GvSIGinnovations

Valuable encouragement for gvSIG - The Europa Challenge Award

It is nice to know that gvSIG has received an international award during the recent Europa Challenge.

This award provides the opportunity for projects that bring innovation and sustainable solutions to the global community. Of course, if they add value to the INSPIRE Initiative And use available technology from NASA World Wind.

The virtual globe Existed a few years ago in a stand alone version, with a lot of similarity to Google Earth and advantages in aspects such as loading OGC services and functionalities that the popular Google toy only had in the paid version. It was only possible to install on Windows, although there was a version for Linux; Over time World Wind behaved and Was led to an SDK To be used by the development community in which different branches are now maintained, such as the Geoforge, Dapple, SERVIR-VIZ, Punt and WW2D projects.

As an incentive to continuity, in recent years NASA in the INSPIRE context has implemented the Europa Challenge Award, which we are now pleased to see targeted and gaining the nascent GIS software in the most widespread Hispanic environment to date.

 

GvSIG winnings with this award

The gvSIG Foundation has been happy to bet on the Synergy, presenting the use they have given to the SDK of NASA World Wind, and they have presented it in the FOSS4G Europe Developed last week in Italy.

The award comes to give an interesting encouragement to gvSIG, which for several years has remained visible and growing in the framework of the Free Days, reaching beyond its incubation environment. Apart from the Latin American context, where gvSIG has found an interesting niche, other environments such as the Russian and Italian communities that maintain significant activity are striking.

The bad news always remains, but the good news does not always add up. 

We are pleased to predict that this news will certainly add, especially because it comes just two months after we woke up the surprise that Jorge Sanz was leaving Prodevelp. We know very well that people are substitutable in companies, but we are also convinced of the lack that they do when they make a positive contribution to the communities in which they participate, especially if the new challenges imply restrictions that were previously almost an obsessive hobby. I couldn't find a way to mention Xurxo's decline from this side, but after the respect I maintain for his professionalism and enthusiasm for collaboration, whether we like it or not, we will miss him. We also hope you know how to stay active in what you know how to do and that you could only define it as: Add from the pragmatic enthusiasm.

Gvsig qgis

In a preliminary conclusion, the Europa Challenge award gives visibility to gvSIG, which for now has strong challenges by looking for more sponsoring institutions that can do what the community does not do by itself and that requires guiding vision, especially in development, rather than training and implementation that by now are already quite and growing.

Gvsig qgis

Perspectives and aspirations

It is still worrying how the visibility of gvSIG in Google trends reached its plateau and best moment during 2009 and 2011, but in the last three years it has been in decline. This should be reflected in the amount of software downloads, community activity and therefore developers; I mean both the formal ones from the Academy or subsidized investment and the furry ones making code from rooms full of smoke and beer.

For our part, we believe that gvSIG will maintain a stable line in the community that loves Java and free code. Although it will be a strong challenge to manage financial resources, alliances and promote the development of functionalities suggested by the impatience that can increase visibility in the Anglo-Saxon environment. Especially at the level of end users who search the Internet for other people's opinions.

Sure, it is not easy to be behind statistics, but that is what benchmarking is for, much more in open source contexts. The impact of not having the same economic resources as 5 years ago, losing high-value technical resources, or facing economic recession in the context of strategic partners, could be offset by reorienting common sense strategies that seem to be working for the sister project (QGIS ) that, as of 2011, has managed to grow at disproportionate levels, as shown in the joint graph of the two tools.

Gvsig qgis

When it comes to sustainability, don't let go of even a slight opportunity. As an example, we must take a look at what is happening with the Lagina cooperation projects in America promoted by bilateral, multilateral or debt reconversion funds from Europe that have little knowledge or will in gvSIG; it would not be bad to check what is happening with the message they are receiving.

We must clarify that in the ecosystem of free solutions, this is not a competition but a complementarity. gvSIG exists for Java and QGIS for C++, both for multiplatform; A GIS project for Java will always be necessary, as long as it maintains its enviable position in development environments. It is also interesting that never before has the OpenSource model and the development of collaborative communities been as temporary as it is today; You just have to see the blow that initiatives such as OpenStreetmap, Wikipedia, Wordpress, to name a few, have given to traditional schemes. But we must also be aware that in the globalized world we live in today, lifting the decline curve of a product's life cycle is only possible by supporting in a balanced way the few legs on which open source technology businesses are based: capital, innovation and community.

We believe that the strategy of synergizing with NASA's World Wind SDK is a valuable step to avoid investing resources in developing something that is already there and does not require redoing from scratch. We also believe that initiatives like this could be done for a long time (talking about the continuity of the OSGeo incubation process and synergies with geek acceptance libraries) and that, beyond the optimization of resources, it is an interesting decision due to world-class synergies. 

Apart from appearing pessimistic in part of the article, we seek to convey a constructive analysis. We extend our congratulations to all gvSIG users who have supported its growth with great effort. Congratulations to the promoters for this success in innovation that will surely bring fruits of visibility and new alliances.

Further information: GvSIG Foundation Blog

Golgi Alvarez

Writer, researcher, specialist in Land Management Models. He has participated in the conceptualization and implementation of models such as: National Property Administration System SINAP in Honduras, Management Model of Joint Municipalities in Honduras, Integrated Cadastre-Registry Management Model in Nicaragua, Territory Administration System SAT in Colombia . Editor of the Geofumadas knowledge blog since 2007 and creator of the AulaGEO Academy that includes more than 100 courses on GIS - CAD - BIM - Digital Twins topics.

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