GEOS Incubation Application

[warmerdam]

This is draft unofficial incubation application for GEOS.

1. Please provide the name and email address of the principal Project Owner.

Paul Ramsey (pramsey at refractions.net)

2. Please provide the names and emails of co-project owners (if any).

none applicable

3. Please provide the names, emails and entity affiliation of all official committers.

fill in committer list

4. Please describe your Project.

GEOS (Geometry Engine - Open Source) is a C++ port of the Java Topology Suite (JTS). As such, it aims to contain the complete functionality of JTS in C++. This includes all the OpenGIS "Simple Features for SQL" spatial predicate functions and spatial operators, as well as specific JTS topology functions such as IsValid().

5. Why is hosting at OSGeo good for your project?

Operating as an OSGeo project would make it easier for a variety of organizations and projects to depend on and influence GEOS' development.

6. Type of application does this project represent(client, server, standalone, library, etc.):

library

7. Please describe any relationships to other open source projects.

GEOS is used by the PostGIS, GDAL/OGR, MapServer, and MapGuide projects. It is based (a port of) the JTS (Java Topology Suite) library.

8. Please describe any relationships with commercial companies or products.

GEOS was primarily developed by Refractions Research.

9. Which open source license(s) will the source code be released under?

LGPL

10. Is there already a beta or official release?

Yes, GEOS is at release 3.0 and has been in broad use for several years.

11. What is the origin of your project (commercial, experimental, thesis or other higher education, government, or some other source)?

GEOS was developed as an open source port of JTS by Refractions with some government financial support, initially primarily for use in PostGIS.

12. Does the project support open standards? Which ones and to what extent? (OGC, w3c, ect.) Has the software been certified to any standard (CITE for example)? If not, is it the intention of the project owners to seek certification at some point?

The project is focused on providing a robust implementation of the OGC Simple Features spatial predicates. It is primariliy based on the OGC Simple Features for SQL and related specifications.

13. Is the code free of patents, trademarks, and do you control the copyright?

Refractions Research controls the bulk of the copyright, and there are no known patent or trademark issues.

14. How many people actively contribute (code, documentation, other?) to the project at this time?

There are approximately half a dozen significant contributors to GEOS at this time.

15. How many people have commit access to the source code respository?

fill in

16. Approximately how many users are currently using this project?

PostGIS, GDAL/OGR, !!!!1MapServer, MapGuide and FME are the major applications using GEOS. The number of actual end users of those products is hard to estimate. There are also a variety of smaller projects or efforts using GEOS.

17. What type of users does your project attract (government, commercial, hobby, academic research, etc. )?

A variety of user types, including through open source and proprietary GIS packages.

18. If you do not intend to host any portion of this project using the OSGeo infrastructure, why should you be considered a member project of the OSGeo Foundation?

It is our intention to host the project at OSGeo.

19. Does the project include an automated build and test?

No, it is planned to host this at OSGeo.

20. What language(s) are used in this project? (C/Java/perl/etc)

C++

21. What is the dominant written language (i.e. English, French, Spanish, German, etc) of the core developers?

English

22. What is the (estimated) size of a full release of this project? How many users do you expect to download the project when it is released?

GEOS is roughly 110000 lines of code. It is anticipated that dozens of applications and projects will find it useful, and that it be used indirectly by hundreds of thousands of users.