[Freegis-list] GeoServer 1.3.2 Released

[Chris Holmes]

The GeoServer Project is pleased to announce the release of version 
1.3.2.  We know it's not a very glamorous number - if our project 
members were focused on marketing instead of building great software 
we'd probably call it GeoServer XT, or perhaps GeoServer: Google Earth 
edition, to more accurately reflect what we've been up to.  But we think 
it's a pretty great release.

GeoServer is an open source, standards-based server of geospatial 
information, connecting spatial databases and files to the variety of 
clients that make up the 'geospatial web', and allowing user contributed 
editing through standard web-based interfaces.  GeoServer can be 
downloaded at http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOS/Latest

Improvements for this release include an upgrade to the latest GeoTools 
(an incubating OSGeo project), and some performance tuning on the 
toolkit, with users reporting at least a 60-70% speed increase against 
PostGIS.  There are also great user contributed fixes to create PDF maps 
from WMS and to adjust headers to allow caching, which can optimize 
GeoServer for tiling web mapping clients like OpenLayers.  The other big 
set of improvements were supported by Google, in order to leverage 
GeoServer's data reading and map producing capabilities to allow anyone 
to make their existing data available on Google Earth.  The bulk of the 
work was to create KML/KMZ output from the open standard WMS protocol, 
which is compatible with Google's network link.  Also funded was a basic 
SLD creation wizard, so that map styles can be created through the web 
administration GUI.

With the latest additions GeoServer becomes an ideal open source server 
for Google Earth, especially for connecting with existing spatial 
databases.  GeoServer supports PostGIS, ArcSDE, MySQL, Oracle Spatial, 
DB2, and Shapefiles and recent improvements with GeoTools 2.2.x pass the 
majority of the spatial processing back to the database.  There is also 
a KMScore optimization, which has GeoServer render the features as a 
raster to be used as a Ground Overlay, for situations when there are too 
many features for Google Earth to efficiently portray.  GeoServer is 
able to handle millions of rows in a geospatial database, and will 
perform quite nicely as long as the map is styled efficiently with the 
Styled Layer Descriptors (SLD) specification from the OGC.  GeoServer 
remains 'standard by default', so all layers configured for Google Earth 
will also be available as standard WMS and WFS.  GeoServer's 
transactional capabilities also allow a community of users to update 
spatial data, and have it available in a variety of formats.


About GeoServer
***************

GeoServer is an Open Source server that connects your information to the 
geospatial web.  Its focus is ease of use and support for standards, 
including serving as WFS 1.0 Reference Implementation (and soon to be 
1.1 as well).  The goal is to serve as 'glue' for the geospatial web, 
connecting from legacy databases and formats to many diverse clients. 
GeoServer includes easy to use installers, web administration tools, and 
demos to get you going quickly.  GeoServer's homepage is geoserver.org, 
and more information on features can be found at 
http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOS/Features The release can be 
downloaded at: http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOS/Latest  The 
GeoServer Project is completely open source, in license and development 
process, built by a diverse community of contributors 
(http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOS/Contributors), whom you are 
encouraged to join.  GeoServer is built on GeoTools, a project of the 
Open Source GeoSpatial Foundation http://osgeo.org

About The Open Planning Project (TOPP)
*************************************
http://topp.openplans.org

TOPP's mission is to build technology to enhance the role of the citizen 
in democratic society. We believe that a more informed and empowered 
populace will effect real change. TOPP draws inspiration from the ideas, 
processes and success of the open source software movement. To that end 
our tools enhance government transparency and provide opportunity for 
citizen participation in shaping society.

TOPP provides funding and leadership for the development of GeoServer, 
to help create a more open, interoperable infrastructure of geographic 
information. TOPP's interest in this is urban planning, so that 
geographic data is more available and open to enable citizen involvement 
through the use of simulations and modeling that can be built on top of 
the base data. But GeoServer is run in a true open source fashion, able 
to meet a variety of needs, and developed by a number of organizations. 
TOPP supports a diverse community of commercial providers, and does take 
on work related to GeoServer when related to its core mission. Any 
'profit' made from providing services on GeoServer is re-invested back 
in to the project, building a sustainable open source project that many 
can use and improve for their needs.


-- 
Chris Holmes
The Open Planning Project
http://topp.openplans.org
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