FOSS4G in Barcelona !

I was at the last FOSS4G (Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial) Conference in Barcelona. It was a fantastic conference with more than 800 participants from all over the world and 3 days of technical talks and trainings. It was great to meet major figures of the Open Source for Geospatial like Paul Ramsey (founder of PostGIS - see http://blog.opengeo.org/) or Frank Warmerdam (founder of GDAL).

Speeches during the plenary sessions were all about the spirit of Open Source and the sense of Community. Ivan Sanchez made an interesting comparison with the game theory showing that in software development the only winning move was to share. The conclusion was that happiness rather than money helps people create better products because it helps them to take better decisions :-)

During the closing session, Helena Mitasova received the OsGeo 2010 prize for her implication in Open Source and GRASS. She presented how GRASS has been used over the past 20 years to develop the geospatial research and education. It was inspiring how she spoke greatly about the community and about the energy that it gives her.