Open Source Geo and Open Geospatial Consortium Standards have been active for over a decade, OpenStreetMap since 2004 and OpenData is the new kid on the block. But something seems to have shifted, it seems that you can barely go for a day in the UK geoworld without stumbling on an event, an article, a vendor or consultant talking about Open something. Why has Open become the badge that everyone wants to flaunt?
Not everyone who claims to be Open actually is but with loads of different connotations to the Open badge there is plenty of room for interpretation and argument.
I am going to be exploring whether Open Source, Standards, Data and StreetMap achieved critical mass and their interdependence. at the AGI’s Northern Geoconference on the 3rd of May at the Manchester Museum which sounds like a fun venue.
Hopefully I will stir up some debate about being Open, if you have any thoughts before the 3rd share them with me here and in the spirit of openness I will give you a shout out at the event.
3 thoughts on “Forget your Nike and Adidas, this year’s cool geobrand is Open”
I didn’t post that early! I think your server clock is out – we’re in British Summer Time now!
I think that they are all different types of Open. To pick up on the OpenStreetMap, this is Open at a data level and where the value is – not the technology implemented (although all of the APIs etc are also Open) as you have full access. If you want to use OGC standards just download the data into something like PostGIS with an OGC compliant Web Server over the front like GeoServer or MapServer (or even an instance of MapProxy over the front if you just want WMS) and you have an OGC compliant WMS/WFS which can then stream out GML.
I guess my view of Open not just Free but is Access – heck even PDF or ESRI Shapefiles fit into this as they are published formats and hence provide Access.
Good to see you blogging again. Hmmm, one of my fav topics. Interestingly despite everything in your topic sharing the word ‘Open’, my thoughts are that none of them are in fact related to each other. Open Data can often use standards such as PDF that are in fact ‘Closed’ Proprietary Standards. Open Source Geo supports Open Geospatial Consortium Standards but that isn’t a defining factor of Open Source Geo (closed source software has just as much OGC support). As for Open Street Map … despite its open nature its current licence is considered a borderline an Open Data licence and its core delivery platform doesn’t support Open Geospatial Consortium standards either at the service level (WMS/WFS) or a data level (GML).
So all in all there’s plenty of scope for you to discuss the unrelated Openess of all of the above and in particular the overuse of the word Open!