St. Louis, MO – Boundless, the leader in open GIS for the enterprise, and Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON), a global modern agriculture company, today announced their collaboration on the contribution of open source geospatial code back to the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) community.
Among the contributions is an OAuth Plugin that was donated to enable modern authorization of users within the Quantum GIS (QGIS) open source desktop project. This contribution enables the users of the most widely used open source desktop GIS software to utilize user-based authentication to determine what data on the system the user can access. The code only covers the authentication process and does not share any company information or data from Monsanto or any of its customers.
This contribution marks part of a larger open source initiative Monsanto is undertaking. “Modern open source technologies, like those stewarded by Boundless, enable us to scale our enterprise to support and handle more geospatial information than we would have ever been able to support with proprietary GIS technologies,” said Dr. Martin Mendez-Costabel, Geospatial Big Data Engineering and Strategy Lead at Monsanto. “We are proud to be able to give back to the community, allowing for other organizations to realize the power of the open source geospatial platform.”
This code has allowed the company to have a smoother authentication system and allows employees easier access to the data they need while in the field.
“It is encouraging to see one of the largest agricultural firms breaking from traditional software approaches and adopting our technology platform,” said Andy Dearing, CEO of Boundless. “The rapid acceleration in capabilities of the open source geospatial technology stack has greatly benefited from advancements like what Monsanto is contributing today. We are only going to continue to see a rise in adoption and success of open source geospatial implementations.”
To explore Monsanto’s specific contributions, check out the following repositories:
For more information about how Monsanto has adopted the open source geospatial technology platform in their enterprise, see the recent webinar here.
About Monsanto Company
Monsanto is committed to bringing a broad range of solutions to help nourish our growing world. We produce seeds for fruits, vegetables and key crops – such as corn, soybeans, and cotton – that help farmers have better harvests while using water and other important resources more efficiently. We work to find sustainable solutions for soil health, help farmers use data to improve farming practices and conserve natural resources, and provide crop protection products to minimize damage from pests and disease. Through programs and partnerships, we collaborate with farmers, researchers, nonprofit organizations, universities and others to help tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges. To learn more about Monsanto, our commitments and our more than 20,000 dedicated employees, please visit monsanto.com. Follow our business on Twitter® at twitter.com/MonsantoCo.
About Boundless
Boundless is the leader in commercially supported open GIS (geographic information systems). Unlike proprietary solutions, Boundless opens the world of geospatial data to any user. The experts at Boundless reduce the cost and time of deploying and managing geospatial software with a scalable, open GIS platform – including Exchange, Server, Desktop and Connect – and a powerful ecosystem of geospatial knowledge, tools and resources. Learn more at boundlessgeo.com. Join the GIS community at https://connect.boundlessgeo.com/. Follow Boundless @boundlessgeo.
