FOSS4G 2025 attendance

[Simon Nitz]

Hi All

 

Just a quick email to understand the lack of interest from QGIS Au members in attending FOSS4G 2025 (there are over 600 members on this list)

 

Is it because:

1. Last year’s issues with a certain sponsor of FOSS4G Oceania in Hobart
2. Registration is too expensive
3. International Travel
4. something else?
5. All the above!

 

You don’t have to reply to this email if don’t feel comfortable doing that, just let me know directly…

 

Here are my private contact details.:

email: si...@simonnitz.com

mobile: +64-27-201-5131

 

 

 

Cheers

Simon

 

Simon Nitz | GIS Lead P: +64 349 3052 | M: +64 www.whanganui.govt.nz Whanganui District Council | 101 Guyton Street | Whanganui 4500

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[Dean Howell]

Hello Simon,

For me it was just work commitments as I have a project in it final stages of development.

Cheers

Dean

Dean Howell  Email: de...@lizdean.com.au  Mobile: 0417 805 998  Web: mapmyresume.online

Book time to meet with me

---

From: 'Simon Nitz' via QGIS Australia User Group <australian-qg...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, 16 October 2025 10:35 AM
To: australian-qg...@googlegroups.com <australian-qg...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [QGIS-Australia-User-Group] FOSS4G 2025 attendance

 

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[Emma Hain]

Hi Simon

For me, it is because of my son's graduation. Nyall will be attending though. It is seriously going to be great and I am guttered I cannot attend. 

Additionally, I want to thank the organising committee and OO for taking the time to deliberate over the sponsor issue. I think this shows how much both committees respect the QGIS community, and although I feel that no OS contributor should be refused access, I also feel that the comfort of our community needs to be respected - which has been done this year. 

If the issue is about accommodation - I think there are some great options still available. I think the Pullman might have some accommodation. Alternatively, the ferries are amazing so you could look at getting accommodation around Devonport.

It's never too late...

Kind regards

Em

Emma Hain — Product Manager/Senior GIS Analyst
em...@north-road.com

North Road Cartography • Development • Spatial Analysis north-road.com FOSS4G 2025 17-23 November, Auckland, New Zealand

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[Nathan Woodrow]

For me it was just a timing issue, funding, and not being able to be away from home that long with family stuff.

I had plans to try and make it work but it just wasn't possible. Needing to get a new passport also blew my costing out a bit being single income family at the moment.

I am disappointed because it would have been excellent.

- Nathan

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[box...@iinet.net.au]

Good Morning all,

 

I have raster map produced by the geological survey of WA and it is in an Albers Equal Area projection, with a central meridian of 121 and standard parallels for -17.5 and -31.5. I would like to add this as a new projection so I can plot in my map window. The default Albers is for all of Australia. I can’t find the WA one in the existing projection list.

 

Any assistance appreciated.

 

Cheers Grant

Perth WA

 

[Juan Fernando Berrío]

Hello Grant, 

It looks like it might be achievable using custom projections.  Here's some steps to build one:

1. On a regular QGIS window, at the bottom right you can find the projection definition of the window. Click on it to open the projections dialog. Search for "lambers australia" and do a single click on the best match (the one with the oldest date I suppose). It will show you the projection definition with all the parameters, in WKT or proj format. Copy the whole thing and paste it into Notepad, temporarily. You can close that dialog when you're done. The parameters will be used as the base structure for your new projection. 

2. Go to Settings > Custom projections.

3. Start defining a new projection. You can call it for example "Australian Albers WA".

4. Decide if you will enter the new parameters in WKT format or in proj format - you can play with it. In my tests, I got multiple errors with WKT, but it all worked easily with proj. 

5. Enter the template text you copied earlier (only the WKT or proj portion depending on your choice). Edit the relevant parameters - the ones you described in your original post. 

6.  Accept - accept - accept - test.

If it doesn't work, it may indicate that some of the other projection parameters may also need an edit.  But that can get complicated - an email to the relevant office in the WA gov might help in that case. 

Hope it helps,

Juan

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[Juan Fernando Berrío]

Errata

Step 1:  The search should be for "Albers Australia", not "lambers". 

In my defense, it's probably not the first time that error has happened to someone... 

J

[Simon Nitz]

Hi all
Just wanted to say a quick thanks to the few that replied, you all had very valid and understandable reasons.
FOSS4G was a huge success and the QGIS related workshops presentations and lightning talks were amazing!
It was far better than I could have dreamed back in January 2024 when I put together the letter of intent for our region to host the conference.
The conference made a great profit which will be split 50/50 between OSGeo Oceania and OSGeo - in the Oceania region that will provide continuing microgrant funding and travel grant funding for future related events in Oceania like our own regional FOSS4G conferences, GeoRabble events, QGIS AU events, etc.
 
Now some of you will not like what I'm about to say, but I feel it needs to be said for this group to grow...

