C2: About (Draft)

Open Source License

deegree is distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). Generally speaking this means that the software users have essential freedoms such as: Run the software for any purpose, find out how it works, make changes, redistribute copies (of modified versions). Practically, with these freedoms, you do not have to pay a license fee, you can create as many installations as you need, and you're not bound to one single vendor. Instead you can contact a service provider of your choice to make necessary configurations or code adjustments. Or you may even step up and do this yourself.

More information about free software can be found at the free software foundation. A good starting point is http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html.

A copy of the deegree license text is available on the project wiki: [WIKI page to be added]

Technology

deegree is a standards-based Java framework for spatial data infrastructures.

• Standards-based: Interoperability is a major driver for the development of deegree. Besides being free software - which already is an important aspect of openness and hence interoperability - it implements geospatial IT standards and uses general IT technology. deegree implements the major standards of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and the ISO Technical Committee 211. deegree core subsystems like the geometry or the metadata model are based on ISO 19107 (Geographic information -- Spatial schema) and ISO 19115 (Geographic information -- Metadata). deegree web services and other applications use these core modules. They are implementations of OGC specifications, such as Web Map Service (WMS), Web Feature Service (WFS), Catalogue Service (CSW), Web Coverage Service (WCS) and Web Processing Service (WPS).
• Java technology: deegree is pure Java and can therefore be run on all platforms supporting the Java runtime environment. The currently preferred platform is OpenJDK 7. Oracle JDK 6 and 7 are also supported. For web services deployment we recommend Apache Tomcat 7 (v. 6 is also supported). [Maven build system, API usage for GIS development ...?]

Short history

The deegree project was born in summer 2002 as a consistent follow-up of a research & development project at the Geography Department of the University of Bonn in Germany. Based on one of the first implementations of the early Simple Features model of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) it started under the label "Jago" and was renamed to be "deegree" in 2002.

• deegree 1 (2002 - 2004) includes CSW, WFS and Simple Features client, WMS (OGC reference implementation) and WCS
• deegree 2 (2004 - ) includes CSW, WCS, WCTS, WFS, WMS, WPS, WPVS - Encodings: FE, GML, Metadata - Applications: iGeoDesktop, iGeoPortal, iGeoSecurity
• deegree 3 (2007 - ) is focussed on the main OGC web services and a stable API. Other applications such as a Desktop GIS may follow.

Please note that current development is focussed on version 3 while version 2 is still maintained.

Project Organisation

deegree is coordinated by a Project Steering Committee (PSC) and technically governed by a Technical Management Committee (TMC). Both institutions work closely together while each one has its designated responsibilities. Find out more on the deegree wiki at http://wiki.deegree.org/deegreeWiki/StructuresAndProcedures.

In 2010 deegree was officially accepted to be an OSGeo project after a two-years incubation process which was a major step towards more transparency and quality, both in structures, procedures and the software itself. Being an OSGeo project deegree has a strong commitment to enhance its overall accessibility and make the software as easy to use as possible.

Contact

If you have questions and comments about deegree, please use one of the mailing lists for users and developers [LINK to "Community" or "Support"]. In other cases you may want to use one of the following contact points:

• Project Steering Committee: psc@deegree.org

• Technical Management Committee: tmc@deegree.org

• General inquiries: info@deegree.org

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