The best thing I will write this week

I am having a great time being productive, with great progress on uDig, GeoServer and a local FOSS4G-AU un-conference.

However I missed something! The Incubation Committee has been very good about running bi-monthly meeting to collect status updates, discuss current applications, and double check projects that are ready to graduate.

And I neglected to call a meeting this month! Sad..

With that in mind, I have invited project mentors to send a status update email. Covering what progress a project is making, what are the next tasks they are looking at and if there is anything that can be done to help. Backed up by the following example:

Subject: Christmas Cheer Status Update

The Christmas Cheer project is proceeding well, the core team of eight reindeer are scheduled to make their Dec 25th release deadline. However there has been no progress on incubation tasks this quarter.

Actually we do have one small bit of progress to report Santa has kindly offered to act as project officer.

The development team has been wrestling with how to open source a key bit of scheduling software that contains a privacy sensitive white list (of who is naughty and nice). It looks like a technical solution is feasible, with information being contained on a server and an example configuration provided by the free software foundation used as a reference point for test cases.

The next task is hunting down release guidelines for the incubation checklist. The current build instructions are quite dated consisting primarily of poetry, and the team is evaluating alternatives (including Rake).

No further incubation progress is expected in December as the team is fully occupied with their current release. Progress on the data / code / documentation review has been inconsistent as the elves have gotten into the eggnog. We expect work to resume early February.

Although I am taking part of the developer list, there has been few actual questions.

Happy Holidays!

(Okay not the best writing you will read this week, only the best I am going to write)

FOSS4G-AU Tomorrow

Alright then - with the annual conference missing in action this year, local chapters are taking matters into their own hands!

In Australia we are going for a low-key (well low organisation) approach with an "un-conference". The most famous un-confernece's is of course "Foo Camp" organised by O'Reilly. Paul Ramsey has had the "delight" of attending one of these (background reading if you like).

QUICK

1. RSVP here: FOSS4G-AU Unconference (Meetup)
2. DIRECTIONS: QCAT facilities, CSIRO, Pullenvale QLD
3. IDEAS: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G-AU_2012

UNCONFERENCE
There is lots of good advice on how to run a successful un-conference, however I am going with a local source of wisdom dear to my heart. My lovely wife was part of the un-organising crew for a recent Library Camp and offers the following (from What IS an unconference?):

There aren’t really rules at an unconference, but if you need some guidelines, here they are:

1. If you’re dying to learn about something, there’s a good chance one of our delegates will be all over it. You don’t have to chair a session just because you suggested the topic.
2. Want to share your newfound knowledge or discuss a hot issue? Go for it! No papers, Prezis or PowerPoints are necessary.
3. Be considerate and allow others a chance to talk.
4. Listen.
5. If your session is going full-steam but runs overtime, consider moving the discussion to a neutral space. Alternately, arrange to continue the conversation after at the Pub.
6. Use the law of two feet – if you aren’t learning something in your current session, feel free to get up and move to a different room. No judging! :)

For our purposes we will start out with:

• Whiteboard to collect ideas that people are interested in
• three post-it notes each - to use as "votes" to short list topics
• A bit of organisation over coffee to slot the results into a schedule

CODE SPRINT

A couple of ideas for code-sprint work is shaping up:

• On the wiki: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G-AU_2012
• On the meet-up page: FOSS4G-AU Unconfernece (Meetup) - read the comments
• On project mailing lists: (example from geotools-devel)

Experience has shown successful teams prep a bit prior to a code sprint in order to make best use of their time.

PUB
The original plan was to hook up with the excellent GeoRabble crew which has been stirring up trouble in Brisbane this year.  Unfortunately they have been hijacked by a national "Geo Riot" and moved the date back to December 4th. You are of course strongly encouraged to sign up and attend for some good times, good people with a side of spatial serendipity.

This means I am open to suggestions for Pub (although recommend Archive).

OpenLayers 3

Here is link for personal contributions: Open Layers 3.0 Indigogo

Here is the result:

Pass the link on to your co-workers or something.