\title{Mapbender}
\maketitle

\begin{description}
	\item  [Period covered by report:] Jan-Dec 2007 
	\item  [Contact name:] \href{mailto:christoph@osgeo.org}{Christoph Baudson}
\end{description}

\section*{Key Accomplishments}

\subsection*{Quality assurance}
\begin{itemize}
	\item  Increased the percentage of re-usable code by switching from script-oriented to object-oriented design 
	\item  Since 02/07: well-used bug tracking system Trac supplied by OSGeo (163 tickets up to now), supplement of patches for bugs. 
	\item  Since 03/07: well-defined release proceedings, releases on a regular basis (at least 4 releases per year) 
	\item  12/07: optimization of Mapbender's load process: it now loads 4-5 times as fast. 
	\item  Since 04/07: growing HTML API of JavaScript and PHP classes\footnote{Mapbender class docs: \url{https://svn.osgeo.org/mapbender/trunk/documents/jsdoc/index.html}}
	\item  01/07: establishment of coding conventions\footnote{Mapbender Code Conventions: \url{http://www.mapbender.org/index.php/Code_conventions}}
\end{itemize}

\subsection*{Community building}
\begin{itemize}
	\item  Since 03/07: regular, productive weekly IRC meetings\footnote{Mapbender meeting logs: \url{http://www.mapbender.org/index.php/IRC_Meeting}}
	\item  05/07: development sprint with around 20 participants 
	\item  Since 01/07: integration of several new developers outside of the core team (Michael Schulz, Marc Jansen, Marko Samson, etc.) 
	\item  Since 07/07: development of internationalisation techniques (in collaboration with Italian developers) 
	\item  Multi-language documentation at \href{http://www.mapbender.org}{mapbender.org}
\end{itemize}


\section*{Areas for Improvement}

\begin{itemize}
	\item  Enhance international outreach, address more people outside Germany (or Europe) 
	\item  Develop an easy-to-use update routine 
	\item  Integration of OSGeo software, like OpenLayers 
	\item  Despite having an opportunity to host demos at Telascience, a machine with better connection to Europe might be desirable. The server is very slow here. 
\end{itemize}

\section*{Opportunities to Help}

\begin{itemize}
	\item  Wiki: \href{link!}{Request for an Account} and add your web application to the \href{link!}{Gallery} or help on the documentation 
	\item  Contribute your set of buttons to make Mapbender look better 
	\item  Offer service around Mapbender, there is still a lot of commercial potential 
	\item  Join development by throwing code over the fence or joining the core development team. We need people who have fun creating Web 2.0 style interfaces and have a hand for design work 
	\item  Fund core development by sponsoring 
\end{itemize}

\section*{Outlook for 2008}

\begin{itemize}
	\item  Release of Mapbender 2.5, featuring i18n, KML support, optimized code etc. 
	\item  Stabilise and enhance input/output of standardized formats like WMS, WFS, WMC, GeoJSON, KML 
	\item  Continue to work on re-design to allow interoperation with state-of-the-art software 
	\item  WFS FilterEncoding interface - this means that you can query geographic objects for spatial and attribute data 
	\item  SLD Editor 
	\item  Install / Setup script 
	\item  Catalog connectors 
	\item  Enhanced update functionality 
	\item  New interfaces (badly needed, we still look like from the late nineties...) 
\end{itemize}


\subsection{Maybe (depending on interest - so ask for it!)} 
\begin{itemize}
	\item  OpenLayers as alternative map interface 
	\item  FeatureServer support 
	\item  Tile cache support 
\end{itemize}
