Development

At first blush, Codeplex.com appears to be a self-contained oxymoron of a web site because it is developed and maintained by Microsoft to support the open source software community - especially projects based on Microsoft's .NET platform. Indeed, such a web site should not exist, and definitely should not succeed (though it is...) After all, who would want to create an open source software project -- ostensibly founded on the notion that free idea exchange is of even greater value than a free beer -- and host the project on a web site owned and operated by the very company that bears the greatest wrath of the open source community? Surprisingly, there are a great many (including myself and my colleagues) who would do (and are doing) just that. Are we traitors to our own kind? Are we wannabe OSS'ers who can't cut the Microsoft apron strings? Are we truly proprietary wolves in open source sheep's clothing? This presentation will explore these questions in the context of thresholds of proprietary software tolerance.

We are pleased to introduce GeoTools 8. This presentation covers the latest and greatest developments in this OSGeo project.

GeoTools serves as a foundation for many of the exciting projects you will see here at FOSS4G. From 52N, Geomajas through to the early adopters such as GeoServer and uDig. An understanding of this core OSGeo project is an important piece in being productive in the open source Java GIS community.

With the component is such wide spread use it is important to understand how GeoTools has shifted its directions and goals as a Java library. This background information allow you to make the most of the GeoTools library at a business level. GeoTools offers a range of options for involvement allowing you to take part (even in an less formal capacity), set the direction, and participate in the release process.

Central to this presentation is an update on the new capabilities available in today's GeoTools. Key improvements, extensive new documentation, rendering capabilities and a range of extensions will be covered.

The presentation will include a quick tour of the base classes used to make integration easy and pain free, as show as they are used in the library. We also offer a sneak peek at developments in our unsupported sandbox including side by side comparisons of the gt-swing and gt-swt extensions.

If you are new to GeoTools development this is a great way to see what is available, and if you already know the project attend to keep up to date with the substantial improvements and additional capabilities available in today's GeoTools.

g.cloud is a tool for GRASS GIS to connect a personal GRASS session to a GRASS installation in a much faster cluster (high performance computing system). The general aim is to give the possibility to every user to perform high speed calculations, which are hard to compute on a personal computer by connecting to an external server. Today, in the new era of cloud computing, it is crucial to have cloud support in GRASS for a better and faster software performance and services.

The new extension is composed by two modules written in Python. The first one, g.cloud.prep checks if all program requirements are fullfilled on both the client and the server side. It also defines the needed variables and directory structures. The second module, g.cloud.launch, connects the current session to the cloud server, transfers scripts and data to the server and executes the remote job. Subsequently, it transfers back the resulting maps and data.

For the job execution, the script requirements are two, the user prepared GRASS GIS script which performs the calculations and server-side the qsub script from Grid Engine to launch the GRASS GIS script job.

The software requirements are GRASS GIS 7 and ssh/scp on the client side; while on the server side the Grid Engine software or compatible needs to be present to launch the GRASS jobs. To facilitate the usage, the g.cloud.prep module, if it does not find a GRASS GIS 7 installation on the server, it will download and install it automatically.

The new tool provides GRASS GIS users which potentially huge resources for massive data analysis and geospatial computing.