5th gvSIG Conference Announced

I got this announcement in my inbox today regarding gvSIG, an open-source GIS desktop currently in the OSGEO incubator. If you are a gvSIG user, the 5th gvSIG Conference will be held this year in Valencia, Spain. See below for the full text:

The 5th Edition of the gvSIG Conference [1], organized by the Regional Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport (CIT), will be held from December 2nd until December 4th at the Feria Valencia Convention and Exhibition Center, and will once again host the eclipseDay.

In these difficult times when collaboration is most important, we cope with the adversities together with the aim of coming out strengthened by them. We continue moving ahead together. This is part of the gvSIG project and through this approach we keep on growing. This is our slogan for the fifth edition of the gvSIG Conference: We keep growing.

The call for papers for the Fifth Edition of the gvSIG conference is now open. As of today communication proposals can be sent to the email address: contacto-jornadas-gvsig@gva.es; they will be evaluated by the scientific committee as to their inclusion in the conference program. There are two types of communication: paper or poster. Information regarding to regulations on communication presentations can be found in the report’s section [2]. Abstracts will be accepted until September 21st .

Organizations interested in collaborating in the event can find information in the section: How to collaborate? [3]

[1] http://jornadas.gvsig.org/home/view?set_language=en
[2] http://jornadas.gvsig.org/reports
[3] http://jornadas.gvsig.org/how-to-collaborate

Crazy Times – Coming Up For Air

It’s been an extremely busy few months, as evidenced by the pace (or lack thereof) of blogging. I have been hopping between customer sites, mainly helping with ArcGIS Server implementations. We’re also re-hosting an ArcIMS site for someone. I expect that to eventually transition as well but we have to get it moved first. I’m also working a pro-bono implementation of PostGIS/GeoServer/OpenLayers for the town of Green Mountain Falls, Colorado. That’s been fun. It’s great to see how a small town can marshall it resources (Boys Scouts with GPS collected trails as an Eagle Scout project) to get things done. The initial implementation will be simple as they are more interested in getting their data out there but then we’ll circle back around to address public-service-type applications after that.

Significant changes are coming for zigGIS. Abe, Paolo and I have been laying out a roadmap for its way ahead. Look for an announcement soon via zigGIS on Twitter.

I have been having a lot of fun with the REST-based APIs from ESRI (Javascript, Flex, Silverlight/WPF). In particular, I’ve been happy with how extensible they are in terms of being able to support new data sources.
OpenLayers 2.8 and GeoExplorer are also on my radar but that radar screen is getting pretty crowded.

All of this with less than a week to go before vacation. Whew!

OpenGeo Suite – A Milestone

On May 28th OpenGeo announced the release of the OpenGeo Suite. They also describe their open pricing structure for support of the suite.

This announcement represents a milestone for open-source geospatial software. If you are of a technical nature and are expecting a detailed discussion of the technical advantages of the OpenGeo Suite, you should probably stop reading now. The OpenGeo Suite is a milestone because it establishes a fair pricing model that addresses what, in my opinion, has been the primary barrier to the adoption of open-source GIS in many enterprises: risk.

ArcWeb Services Phase-Out

I just got my ArcWeb Services phase-out reminder. Apparently, I am viewed as a user. I think I may have signed up for some of the free services a few years ago but haven’t used them. Anyway, here’s partial text of the message:

ESRI ArcWeb Services (AWS) Product Status Notification – ArcWeb Services Phase-Out Reminder

With the ever increasing importance of providing market-leading online capabilities to its user community, ESRI has made the decision to focus its energy on one online strategy under the banner of ArcGIS. As a result, the ArcWeb Services product line is being phased out.

As a current ArcWeb customer, this notification is a follow-up reminder that ArcWeb Services will remain in place with full support until June 30, 2009 in order to support your existing applications and facilitate your transition to the capabilities of ArcGIS Server and ArcGIS Online.

Effective immediately, users will no longer be able to place orders for additional ArcWeb Services credits. ArcWeb Services subscribers with active accounts that expire prior to June 30, 2009 should contact aws_transition@esri.com to request an extension in order to support your transition to ArcGIS Server or ArcGIS Online.

The phase-out of ArcWeb Services will also impact deployed ArcGIS Engine based applications that utilize ArcWeb Services. Users developing applications on ArcGIS 9.3.1 will need to refer to the ArcGIS Online SOAP API. Please visit the ArcGIS Online Resource Center for more details.

This doesn’t really affect me or any of my customers as AWS was never an option. If you’re using AWS, this is your heads-up.

zigGIS Photos

Paolo was kind enough to post photos of the zigGIS team from our time in New York. You can find them here. This was the first time the three of us had met up and we had a great time.

We had some discussions about the way ahead for zigGIS and there are some big things in store that we’ll announce as we firm them up.

It was also great of Brian Flood to come out and hang for a bit.

Follow zigGIS on Twitter to keep apprised of updates and announcements.