| Welcome to the OSGeo:UK Newsletter |
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Welcome to another OSGeo:UK newsletter where 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 so that interested friends and colleagues can sign up too. For now, enjoy this edition. |
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Tell us about your work!
You can submit news stories to be highlighted in this newsletter by supplying suitable details for us to add to a future newsletter issue. We are also looking for individuals willing to write a short thought piece, no more than a few hundred words, for inclusion in future newsletters. Use the same link to submit an idea, which can be about anything to do with the concept of 'open' in geospatial, and we'll get back to you if we'd like you to write that up. |
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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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GoFundGeo
We at OSGeo:UK are pleased to report that there has been strong demand for project funding through GoFundGeo this year, with proposals for grants exceeding the allocated budget. This is a positive indicator of a vibrant open geospatial community in the UK. Following a process of 'reasoned judgement', those of us that met online on the 10th December have agreed to fund all proposed projects except GDAL, which currently has very good funding and whose developers graciously suggested that our grants would be better directed toward smaller initiatives. This means that some of the key projects receiving support include qgis2web, supported last year and demonstrating strong continued development, and GeoNetwork, identified as an important project that doesn't always get the recognition it should.
Several other standout projects demonstrate the breadth of impact across sectors. Terra Draw, funded for the fourth consecutive round, has seen remarkable growth over the past year, even earning a recommendation from Google. A novel local authority project linked to CASA PhD research aims to scale a tool for assessing takeaway outlet exposure around schools, which has been developed to support evidence-based policy decisions. Meanwhile, GitRMap is a new project aiming to make geospatial technology more accessible to non-GIS users through an automated point-mapping system.
Our regular funding commitments continue to support critical infrastructure, including pgRouting (sponsored since 2018), QGIS, and GISRUK, which strengthens our connections with the academic sector. Moving forward, the committee has agreed to implement feedback requests for all grants to better track impact and outcomes. That also means that I will be reaching out and following up with the projects throughout 2026 to see how development is progressing.
This year's funding decisions reflect OSGeo:UK's commitment to supporting both established projects as well as new tools designed advance open geospatial technology across diverse applications. |
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FOSS4G We have some exciting news! We have put together a local organising committee who will be preparing a bid for the UK to host the 2027 global FOSS4G conference! This is a massive undertaking and incredibly exciting. Cross your fingers that the UK is successful because it will be amazing to welcome open source and open data geospatial advocates, fans and evangelists to Bristol for multiple days of talking about open-geo.
We want to thank everybody who has expressed their support so far, and those who have put their name down to help out at this stage - there will be plenty of opportunities to get involved as the process continues.
It's been more than a decade since the UK last hosted the global conference: let's all support the organising committee with their bid. |
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The OSGeo:UK mailing list (https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/uk) has had a modern makeover and is now available (as read only) on Discourse. The UK Discourse list is a mirror which shows the posts made to the mailing list, and a new topic will be created under the OSGeo UK category for each email thread sent to the mailing list. You can see more here: https://discourse.osgeo.org/c/local-chapters/uk/72. Whilst you are there, you might want to check out the top level OSGeo Discourse (https://discourse.osgeo.org) where you will find messages from all sorts of different committees and projects.
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There's been another release of GeoServer. Version 2.28, a milestone update that delivers substantial improvements across performance, security, styling, image processing, and interoperability is now available.
To help the community explore the new capabilities and prepare for upcoming changes, there is going to be a free public webinar where members of the GeoServer core development team will present: - The migration to the new Eclipse ImageN image processing engine
- Updates to attribute restrictions
- Enhancements to legend graphics
- Modernised authentication modules
- Important security fixes
- How these upgrades contribute to the long‑term GeoServer 3 road-map
This webinar will be held on December 18th, 2025 at 15:00 GMT, and is ideal for users, administrators, developers and integrators (or anyone just interested in GeoServer!). You can register for the webinar at this link: https://wp.me/pfwItg-3gk If you cannot attend but are interested, the organisers suggest you register anyway to receive the recording and slides after the event. |
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Whatever you are doing over the Christmas break and New Year, have a great time and stay happy and healthy. We'll be back with another set of newsletters in 2026. |
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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! You can check out the April and June 2025 newsletters and feel free to share this and previous newsletters with your colleagues and friends. |
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