[Gvsig_english] Official constitution of the gvSIG Brazilian Community

[comunicacion_gvsig at gva.es]

April 21st this year, the gvSIG Brazilian Community was constituted  
officially.

Geomatics has expanded considerably in Brazil in the last years, with  
a tendency to adopt the open source and free software philosophy by  
all of the country. This new technology development model is  
considered fundamental in the adoption of Geographic Information  
Systems, because of the high cost of the proprietary software as well  
as the impossibility to access to its source code and modify it.

In the diverse solutions of Free Geomatics, gvSIG is considered a  
fundamental tool, by its technical capacities as a Desktop GIS as well  
as the organization and sustainability model that it proposes.

The gvSIG Brazilian Community has been created with the aim of  
spreading gvSIG use in Brazil, encouraging its members to share  
experiences, supporting the project and promoting its business model.

The first tasks that the Community is tackling are related to the  
gvSIG development and collaboration in testing and in translation of  
the documentation and interface into Brazilian Portuguese.

The following strategic steps have been defined to structure the Community:

- Identification of Brazilian users.

- First gvSIG Brazilian Conference. The necessary tasks to organize  
this first gvSIG event in Brazil in 2010 are being carried out. The  
aim is to know how the institutions, universities and companies are  
using gvSIG. Moreover, it will be a conference preparatory to the 3rd  
Latin American and Caribbean gvSIG Conference which will be held in  
Brazil in 2011.

- Interaction with the OSGeo Community.

The group coordinator of the gvSIG Brazilian Community includes some  
members of the following institutions: Embrapa Florestas (Maria  
Augusta Doetzer Rosot and Marilice Cordeiro Garrastazu); International  
Hydroinformatics Center (Rafael González); Sistema de Informações  
Geográficas da Bacia Hidrográfica do Rio Ribeira e Iguape (Gilberto  
Cugler); Universidade Federal do Paraná (Prof. Nelson Carlos Rosot).

Brazilian Community URL:  
http://www.gvsig.org/web/community/comm_groups/comm_gvsig_br/