| Welcome to the OSGeo:UK Newsletter |
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Hello and welcome to the OSGeo:UK newsletter in which we share updates and information every couple of months about the OSGeo:UK local chapter along with general FOSS for geospatial goodness. Please share the newsletter widely. Interested folks can sign up too. For now, please enjoy this edition. |
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Find out more about OSGeo:UK and how you can be part of our community on our website. |
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FOSS4G:UK 2025 FOSS4G:UK 2025 is happening and progress on its organisation is cracking on at pace!
Our next FOSS4G:UK will be an in-person event in Leeds to be held on the 1st and 2nd October 2025. The official event website is now live, and more details will be added to it in the coming months. There are also a host of different ways that you can keep updated, including: LinkedIn, Mastodon, Twitter/X, join the mailing list and/or subscribe to this newsletter. The local organising team have booked the state-of-the-art Horizon venue in the heart of Leeds as the main venue. It looks like exactly the sort of place that you'd want for a flagship open-source, geospatial conference. Keep an eye on those communication channels for details on registration and the associated call for papers. If you and your organisation are going to be at the conference, then consider how best to support the event. For many of us that will be through buying a ticket and submitting a presentation proposal, but the event is offering opportunities for sponsorship (all the details can be found here). The sponsorship options are clear and specific, and in summary include Gold, Silver and Bronze choices with each including promotion for your logo and organisation name plus a number of conference tickets, depending on sponsorship level. There are also a limited number of extremely coveted Community sponsor opportunities, the details of which can be found on the website at the link above.
Finally for this update, there is a logo contest currently underway. All the details are on the conference website including the brief. You have to be in it to win it, where the "it" that you'll win is:
- A full conference registration (your golden ticket to all the geospatial action!)
- Exclusive t-shirt featuring your logo (because who doesn’t love showing off their own masterpiece?)
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We want your news!
As mentioned in the last edition, we now have the opportunity for readers to submit news stories that you want highlighted in this newsletter - just fill out the form with suitable details and we will add them to a future newsletter issue. |
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GoFundGeo As ever, Terra Draw continues to develop into a highly mature and feature rich project. The latest update (at the time of writing) from James Milner (the project developer and maintainer) is that client-side routing has been implemented (see this BlueSky post). Polygon snapping has also been in development, and a proof-of-concept was reported here. It always amazes me just how much improvement there is in Terra Draw every time I come to write a newsletter - hats off to you James, and keep up this impressive work. Geoserver is rapidly approaching the closing of its Geoserver 3 funding call: if you or your organisation can mobilise quickly, then please consider helping them reach their target. Alongside that, Geoserver 2.27.0 has been released. The full release notes give all the specific details, but the release summary is that this is a stable release recommended for production use, which graduates the OGC API Features module to extension status, ensures all OGC services pass suitable compliance tests, and adds performance improvements to the catalogue loader. Several security vulnerabilities are also addressed.
There has also been more development activity around qgis2web where version 3.26.0 has just been released (literally, within the last 24 hours at the time of writing!). There's a great wiki here for the project.
OSGeo:UK are a Small Sustaining Member for the QGIS project. As we renewed the subscription, the following message from the project came back: "Another active (Q)GIS year has passed with many improvements in QGIS itself (desktop, mobile, server, web client and wasm) and its infrastructure. Finally, we released our new and modern QGIS website. Many of these improvements could only be realised or implemented because you supported QGIS in the past. Thank you very much! In 2025 we plan to officially release Qt6 builds of QGIS and also start refactoring of the attribute table to speed up loading and browsing in very large attribute tables". It's full steam ahead for QGIS! Remember, everyone on the OSGeo:UK committee encourages you to submit bids later in the year for a project or projects that you would like to see funded by us through GoFundGeo.
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Wider software and event news |
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Another reminder that the global FOSS4G event in 2025 is being held in Auckland, New Zealand. There is already an open call for papers which includes standard presentations, workshops, lightning talks and academic papers. Check out all the details using that link. An outline program is already online, and the call for sponsorship can also be found on the website. Additionally, the organising committee have made a commitment to openness and inclusion where the conference is "dedicated to creating an inclusive and welcoming environment for everyone ... where everyone feels welcome to participate and contribute".
Closer to home, FOSS4G Europe 2025 will be held in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina on 14-20 July. Registration is currently open and the workshop and social programs are also online. There's lots of great information about travel and accommodation also on the conference website. Other events
The AGI (Association for Geographic Information) and OSGeo:UK are trialling a closer working relationship around our events for the next 12 months or so. The AGI have organisation specific events listed on their website but there is also a massive list of membership events that can also be found there. Go have a look!
Remember that the 2025 QGIS User Conference is happening in Norrköping, Sweden on the 2-3 June. If you are interested then go and check out their website as the details have been updated since our last newsletter, including a full schedule and travel details.
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In wider geospatial FOSS news... The Spatio-Temporal Asset Catalog (STAC) Steering Committee has announced a raft of new members, ready to take the specification and the project on towards even wider adoption and development. Everyone at OSGeo:UK wishes the new members the best of times!
If you are fed up with social media then maybe take the opportunity to get back to RSS feeds of a variety of longer form posts. Geofeeds.me has taken the hassle out of it for you and provides a clean interface of interesting content, with sensible opinions. Finally, here is an interesting tutorial: Grass in Colab! That is not something that I would have considered, but it looks like a great walk through, so if you have the time then have a look. And in final, final news, I might be getting a new cat this week - yay! |
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We hope that you found this edition of the newsletter interesting and informative. If you have any feedback or comments then let us know! |
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