Greetings from Williams Lake, British Columbia.  Thank you for coming to see my talk.  It was with much regret that I was unable to attend.  I have been thwarted in my plans to get to Quebec for a couple years now, hopefully I will meet you all face-to-face in 2011.

I'm Tyler Mitchell and will take a few minutes today to help give you a broader picture of OSGeo and its activities.  How many of you have already been working with OSGeo through a local chapter or directly as a member or volunteer?  Okay, that's good to know.  First of all I'd like to thank the Quebec OSGeo local chapter for putting this event together.  I'm convinced that events like this truly make a difference.  Nothing can replace the face-to-face presentations and discussions that occur when we get together.

My own introduction to open source geospatial software came through MapServer and GRASS GIS.  I worked in the forest products and natural resource management industries for 10 years as a GIS manager.  In those positions I brought in open source software to meet the internal needs of our field staff and management.  This lead to writing my book, "Web Mapping Illustrated - Using Open Source GIS Toolkits" (O'Reilly, 2005).  It was the first of its kind, introducing not only MapServer, but also an in-depth look at GDAL/OGR command line tools, PostGIS and more.  The book was well received by geo-geeks and web developers (many without any geo-experience).  Since that initial printing it has been translated and updated into Japanese and German.

OSGeo itself was born shortly after and I eventually became employed by OSGeo in 2006 to help run the day-to-day activities and administration.  It was certainly an honour to be among the first batch of charter members - to see our common vision of collaborative support actually come to pass.  It has been over four years now and we continue to grow in many ways, some of which I'll touch on in this talk.

OSGeo's Ecosystem
A structural overview may be helpful at first.  This slide clearly shows the important place that the software PROJECTS hold in the broader OSGeo Ecosystem.