The headline of this press release would be able to be that i3Geo becomes an official product of the gvSIG project, but the true importance of this passing is that i3Geo and gvSIG join their forces, a summation of efforts based on similar ways to understand opens source as something that goes beyond technical questions. With this agreement there's an approach to collaborate in a model level. We expect to grow in the technical, economic and organizational parts through the collaboration between projects that bet on open source as fundamental base for technological independence, that understand the software as a means and not as an end. At the free geomatics area, i3Geo is without doubt the reference of technology with Latin American origin. i3Geo was created by the Environment Ministry (MMA) in Brazil, in the context of the implementation of the National Information System about Environment (SINIMA). Its license was changed to GPL in, and it became a part of the Brazilian Public Software Portal (PSPB).

i3Geo, that means "Geoprocessing Tools Integrated Interface for Internet", was born with the objective to create a software that allowed the dissemination of geographical data and gave more advanced options to the final user. The software has evolved, adding new functionalities; among others, the software allows the user to access to the attribute table of the layers, load data, connect to OGC services, change legend by default, interact with other data (Wikipedia, Confluence, Metar, etc.), vector editing, geoprocessing... Furthermore, i3Geo offers direct access services like downloads, WMS, WFS, KML and KMZ, making the implementation of SDIs easy.

These circumstances took to the integration of i3Geo with gvSIG in two ways too. Firstly with a plugin that allows to the same catalog to be shown in gvSIG to include the layers in the project, that is to say that the same organization of the data is shown in the interactive layout in the website and in a gvSIG project. Secondly, a PHP class that allows the projects to be read by i3Geo, working as a desktop application to create maps that will be published in the website.

In this agreement, Edmar Moretti, main developer of i3Geo, becomes part of the gvSIG Professional Structure. In short, the integration between the i3Geo and gvSIG communities will bring growth opportunities for both of them. Growth of the free technical offer that the gvSIG project hosts, growth as community and in the community. Communities that grow in an inclusive way, with affinity to a values and a job oriented to connect liberties, solutions and efforts.

Our strength is the growth and the peer organization: i3Geo and gvSIG.

AGSE - Applied Geoinformatics for Society and Environment
5th International Conference and Summer School

Conference Theme: "Geoinformation - Catalyst for planning, development and good governance "

Location: Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, Malaysia

Date: July 16 - 20

We would like to inform you of the availability of presentations, posters and articles presented during the 7th International gvSIG Conference [1] which were held from November 30th to December 2nd under the motto "Conquering new areas".

The magazine Open Planet 5 [2] and the Live-DVD given during the Conference [3] are available too.

The videos of the presentations and workshops will be published soon.

We are very happy to announce that, after a long development period and a deep refactoring, gvSIG 2.0 is becoming a reality.

By releasing gvSIG alpha2 we officialy start the stabilization period of this expected version. We encourage you to test it and to report bugs and feature requests in the mailing lists [1] always taking into account that it is not recommended to use development distributions in production environments.

For further information please see [2]
Download of gvSIG 2.0 alpha2 at [3]

An early preview of the upcoming gvSIG Community Edition 1.0 is available for testing.

[Editor's note: let me paste below the "press release" that was submitted and approved on this very topic]

gvSIG Community Edition TECHNOLOGY PREVIEW available for testing

An early preview of the upcoming gvSIG Community Edition 1.0 is available for download here.
It is not intended for use in a production environment. We expect that there are still missing features in this release. In particular, the following features are NOT YET included:

• updated 32/64 bit binaries (raster drivers)
• GRASS and SAGA GIS binaries (via SEXTANTE)
• third-party extensions (e.g. OpenCAD, NavTable)
• the new extensions manager tool

We have included a SEXTANTE snapshot from 08/28/2011. Functionalities of GRASS GIS and SAGA can be added to the SEXTANTE Toolbox following the instructions of this document. You will see all the available raster- and vector tools from SEXTANTE, SAGA, GRASS GIS and gvSIG CE which all together are currently 760 algorithms.
A continuously updated release announcement, detailing the progress on new features and bug fixes can be found here.
This is a zero-install distribution. Simply unpack it somewhere on your hard disk and start it:

• Linux: start bin/gvSIG.sh
• Windows: start bin/gvSIG.bat
• Mac OS X: double-click the App folder

Please report your findings to our users mailing list.

Jose Canalejo

gvSIG Community Edition project team.

Here's the recent geonews that we haven't mentioned yet, in batch mode.

