This year was the third time I have attended FOSS4G, the international conference for open source GIS and mapping software. The first one I attended, in Denver in 2011, was my chance to find out what was going on in open source geospatial development. Despite many years of working in the GIS field, almost everything I saw and heard about in Denver was new to me, an indication of how it's possible to work in a specialised area and yet miss so much of what is happening around you.