Open StandardsOpen SourceOpen Data

Cameron ShorterGeospatial Systems ArchitectLisasoft/Terrapages

GITA 2007 Geospatial Infrastructure Solutions Conference

Overview

• Benefits of Standards• Business of Open Source Software• Open Data availability and licences

Benefits of Standards

• Interoperability between agencies and devices.

• Future proof• Reduced cost

Standards: Return on Investment

• 26% overall saving.• Low Maintenance and Operation

costs outweigh higher implementation costs.

• Lower transition costs for sharing data.

• Half the risk.– Geospatial Interoperability Return on Investment Study, NASA

Geospatial Interoperability Office, April 2005

What is Open Source?

• Free applications.• Free access to source code.• Free to extend source code.• Examples:

– Linux (displacing Solaris unix)– Apache (used by 70% of worlds web servers)– MySQL, Postgres databases

8 August 2007

Open Source Geospatial Foundation

• Open Source Geospatial Software • Free Geospatial Data• Education

Proprietary vs Open SourceComponent Proprietary Open Source

Metadata Catalog CubeWerx WRS GeoNetwork

Dedicated Viewer ArcReader gvSig, qGIS, Udig

Cartography ArcMap/ArcGIS GRASS, OSSIM

Analysis ArcINFO/ArcGRID GRASS, OSSIM

Handheld ArcPad gvSig (coming)

Web Viewer ArcIMS Openlayers, Mapbuilder, Mapbender

WMS, WFS ArcIMS Mapserv, Geoserver, Mapguide OS

Spatial Database Oracle Spatial, ArcSDE PostGIS

OSGeo Projects

Lines of

CodePerson Years

Contributors

Last Year

Contributors Project

Life Start Date

Mapbender 208,193 53 9 18 2001

MapBuilder 253,552 65 14 23 2001

MapGuide Open Source 301,788 79 21 28 2005

MapServer 107,624 27 14 31 2000*

OpenLayers 30,165 7 5 6 2006

Web Mapping

OSGeo ProjectsGeospatial Libraries

Lines of

CodePerson Years

Contributors

Last Year

Contributors Project

Life Start Date

FDO 648,510 177 14 14 12 mos*

GDAL/OGR 558,020 152 17 17 1998

GeoTools 1,237,689 341 31 64 2002*

OSGeo ProjectsDesktop Applications

Lines of

CodePerson Years

Contributors

Last Year

Contributors Project

Life Start Date

GRASS 536,307 145 24 33 2000*

OSSIM 557,149 151 7 20 1997

Quantum GIS 104,583 26 12 20 2002

OSGeo Projects

Project Totals

Lines of

CodePerson Years

ContributorsLast Year

ContributorsProject Life

Total 4,728,068 1,269 174 280

Price comparison

$0.00

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$900.00

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Number of units

Cost/unit

Price: Open Source

Price: Closed Source

• Open Source costs reduces over time

Extending Open Source

• Open design process– Align with other developments

• Contribute improvements back– Features are supported and

extended• Engage Open Source developers

– Reduce cost and risk

Support & Partners

• OSGeo Developer register:– 80 Organisations for hire– http://www.osgeo.org/spd_help

• Lisasoft/Terrapages in Australia– http://terrapages.com/TerraPages/

Services/Support.html

• Autodesk• DM Solutions

License misconceptions

“Using open source means you have to release the source code for your application, and anything else that touches it.”

40+ different open source licenses–GPL – restrictive–LGPL - open–BSD – anything goes

Australian Data

• Australian Spatial Data Directory– 750 National Datasets– Open license– 1.5 Million downloads last year

• Google Maps– Free for non-commercial

• Common Datasets from PSMA– Proprietary

• Open Street Map– Community building street maps

Open Data Licenses• Move toward Creative Commons

– Attribution– Noncommercial– No Derivative Works– Share Alike

• Australia using combination of licenses based on Contract Law.

• Qld GILF adding options to Creative Commons to cover extra 15% of data requiring royalties.