GRASS Community Sprint Prague 2011

Succeeding the Geoinformatics FCE CTU 2011 (Conference about Free Software and Open Source in Geoinformatics), 19-20 May 2011, Prague, Czech Republic, the GRASS GIS project will hold a GRASS Developer and Power User Meeting, aka 'GRASS Community Sprint' from May 20 to May 25, 2011.

Important dates:

• 19 (Thursday) - 20 (Friday) May 2011: Geoinformatics FCE CTU 2011 conference

• 20 (Friday) - 25 (Wednesday) May 2011: GRASS Community Sprint @ FCE CTU

Purpose

Get together GRASS project members to make decisions and tackle larger problems.

For this meeting, we welcome people committed to improving the GRASS GIS project. This includes developers, documenters, bug reporters, translators etc.

Sponsors

If you are interested to sponsor the GRASS Community Sprint, please contact Markus Neteler <neteler at osgeo.org>. Any surplus at the end of the event will be turned over to the GRASS GIS project (find more information about GRASS sponsorship here).

The first GRASS Community Sprint is a great occasion for you to support the development of GRASS. With your contribution you'll enable more developers to meet in Prague. The community sprint is an important opportunity for the GRASS developers to discuss and collaboratively resolve bugs, plan the direction for the project and work on new features. Please see below for the more detailed agenda. The developers and contributors are donating their valuable time, so it would be great if in-kind funding can be made available from within the community to cover out-of-pocket expenses. All of the work that takes place at the community sprint will be directly contributed back into the GRASS project to the benefit of everyone who uses it.

Timing

When: Friday, May 20, 2011 (day of arrival) - Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Of course you are invited to join or leave the community sprint whenever you want.

Duration:

• Friday is day of arrival - first meeting in the evening (after the conference) to define the agenda
• Saturday to Tuesday full day
• Wednesday is day of departure - probably hacking for people with a flight later in the evening

Venue

Department of Mapping and Cartography
Faculty of Civil Engineering
Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic
Room <to be defined>

Location

Prague has an international airport and is also reachable by train, bus or car.

Agenda

Note: The program is generally open for your ideas. Please write an email to the GRASS developer list to discuss your contribution.

Topics

Non-technical

• Discuss new sponsoring concept
• ...

Semi-technical

• Change manual to use Sphinx (see related trac #151)
• Support translated manual pages (see related trac #846)
• ...

Technical

• backport Makefile system from GRASS 7 to GRASS 6
• Improve g.extension (enable to use prepared winGRASS Addon binaries)
• Define new toolbox concept
• Improve WPS support
• Improve vector engine in GRASS 7 (OGR support, lightweight topology structures, better 3D support)
• Discuss fundamental changes in raster and vector engine for GRASS 8
• ...

Accommodation and Costs

Participants should plan for the following costs:

• Travel to Prague, variable depending on where you come from
• Accommodation and meals

Please note: The currency in Czech Republic is crown (CZK, koruna, Kč). 100 Czech crowns are about 4 Euros (see current rates).

Accommodation in Prague

(in progress)

• Masarykova Kolej Hotel
• Hotel DAP
• Hotel Krystal
• Special offer: sleeping for free in the kindergarten (30min by city urban mass transportation from the university campus, sleeping bag required, kitchen and WC available, no showers, in working days only available from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.), contact Martin Landa for details

Please let us know your time of arrival and leaving, so we can book for the accommodations and organize the logistics.

TO BE DEFINED: We will cover as much as possible thanks to our sponsors.

Participation

We are planning for attendance of 20/30 people (i.e., hacking places) but of course you are welcome to join us and bring new ideas with you, as more places are available. Please add your name here or contact Martin Landa <landa.martin at gmail.com>:

No	Participant	Arrival	Departure	Topic	Notes
1	Martin Landa	May 20	May 25	Toolbox concept, vector engine in GRASS 7, wxGUI
2	Markus Neteler
3	Luca Delucchi			New toolbox concept,translation
4	Robert Szczepanek			wxGUI, toolbox concept, translation	to be confirmed
5	Margherita Di Leo			Translation ??
6	Annalisa Minelli			Translation ??
7	Anne Ghisla			wxGUI development, v.krige	to be confirmed (but 80% sure)
X	add yourself here...

Individual Preparation

• Bring your own computer
• Install subversion and the compiler tools, and come with a working GRASS development environment if possible.

Broadcast & Video

We plan to be online here.

FAQ

• Is the GRASS Community Sprint just a coding event?
  • It is mainly a coding and documentation event. It is a working session for people who are already participants in the GRASS project and/or are committed to improving the GRASS project.
  • On demand we can do some presentations of current working GRASS implementation and new upcoming features to spread the idea of Open Source GIS software
• Is the GRASS Community Sprint for developers only?
  • No: anybody can help, with testing, checking out bugs and fixes, documentation and more.
• Where can I get help and more information about the community sprint?
  • Contact Martin Landa <landa.martin at gmail.com>