They used the mapfish web framework (python based: pylons) for a website about bio-energy. They developed it fully using open source software and they also were open (to the other project partners) during development (which was new for them).
Software they used: postgis, mapserver, mapfish, openlayers. For the development process: trac.
Before starting the main development, they had a workshop with all participants where they talked about the project. Looking at geo websites they liked, for instance. Coming up with user interface ideas. Everyone was really energized by the workshop.
The software was developed by several people and companies so everyone was constantly working on the same code. Some of the participants normally worked alone (”einzelkaempfer”) and they liked it a lot to be able to cooperate for a change.
Some advantages of this development model:
Broad acceptance of the web application by cooperative development and early involvement.
Knowledge transfer. Everyone has a much broader knowledge than would otherwise have been the case.
Costs and resource usage was lower. Important for the municipal organisation that started the project: costs is always a problem and they simply don’t have the resources anymore to do everything themselves.
Intelligent, friendly, fun cooperation.
See http://www.energieatlas.org/ (click on “bioenergie”).
My name is Reinout van Rees and I work a lot with Python (programming language) and Django (website framework). I live in The Netherlands and I'm happily married to Annie van Rees-Kooiman.
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