Apart from a few very dedicated individual members (I am so grateful for your support over the last almost 2 years organising FOSS4G) , it was extremely disappointing that there was next to no support from QGIS Au to promote and support FOSS4G 2025.
It’s sad when the poor attitudes and personal grievances of a few individuals and companies, pervade the many.
There were very few reposts on QGIS Au LinkedIn/social media and no event information on the QGIS Au website at all!
These were very small things that could have been undertaken to help promote an event that has benefits to the wider OSGeo/FOSS4G community, a community QGIS Au is part of.
It will be a very long time before FOSS4G global returns to this region (I will be long retired), but I sincerely hope QGIS Au will put more effort and enthusiasm into any future hosting.
Don’t miss this opportunity next time!
 
Cheers
Simon

[Emma Hain]

Hi All

Thanks Simon for your frank email, and I think it great that we can freely speak here. 

I know that QGIS AU is informally run, and what we can contribute and undertake is fully governed by our availability to do so. I know if I had been able to attend, I would have strongly represented QGIS AU in person at all the activities, and I would have been able to contribute more.

I hope that everybody else feels that they can also represent QGIS AU at any event they attend. If people are not comfortable to do so, or would like to do so more, I am keen to hear of ways this can be achieved. 

Kind regards

Em

Emma Hain — Product Manager/Senior GIS Analyst
em...@north-road.com

North Road Cartography • Development • Spatial Analysis north-road.com FOSS4G 2025 17-23 November, Auckland, New Zealand

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[Andrew Jeffrey]

Hi Simon,

The conference looked amazing, congratulations to you and the organising committee for putting on such a fantastic event on the FOSS4G world stage. You should all be extremely proud of yourselves, I'm sure there would have been plenty of ups and downs along the way but from an outside perspective it looked like it was well under control. Which is a testament to you, your team and the effort of all volunteers. The cherry on top has to be Nyall being awarded the Sol Katz award in the very region that he lives and works, well deserved!

Personally, I was never going to make it over to NZ. I haven't even been able to attend any of the recent local conferences which is a bummer, and to date 2018 in Melbourne is still my only Foss4g OO start (still best conference I have ever attended btw).

I can only speak for myself, but I absolutely feel there is some residue from past treatment of this group lying around. To be absolutely honest, I'm still annoyed from last year and the OO board's response to concerns about ESRI sponsorship being summed up as "5 people experiencing discomfort" that was the most blatant "shut up and put up" I have received since being actively involved in any community. I felt like crawling under a rock and just disappearing. What I heard from that response was, the board considers your concerns a slight discomfort, now chin up and help us advertise our next conference where we may or may not do the same thing again, but you won't know until we do or we don't....trust us!! I'm glad the LOC did the right thing when presented with the same proposition this year, but would that have happened if 5 people from this QGIS community didn't voice their discomfort?

Regarding the lack of support in promoting the event, this to me looks like a communication problem. While we may never all be on the same page about issues in the community, I do believe we all have the same interest in promoting FOSS4G. This common goal should be enough for us to get through rough patches together. Scanning the mailing list this morning, the only request for us to assist in promoting the conference on this list that I can see was in July with the thread "Supporter Status for FOSS4G 2025". If you read that thread the call to arms there is vague, and it looked like the conference placed us on their page before getting our buy-in first (See Ems first dot point). So this makes it hard not to feel like our concerns get dismissed, but the "appearance" of us being on board is still important. Perhaps a clearer call to arms posted to this list from the LOC about what was needed would have been a better approach? Some clear directions "We need your help with", "You can help by doing, a, b, and c", and "This is important because". From the QGIS AU community side, the core group of organisers here could have provided you with more support, and check in to see what we could have done for you. We left (me included) everything to Em, which is unfair because she already does 100% of everything. I recognise this as a failure on our behalf, I am sorry, and we need to do better as a group if we are to continue on, we rely heavily on Em for everything.

To your main point though Simon, I agree this was an opportunity missed and as a community we could have done better. However, I don't believe there are poor attitudes or personal grievances at play. This to me and again just my perspective, looks like disengagement from a community that has been dismissed.

Thanks
Andrew

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[John Bryant]

Hi Simon, congratulations on what sounds like it was an incredible event! I saw a lot of happy faces in my news feed. I truly wish I could have participated.

Cheers

John

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[cholena]

Hi Simon,

Thanks for your thoughts, and congratulations on a successful FOSS4G - I know it took an incredible amount of work.

On a side note to our community here, I just want to say a personal thank you to everyone who participates in QGIS AU, in whatever form and to whatever extent you choose to. Your contributions are valued and appreciated, and apart from being respectful, inclusive and supportive, I don't think we should have demands on how people participate. I am also constantly impressed by the thoughtful diplomacy of the communication in this mailing list (I'm looking at you Andrew).

So thanks everyone!

Cholena

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