I have available geo data acquired before the project startup (1st of December 2010). Can I use them? It definitively depends on the data EULA you accepted at the time. Most commercial provided data are distributed with single or multi-user non-exclusive license, with many limitations imposed also on derived products and distribution out of your organization. For instance, Educational licenses by DigitalGlobe Inc. are single user ones, so you cannot distribute data at all. That has to be considered if you need to share information with another partner. A plan for relicensing for the project pre-owned images needs to be provided to the vendor(s): that could have additional costs or not. That will be done by the project management, when a complete list will be available.

I have available non-geo data acquired before the project startup (1st of December 2010). Can I use them? Any data not producted in house should have an accompanying license of use. If you are the origin of those data, you should also think to a license of use, if (and only if) you are going to distribute them among one or more partners. If you have not a license and data are not yours, well “Houston, we have a problem!”: you are probably abusing someone else rights. Don't. It is quite difficult to give an advice about the right license to use for your data (and software too). Please ask to your legal department (you have one, haven't you? ).

I need to share a lots of data, is there a repository available? Yes. There is a common ftp archive available shared with different access policies among partners. See Biosos FTP Archive for more information. If you would prefer using your own facility or e-mail, please don't. Mail servers are not tought for data sharing and your data can be easily lost in the dark. Using an in-house facility, instead of one single archive grows entropy in the project: avoid that too.

Where can I find basic information about the sites which are considered for tests and analysis in BIOSOS? The defitive list is available on the FTP archive server under the 000-ALL/AOIs folder. It is distributed in terms of shapefiles and/or KML files. Other informtion will probably follow on the same archive.

Is there some common infrastructure available to share information and collaborate? WUR has built up a Sharepoint instance. Its use will be discussed at the KO meeting.

What is that biosos@ba.issia.cnr.it email? A single mailing list for discussions and contributes of general interest for all partners is activated from start. An archive of the messages is also available. Note that more than 50 unique addresses are currently subscribed so use it with a grain of salt (e.g. do not send confidential information, or tons of stuff which are not of interest for all).

And what is that other biosos-pm@ba.issia.cnr.it email? A restricted group of people who manage the project receive messages sent here. They are archived for safety and read by a few people even when the official PM is not available, for urgencies. It is not an open list.

Why people from ISSIA insist to ask me again and again for a file I already sent? Did you read and follow the Data Format Policy? No? Ops!