GFOSS.it

The Associazione Italiana per l'Informazione Geografica Libera GFOSS.it, founded in 2007 as an association of social promotion, has among its members professionals, public administration officials, academics and aims to promote the development and dissemination of software for geographic information exclusively free and open source and to promote open standards and free access to geographic data in Italy. Currently there are about eighty members, with a spread throughout the country while the registered users of the public discussion list are about 700.

Activities

The main activities of GFOSS.it traditionally focus on the following areas

1. spread:
   • organization of the annual GFOSS Day event (now FOSS4G)
   • patronage and participation in conferences with topics similar to those of the association
   • support and information to users through official website, public mailing list, social media
   • encourage contacts between users and developers or between different communities
2. development support:
   • donations to free software or open data projects
   • software and/or documentation translation. Members are involved in the translation of e.g GRASS, QGIS, OSGeoLive, Lizmap
   • participation and organization of development events
3. public role:
   • convened by a committee of the Italian Parliament for a hearing on the release of opendata held by the central administration
   • participation as a stakeholder in working groups of the Agency for Digital Italy (AgID)
   • agreement with Tuscany Region for the diffusion of open source GIS software
   • sharing individual objectives with other related associations

The main vehicle for achieving the Association's goal has always been the annual organization of GFOSS Day, an event whose main purpose is to involve companies, public bodies, schools, universities, research centers, developers, citizens, professionals and enthusiasts of the themes of free geographic software and open data.
Since 2017 GFOSS Day has become FOSS4G Italia and is organized together with Wikimedia Italia, an association that includes the Italian OpenStreetMap community and the Universities and Institutions that host the event from year to year.
The success of the five editions (2017 in Genoa, 2018 in Rome, 2019 in Padua, 2020 in Turin, and 2021 online) has definitely placed FOSS4G Italia as one of the reference events at national level for users and developers of free geographic software and for producers and users of free geographic data, without neglecting the opportunities for exchange between people belonging to all communities looking at free solutions in the field of geographic information.
Traditionally, thematic workshops are also organized to learn about new software, held by the most important Italian contributors to free geographic software.