Ingres Corporation, the leading open source information management company, announced at the FOSS4G 2007 (Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial) conference that it is supporting OSGeo (Open Source Geospatial Foundation). OSGeo is widely recognized for supporting collaborate development of open geospatial technologies and projects important to business, the environment, and society
"Like Ingres technology, geospatial technology provides insights from complex data. These insights lead to break through solutions and innovative thinking in areas as diverse as oil and gas exploration, city planning, meteorology, and hydrology," said Deb Woods, Ingres vice president of product management. "Ingres technology, when coupled with our open source know-how and decades of building mission critical systems, has a natural role to play in developing powerful GIS (Geographic Information Systems) applications. We look forward to working closely with OSGeo and its members."
"We are excited to have Ingres show their support for OSGeo and its mission," said Frank Warmerdam, president of OSGeo. "Having an open source, international company like Ingres working alongside OSGeo is a real, tangible way of helping us reach our common goals. Both OSGeo and Ingres are committed to providing open source solutions that ensure high quality and interoperability for projects than can span the globe."
Geospatial Technology & OSGeo
Geospatial technology combines spatial software and analytical methods with terrestrial or geographic datasets. During geospatial analysis, for example, a powerful database is an essential part of the creation and manipulation of images, maps, diagrams, charts, 3-D views and associated datasets. Within OSGeo, incubated projects such as MapBuilder and Mapbender have graduated to full projects with many more in the incubation stage. Other OSGeo projects include additional web mapping, desktop applications, geospatial libraries, a metadata catalog, and other collaborative projects focused on public education and data. OSGeo projects also include grassroots initiatives to help organize free geospatial data, develop educational curriculum, publish a regular open source geospatial journal, and more. More than a dozen Local Chapters are also being established around the world and across several language groups.
One of the most well-known OSGeo open source projects is MapServer (www.osgeo.org/mapserver), an open source development environment for building spatially-enabled web mapping applications and services, which has amassed more than 100,000 users. Originally developed at the University of Minnesota, MapServer is now maintained by a vibrant community of developers around the world and illustrates the collaborative nature of the OSGeo mission. MapServer is fast, flexible and can be integrated into most GIS environments since it runs on all major operating systems and works with almost any web server.
At FOSS4G07, developers and users of open source geospatial software from around the globe will meet to discuss new directions, exciting implementations, and burgeoning business opportunities in the field of open source geospatial software. The 2006 FOSS4G conference attracted more than 500 attendees from 48 countries with this year’s conference poised for even larger attendance.
Source: Ingres
