“I've got a great idea...”
Building a system or application is the deliberate crossing of boundaries from idea to plan to realization. Turning technology ideas into reality takes:
- a deep knowledge of the alternatives;
- a realistic sense of the risks; and,
- a devotion to realizing the vision.
OpenGeo's system building teams combine all three.
An open process
Other systems integrators believe in walling off the development teams from the client, as a means of “preventing misunderstandings”.
We believe that the best way to prevent misunderstandings it to adopt a policy of 100% transparency. Fortunately, in our open source work, we already practice that policy! For clients it means:
- Access to the project issue tracker
- Access to the project code repository
- Access to the project wiki
- Access to the project mailing list
- Access to team planning meetings
You can have as much or as little involvement with the developers and technical details as you wish.
Our Systems Building Experts
Tim Schaub
Tim serves as CTO of OpenGeo, and is an active developer and steering committee member for OpenLayers. Before joining OpenGeo, Tim worked on numerous GIS development projects as a consultant and researcher.
Chris Holmes
Chris is the President of OpenGeo, a GeoServer developer and a long-time proponent of open geodata and open source. He manages our technology development, advises clients on strategic directions and regularly speaks at international conferences.
Paul Ramsey
Paul has worked on geospatial software for over 13 years, as a programmer and consultant. He co-founded the PostGIS spatial database project and is an active developer and project steering committee member.
Get started on your system today...
Making a Plan
The first step system development is a high-level plan: given the goals, what are the “knowns” and the “unknowns”, what pieces will be needed, what is the smallest increment of development that will deliver a useful product.
Understanding the effort behind an idea is critical information for a customer: they need a realistic assessment of the project size to determine whether to procede.
That is why OpenGeo will prepare development plans for free at the start of a customer engagement, to ensure our clients know what kind of project they can expect from us, before making a big commitment.