\title{GeoTools}
\maketitle

\begin{description}
	\item  [Period covered by report:] Jan-Dec 2007 
	\item  [Contact name:] \href{http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Jive}{Jody Garnett}
\end{description}


\section*{Key Accomplishments}
\begin{itemize}
	\item  An amazing amount of software at FOSS4G was built around the GeoTools library; we were very happy with the community presence at this event 
	\item  We had a 3 day long code sprint after FOSS4G in which we switched over to Java 5 and the GeoAPI feature model. This is the end of a three years of development, months of careful planning and review prior to the event allowed this change to go smoothly. 
	\item  Adrian Custer performed an exhaustive check into what is needed to assign copyright to the OSGeo Foundation, this has allowed us to resume discussions with the OSGeo board. 
	\item  Jody Garnett has started putting together a user guide for the library 
	\item  Our policy change allowing new developers to use the code repository to work on ``unsupported'' modules has been a great success. Unsupported modules are not bundled with the main GeoTools library and represent work that has not yet met our quality assurance guidelines. This change lowers the bar to participation allowing the GeoTools project to incubate new talent and ideas.  
\end{itemize}

\section*{Areas for Improvement}

\begin{itemize}
	\item  We made no progress on incubation during the year as we waited for a way forward; this seems to be resolved for 2008 
	\item  We have no time to talk to other Java developer communities, there is a lot of code duplication in this space (and several forks of the GeoTools code) 
	\item  The burden of keeping a build box going for such an active community is punishing 
	\item  SVN access has had bouts of downtime; we are clearing up the repository (of large test data) and considering moving to a newer version of SVN on OSGeo hardware. Developers have started playing with distributed version control. 
	\item  There are more answers going by on the user list than are being captured in the user guide; additional help jotting down code examples would be welcome 
\end{itemize}

\section*{Opportunities to Help}

\noindent Please try out the User Guide and give us feedback; we want to make sure the you can start hacking

\section*{Outlook for 2008}

GeoTools is looking forward to making 2008 the best year yet. There is a lot of exciting development now underway - from embracing Java 5, to rolling our WFS 1.1 support.  2008 will see the long expected return of swing widgets to the GeoTools library.\\

\noindent GeoTools 2.4.0 is available now and marks the last Java 1.4 release of the library. 
