The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to foster global adoption of open geospatial technology by being an inclusive software foundation devoted to an open philosophy and participatory community-driven development.
The foundation provides financial, organizational and legal support to the broader open-source geospatial community.
It also serves as an independent legal entity to which community members can contribute code, funding, and other resources, secure in the knowledge that their contributions will be maintained for public benefit. OSGeo also serves as an outreach and advocacy organization for the open-source geospatial community and provides a common forum and shared infrastructure for improving cross-project collaboration.
The foundation’s projects are all freely available and useable under an Open Source Initiative certified open source license.
OSGeo has US 501(c)(4) legal status as a not-for-profit organization supported by GeoCat and other sponsors.
This year's town hall will discuss on the board the sense of cooperation between Free Open Source and Geoscientific Research. Free Open Source software and Open Data are critical elements of the Open Science framework growing worldwide.
The town hall will briefly summarize the characteristics of Free Open Source Software, including the legal aspects, introducing also the essence of scientific research.
We will discuss how the FOSS software and Open Data integrate into scientific research, touching the following topics:
Free Open Source Software usability in research: what are the general and specific characteristics of Free Open Source software for scientific research?
Free Open Source and Collaborative Development Environments. How concurrent versioning systems are changing the software development scenario?
Open Data accessibility: is Open Data all the same? Are there Open more open data than others?
From Student to Researcher, from User to Developer. Let’s discuss the different types and levels of interaction with research and software development."
Speakers
- Alessandro Frigeri, Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Italy
- Peter Löwe, WZB Berlin, Germany