tommy's scratchpad

2023 was a memorable year and quite the ride! Eventful and full swing on so many fronts. Here’s the annual rundown:

pygeoapi: two releases, lots of development at code sprints and continuous improvement for the project. Dutch API rules, CRS and increased support for the various standards as they evolve. As well, numerous valuable discussions this year around hardening the project for the long term. Contributions (always valued!) continue to increase, which shows a healthy project with considerable interest.

pycsw: lots of improvements on standards support (OGC API – Records, STAC) as we move towards version 3.0. The project supports so many discovery API standards, and we are not done yet 🙂

OGC: development on numerous standards: OGC API – Records, and OGC API – Environmental Data Retrieval and Pub/Sub went though a number of improvements and updates in 2023. I was also fortunate to help deliver the OGC API workshop as part of the GISE Hub Winter School on OGC Stack (which included delivery of the Diving into pygeoapi workshop as well).

OSGeo: I’m happy to report that the ZOO-Project passed incubation and became an official OSGeo project! A big congratulations to Gérald and team. We also had a successful joint sprint with OGC as well as the first in-person OSGeo Community Sprint since 2019, in November. The annual FOSS4G global event in Prizren was fantastic, and I was happy to provide two workshops, numerous presentations and a keynote. I continue to serve on OSGeo’s Board of Directors and was happy to help move forward the OSGeo / OGC collaboration piece in 2023.

WMO: the WIS2 standards and architecture were put through a pilot phase this year. WIS2 specifications, guides, manuals all received significant updates this year thanks to the contributions of many experts. Most specifications also have reference implementations (wis2box, wis2-gdc, wis2-gc, pywis-pubsub, pywis-topics, pywcmp, etc.). The series of WIS2 training sessions also proved valuable for numerous members in implementing WIS2 technologies. Did you know that wis2box now has 30 or so deployments worldwide?

MSC GeoMet: the national weather/water/climate API platform continues to grow. We’ve recently added GOES imagery, and MSC AniMet is emerging as a great tool for visualization of our API!

Health: another year (circa 2012) of not smoking. I am hoping to shape up again in 2024, let’s see how it goes.

Looking forward to 2024:

• pygeoapi: RFC2 will help harden things as we move towards 1.0. As well, look for news soon on the first ever pygeoapi code sprint 🙂
• pycsw: moving towards 3.0, look for a new YAML-based configuration format, as well improvements on faceting, distributed search, harvesting and more
• OGC: look for OGC API – Records to be released, as well as Pub/Sub development in EDR and beyond. The annual joint sprint with OSGeo will also take place in Évora, Portugal on 26-28 February. See you there!
• OSGeo: the global event in Belém (December) promises to be a can’t miss event, and I look forward to providing presentations and training on Geospatial Python, pygeoapi and OGC at the event
• WMO: 2024 is the year that the architecture and specifications are ratified as we move into the pre-operational phase

Wishing everyone a safe and happy 2024!