PC World Australia interviews Liam Speden, product manager for MapGuide about Autodesk's recent acquistion of CS-Map from Mentor Software and its decision to turn that code over to the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. Some of the more interesting comments from Speden:

- coordinate systems will soon include time (huh?)
- a common set of code will enhance compatibility and thus improve quality and reliability in mobile services
- the code can enhance things like Geonames (I'm not sure the questioner knows that that is)
- it's good MapGuide Open Source and MapGuide Enterprise will use the same code down the road
- it offers more than Proj-4 (the existing widely used open source projection library)
- donation to be finalized by end of the year
- not one, but two mentions of The Urban Forest Map in San Francisco (there's got to be another user out there to profile!)

Details of sessions on:

- Web Services for Geospatial Information
- NGA Initiatives
- The latest technology II - Sensor Technology

I had the luxury of sitting in on an entire day of sessions. Below are the details of:

- Statewide Issues I and II
- Southeast Regional Applications
- Data Integration and Sharing

(full agenda)

This week Adena Schutzberg offers a commentary focusing on changing attitudes in the technology and geospatial marketplace. In particular, she suggests we are growing more and more comfortable with smaller software providers, smaller consulting firms and non-traditional development/distribution and licensing models, that is with open source. The podcast was recorded on October 12, 2007 and is 12 minutes long.

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This from my colleague Nora Parker:

Geoff Zeiss, director of technology for the Infrastructure Solutions Division of Autodesk, discussed how poor many utility databases are, and how he believes open source solutions may hold the key to fixing those databases. During a workshop at the Rocket City Geospatial Conference in Huntsville, he said that some utilities he's worked with have "as much as 20-30% inaccurate data." He attributes the database problem to an ineffective feedback loop - it discourages workers in the field from contributing knowledge about what is actually in the field back into the database. With an aging workforce, it's a significant problem. (Zeiss gave as an example one unnamed utility company that is expecting as much as a 50% turn-over in field staff due to retirements in the next few years.)

According to Zeiss, open standards have led to good (and inexpensive) Web-based open source mapping solutions that can be widely deployed in the field, especially thanks to improved wireless communications. These applications are conducive to a "Web 2.0" (e.g. user contributed data) environment, he said, in which field staff can easily make database corrections and updates.

The opening session of FOSS4G (OSGeo's open source for geospatial conference) being held this week in Victoria started with an interesting sight: a large well-packed room, two large video screens, and people looking for seats. Conference chair Paul Ramsey of Refractions Research noted the attendance at 670, about twice that of the last such conference I attended two years ago in Minneapolis. Last year in Lausanne, Switzerland the total was 535. Paul offered up his theme/advice for the remaining three days: make a connection to help grow the community. That's not so different than ideas suggested at other conferences, but I always find it easier to do at this event.

Autodesk as a platinum sponsor got the first slot and Geoff Zeiss offered what I consider the Autodesk party line about standards, failing infrastructure, aging workforce, convergence, dis-enfranchised field staffers (who use geodata but have no real input in its update/quality)... He also noted Autodesk's client San Fransiscos's urban forest project, a MapGuide Open Source implementation. This was the first time I "got" it was a public participation site. Somehow I think that got lost in the initial media sweep. He also noted DM Solutions' Fusion, a framework that will allow editing from the field, among other things. The announcement of the acquisition of Mentor Software and the plan to turn its coordinate transformation libraries open source as an OSGeo project was a yawn for most. I explain why it's important at Directions Magazine.