The OpenLayers Community is pleased to announce that a major step is currently being taken towards the development of OpenLayers 3. While previous announcements have already reported on code sprints for OpenLayers 3, the main body of existing OpenLayers 2 functionality is now to be ported. An initial release of OpenLayers 3 is planned for spring 2013. The intention is to provide the same functions that have been available in OpenLayers 2 up to now. However, these will be improved in many useful places thanks to experience gathered over several years. For example, a consistent OpenLayers API is planned.

OpenLayers 3 will support modern browser technologies. There will also be a completely WebGL-based map renderer. A DOM/CSS-based renderer will still be available to enable the development of applications without WebGL. OpenLayers 3 will build on the existing vector renderers and editing functions and will support both recognised standards and frequently used and widely known formats and protocols. The new library will be optimised in particular with regard to the best possible performance. The size of the required library will be reduced so that it will also be optimally suited for mobile browsers. Likewise, both the design and the complete website will be revised.

We hereby call on you to support the development of OpenLayers 3. So far, there has already been a great contribution from a large national authority. We have set ourselves the goal of acquiring both manpower and a further US$250,000 in the form of sponsorship funds by the end of November in order to be able to push ahead with a bundled development of OpenLayers 3 quickly. A Kickstarter project and a mailing list (ol3-funding@googlegroups.com) will be set up shortly to facilitate support.

Contact us if you would like to participate!