The Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial Europe (FOSS4GE) conference is the European branch event of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) annual conference.
OSGeo is the largest and most important international organization that unites the community of developers, users, and advocates of free and open source in geospatial.
The main focus of the organization is fostering the development, maintenance, and use of free and open source software for geospatial, open standards, and open data. The democratizing nature of the field creates a basis for sharing geographic data, promotes cooperation between organizations and individuals, and enables the application of data in solving the most diverse everyday problems, being the basis for such fields as map applications, logistics, transport, infrastructure planning, organizing rescue work in disaster areas, etc.
FOSS4G is a community event organized by volunteers, with a focus on building a diverse and sustainable open community, sharing our own experiences, and learning from others. Although it is software that brings us together, it’s the deep care for the society and the environment that surrounds us, helping solve the World’s problems one bit at a time, that connects us.
The international conference series started in 2004 under the name FOSS/GRASS User Conference and has been known as FOSS4G since 2006. The European regional branch of the conference dates back to 2012 when the first FOSS4G Central and Eastern Europe (FOSS4G-CEE) was held in Prague, Czechia. Set to take place when the international conference is not in Europe, the European edition has since then visited:
- Bucharest, Romania (2013)
- Bremen, Germany (2014)
- Como, Italy (2015)
- Paris, France (2017)
- Guimarães, Portugal (2018)
- Valmiera, Latvia (2020) - cancelled
- Tartu, Estonia (2024)