On the open source front:

• You can now animate your maps with the GeoServer WMS Animator Tool
• Here I found out about oculu-Z, an open source, open data platform for collaborative Computer Vision technology
• Want to know where OpenStreetMap is heading? Read this entry on the OpenStreetMap Foundation Board. Related to OSM, TripAdvisor now uses OpenStreetMap
• DM shared the first of a series of articles on open source geospatial software in the classroom, called Open Source Desktop GIS: Let’s Get Started
• APB mentions the Ushahidi2ArcGIS prototype, which imports Ushahidi data into ArcGIS
• I could only smile when I learned about the PostGIS Day, a day after 'GIS Day'
• gvSIG shares 60 new case studies

In the everything-else category:

• APB reports about an estimation of Esri's worldwide market share at 40.7% in 2010
• MapQuest wants to make certain we know that they don't have preset limits on their free Map API transactions
• DM shares an article named Effective Offshore GIS Data Management Services
• SS informs us that Trimble launched custom printed maps with MyTopo, for the U.S. and Canada
• The Map Room shares lists of Map Books of to help us with our Christmas gifts, TMR also reviews Maphead by Ken Jennings
• V1 discuss a EU Geographical Indications (GI) Scheme report, what ? "The aim of this program is to geographically assign product names, for example, champagne can only come from the Champagne region of France."

In the maps category:

• O'Reilly shares what they call A better U.S. migration [interactive] map
• The popular xkcd cartoon share a funny and geeky cartoon on what your favorite map projection says about you

Tuesday, November 29th, a day before the 7th edition of the International gvSIG conference, a CodeSprint event will be held in Valencia, where gvSIG developers gathered to discuss and solve some coding problems. This CodeSprint will take place after the positive experience of the previous gvSIG CodeSprints (FOSS4G2010, Girona, 6th gvSIG Conference and Galicia).

This event is sponsored by the Instituto ai2 of the Polytechnic University of Valencia and will be held in the Innova room of the Polytechnical City of Innovation of this University (more information about how to arrive).

The objective is to call gvSIG developers who can be interested. For this, a web page has been created to add bugs or functionalities to deal with.

If you are interested, with the subject "gvSIG CodeSprint", including attendance names and ID card number (it's necessary for network registration). You only will need to take a laptop and an ethernet cable for internet connection.

The registration period for the 7th International gvSIG Conference [1], organized by the gvSIG Association, is now open. It will be held from November 30th to December 2nd in Valencia (Spain).

Registrations are free of cost (limited capacity) and must be done through the application form on the Conference web page [2].

Once the registration is done you will immediatelly receive a confirmation code. Please, keep this code for later consultations or for update the registration data.

In addition, we remind you that we are expecting communication proposals for the Conference. The deadline is September 27th.

You just have to send an abstract, following the template provided on the Reports section of the Conference web page [3] to and the scientific committee will evaluate it to be in the conference programme. There are two types of communications: presentation and poster.

We expect your participation.

The gvSIG Association has the pleasure to inform you that the first edition of the basic gvSIG course in Italian will be held from November 7, to January 14, on the gvSIG training portal.

The basic course on gvSIG will illustrate the use and potential of this open source software, showing the most common functionalities within a workflow in a GIS environment. The course is aimed to both beginners and more experienced GIS users who want to learn how to use the program.

The course will take place during ten weeks and the estimated time for finishing it is approximately 90 hours. The participant will be able to manage the time and complete all tasks without it being an obstacle for the normal activity.

The course is structured into eight modules, after which there will be a test with an individual score. After completing this course, students who reached or exceeded the minimum score (70/100) will obtain their official certification issued directly by the gvSIG Association.

As results of the Google Summer of Code at the gvSIG project, the gvSIG plug-in for GGL has been released [1].

GGL is a specific programming language for geoprocessing where typical constructions of the more known programming languages (loops, conditionals, etc.) and specific constructions for geoprocessing to execute topological operations, filters, transformation of geometries, etc. adding help at the same time that the user write the scripts.

The released plug-in allows to reference the data sources of the project open currently in gvSIG Desktop from the GGL scripts, making the geoprocessing of the data loaded in gvSIG possible. Anyway, the plug-in allows to visualize return results in gvSIG Desktop loading the same ones at the active view.

Apart from the plug-in, several tutorials and reference documents [2] have been published to understand the logical language.

Likewise, some mailing lists [3] have been created to solve any problem or doubt when the system is used.

The advantadges of using a geoprocessing specific language are:

• The mencioned geoprocessing specific constructions: geometries in WKT, coordenates processing, typical operators of the relational algebra that add the same capacities than the spatial SQL to the language, etc.

• Help for creating scripts: Validations at the same time that the user writes, verification of the existence of the data sources and accesed data structures, autocompletion with the fields of the accessed files, etc.

• Pre-selection of technologies: GGL offers a series of functions to the user, that use the best internal technology currently: parsers, data access API, etc. That technology is pre-selected by the language developers, and it's a less responsability for the user, who only has to specify the operation and not how to execute it.

• Possibility to repeat geoprocesses, share them, give support, etc.