% Photos available?
% Changed title to English
%\title{Ottavo Meeting degli utenti italiani di GRASS \& GFOSS}
\title{8\textsuperscript{th} Annual Italian GRASS \& GFOSS Meeting}
\author{by Andrea Scianna}
\maketitle 

\section{}
The \textbf{VIII edition of the Meeting of Italian GRASS \& GFOSS}
(\textit{Geographic Free Open Source Software}) users took place on February
14\textsuperscript{th},15\textsuperscript{th} and 16\textsuperscript{th}
in Palermo -- Italy, organized by GISLAB at Dipartimento di
Rappresentazione of University of Palermo\footnote{GISLAB at Dipartimento di
Rappresentazione of University of Palermo: \url{http://gislab.dirap.unipa.it/}}

The meeting registered a strong participation, from all Italian regions, of researchers, students, professionals, and public servants remarking the great interest towards
\textit{Geographic Free Open Source Software} in Italy, used in many different sectors (such as environmental monitoring, processing, visualization and publication of geospatial
information on workstations or via WEB, etc.)

Even if, in the past, the reference
\textit{Free and Open Source GIS}
software has been GRASS, today there are
many other \textit{GIS} tools available for processing, visualizing and publishing on
Internet of geospatial data such as MapServer\footnote{MapServer: \url{http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/}},
QGIS\footnote{QGIS: \url{http://qgis.org/}}, PostGIS\footnote{PostGIS: \url{http://postgis.refractions.net/}}, ka-Map\footnote{ka-Map: \url{http://ka-map.maptools.org/}}, Chameleon\footnote{Chameleon: \url{http://chameleon.maptools.org/}}, PyWPS\footnote{PyWPS: \url{http://pywps.wald.intevation.org/index.psp}}, and more.

The meeting was characterized by a program rich with events.


On February 14\textsuperscript{th}, with the collaboration of Italian Society of Photogrammetry and Topography, the day entitled {\textquotedblleft}Introduction to
GIS{\textquotedblright} took place with the participation of
professionals and people working in private companies or public
administrations that deal every day with surveying and management of
geospatial information.


In the same day some tutorials on Linux, and on GIS software (GRASS and
QGIS) and on the WebGIS software MapServer were offered.


Topics of the main part of the meeting, held
on February 15\textsuperscript{th} and 16\textsuperscript{th}
were applications of Geographic Free and Open Source Software, such as
geostatistical analysis, GIS techniques for environmental analysis,
hydrogeology applications, heritage applications, interoperability, and
WebGIS security.

% Not sure about last part of sentence, what it means?
During the meeting also topics of geospatial data standardization were
discussed, as well as data exchange problems for public administrations,
including intervention of the Italian government.

Besides the interest of public administration
to the {\textquotedblleft}Open Source{\textquotedblright} phenomenon,
in Italy there is a strong community of scientists, developers and
users that sustain the development of GFOSS. Some of them founded the
\textit{Associazione Italiana per l{\textquotesingle}Informazione Geografica Libera /
GFOSS.IT} (Italian association for free
geoinformation -- \htmladdnormallink{GFOSS.it}{http://gfoss.it}) during the meeting.

The  main goals of this new association are sustaining the development,
diffusion and rights of Free and Open Source software, promoting open
standards for geoinformation and free access to state-collected
geospatial data, promoting relationships between people that constitute
the Free and Open Source Geospatial Community. \textit{GFOSS.it} intends to become the Italian OSGeo chapter.


The proceedings of the meeting are published on the meeting Web pages\footnote{GRASS/GFOSS meeting web page: \url{http://gislab.dirap.unipa.it/grass_meeting/index.htm}}


In the near future, the proceedings will also be published on the Web
pages of Politecnico di Milano -- Polo di Como\footnote{Proceedings published at Politecnico di Milano -- Polo di Como: \url{http://geomatica.como.polimi.it/workbooks/}}
where papers of all previous Italian GRASS Meeting are published,
starting with the year 2000.

\address{Ph.D. Ing. Andrea Scianna\\
  Management board, \url{http://GFOSS.it}\\
  %member of management board of the \\
%  {\textquotedblleft}Associazione Italiana per l{\textquoteright}Informazione Geografica Libera GFOSS.it{\textquotedblright}\\ 
%  \url{http://www.gfoss.it/}\\
  CNR D.C.S.P.I. - Dipartimento di Rappresentazione\\
  Universit\`a degli Studi di Palermo\\
%  c/o Facolt\`a di Ingegneria viale delle Scienze - 90128 Palermo\\
  Italy\\
%  Tel. 091-7028734\\
%  Fax 091-7028740 cell. +39 348 3158233\\
  \url{http://gislab.dirap.unipa.it}\\
  \email{scianna AT dirap.unipa.it}
}

