Another Change of Scene

Starting in the new year, I am going to be working full-time (well, slightly less due to child care needs) for OpenGeo, as the staff PostGIS expert. OpenGeo is best known as the home of GeoServer, but in the past year they’ve also built up a skilled team of OpenLayers user interface experts. So, architecturally, they’ve got a user interface layer, an application server layer, but what about database? To provide support for open source geo-applications, from database to interface, they want a database expert, and that’s where I come in.

I will still be available for PostGIS and Mapserver development projects, but the contracting agency will be OpenGeo now, instead of Clever Elephant. And in my gaps, I’ll be splitting my time between doing PostGIS development and marketing support for OpenGeo. (What’s “marketing support” mean? Material development, speaking, and blogging.)

I’m looking forward to having a bit more focus time for PostGIS, and also helping OpenGeo hone their vision of a pure open source geospatial company. As a “social enterprise”, OpenGeo has some financial flexibility in pursuing the audacious goal of a pure-play open source geo company, and some interesting productization opportunities that will be fun to work on.

Clarification (?): OpenGeo is a subproject of The Open Planning Project, which is in turn a part of the Lime Group, which is an umbrella for the many entrepreneurial pursuits of Mark Gorton (LimeWire is one of other members of the group). This Bloomberg article gives a good overview.