlock Mapping
Posted: February 23rd, 2008, 2:41am CET
Tags: Open Source
The Gotham Gazette's Wonkster reports the request from the site for crime data were denied by the city police force. NYC's ComStat (typo corrected per comment) program is widely praised, but the data unlike that from Chicago is not provided at the block level. The next step? A Freedom of Information Act request.
That post linked me to yet another interview with Adrian Holovaty, the fellow behind EveryBlock. Here he mentions one the open source mapping tools:
We use an open-source library called Mapnik to render the maps, so that library does the heavy lifting for us. Paul is also working on a how-to article, in the spirit of giving back to the open-source community, that explains how to use Mapnik.
I know of Mapnik, but this forced me to finally confirm what I'd always suspected: the fellow behind it, Artem, was at Cadcorp with me back in the day. (Interview with Artem at Nestoria here.) The world is small my friend!
Also of note, an article by Paul Smith, EveryBlock's mapping guy, that explains the why and how of the solution.