From humble beginnings as one of the nation's first Open Source geospatial programs, GeoMOOSE has grown to become a product used around the world to display geospatial information online. Here are some highlights of how that happened:
2003 - Inspired by the NASA funded MapServer effort at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, programmers for the Minnesota capital city of St. Paul begin efforts to tie together disparate geospatial data being used or created by different types of software across the city's various departments.
2007 - After four years of internal development at St. Paul, GeoMOOSE gains a reputation as ground-breaking software. It is subsequently selected for developmental funding by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC). Upon completion of the FGDC project, GeoMOOSE is released as Open Source software so communities across the nation can share their data online without concern for cost.
2008 - For the first time in the history of a National Special Security Event (NSSE), a local geospatial team is organized and deployed as part of the Multi-
2013 - Six years after its release as Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G), GeoMOOSE becomes officially sanctioned software of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) - the worldwide standards organization for FOSS4G. Only 21 other pieces of Open Source software on the planet have received this certification.
2013 - The initial cadre of St. Paul GeoMOOSE programmers is honored with the state's highest geospatial award - the Minnesota Governor's Geospatial Commendation Award. The award is only bestowed upon those who create and sustain a substantial, positive impact on the geospatial community. The only other Open Source software program that has been so honored is the world's most widely used mapping engine - MapServer.
2016 - Programmers at the Minnesota Department of Transportation and nonprofit SharedGeo undertake a major rewrite of GeoMOOSE with a targeted release date of summer 2017. Efforts focus on making GeoMOOSE a state-of-the-art platform with expansive extensions, tool sets and full mobile touch screen functionality - all available for free.
