David Sampson

David Sampson Photo

"When we try to pick up anything by itself we find it is attached to everything in the Universe."
John Muir
(1838 - 1914)

Open Source

David Sampson has been using, exploring, learning and teaching others about Open Source technologies for over 10 years.

Geospatial Open Source
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) spans many areas of expertise. David Sampson is particularly interested in geospatial domain of Free and Open Software Software for Geomatics (FOSS4G). Some of the projects he is currently involved with include.


Public Address Geocoder (PAGC)
link to site:  http://www.pagcgeo.org/

Dave is reponsbile for building new release versions. He is also involved in marketing the project and writing tutorials. Professionally, Dave is a GIS Specialist at Natural Resources Canada. He is also the co-founder of the Ottawa OSGeo Chapter, and is heavily involved in several public geodata creation efforts.

Geographic Resource Analysis Support System (GRASS)
link to site:  http://grass.itc.it/

As a long time user of GRASS GIS Dave


Open Source communities are often described as ecosystems as actions in one community are closely connected with reactions in another. John Muir would certainly have a lot to say about the interconnectivity of the Open Source world.

Open Source GeoSpatial Foundation
link to site: http://www.osgeo.org/

Dave  has contributed to the OSGEO family in several ways. First by spearheading the Ottawa Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) Users Group (OGUG).

Dave then acted was co-founder and subsequently co-president of the Ottawa chapter of OSGEO during its start up phase.

Dave has delivered presentations and tutorials to OSGEO and GRASS community members including a double header presentation on a GeoRSS client and a Catalogue Service for the Web (CSW) he developed for the QGIS desktop application.

Government of Canada: Open Source
link to site: http://www.gc.ca
GC Pedia: (to come)
GC Connex: (to come)

Dave was one of the first contributors to the Open Source government of Canada version of Wikipedia

Dave Sampson started an Open source practisioners group on the Government of Canada professional networking version of Facebook called GC Connex.

Natural Resource Canada: Open Source
link to site: http://nrcan.gc.ca
NRCAN Resource Wiki: http://wiki.nrcan.gc.ca (internal link)


Open Source software can also have positive impacts on the environment and act as one of many tool sfor ending poverty in industrialized countries

Computers for Communities (C4C)
link to site:


One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)
link to site:

Computers for Communities
OLPC (not affiliated byut very interested)