The talk tells the story of how Open Source GIS developers founded the geospatial standards organization OGC in the early 1990s, long before the term “Open Source” was even coined. The story goes on to describe how Open Source geospatial activists founded OSGeo in 2006, why the current big topic is Open Data and how it all ties together. This need for openness is intrinsic to geospatial because any location makes sense only relative to other location data. Interoperability is a must.

1. 35 years of Open Geospatial
A Brief History
Eine metaspatial Produktion päsentiert von:
Arnulf Christl / @sevenspatial
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2. Arnulf Christl
Mission: Open Source innovation at a sustainable pace.
Metaspatial Systems Architect
Founder of the metaspatial Institute
Co-founder and Emeritus President of OSGeo
OGC Architecture Board Member
OpenStreetMap Advocate
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3. Download this Slide Set
This presentation is available at:
http://metaspatial.net/conferences/open-geospatialhistory.html
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4. Content
1. What is GIS?
2. The History of Open Geospatial
3. The Roots of Open Standards
4. My private, little Open Source story
5. Open Data
6. Bring 'em together
7. Summary
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5. What is GIS?
Geographic Information Systems
1. Raster and Vector Data capturing
2. ETL (Extract Transform Load)
3. Analysis
4. Presentation
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6. GIS Evolution
Client/Server, Lightweight applications, Clouds, Crowds
SDI (Spatial Data Infrastructure)
Point clouds (Lidar)
3D+
AR
Crowd Sourcing
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7. The History of Open Geospatial
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8. The Roots of Open Standards
More details and links can be found on the OSGeo Wiki .
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9. M.O.S.S.
The need for Open Standards was the result of working with
pioneering software development in the geospatial realm.
1978: Development of M.O.S.S.
Solomon Katz
Dr. Carl Reed
...and many more
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10. GRASS
1982: The Geographical Resources Analysis Support System project
is started - and development is ongoing to the day!
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11. ETL
The real issue for both groups are not implementing the
algorithms but ETL'ing the plethora of proprietary data formats.
Extracting, transforming and loading the data causes the pains.
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12. The Open Geospatial ...
1994: As a result a group of enthusiast start the
Open Geospatial Foundation.
1995: renamed into the Open Geospatial Consortium ( OGC)
as we know it today to accommodate the needs of the
industry, at that time mostly proprietary vendors.
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13. M.O.S.S. and GRASS almost Die
In the wake of the standards efforts work on M.O.S.S. and
GRASS come to a standstill.
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14. GRASS revived
Thanks to Markus Neteler GRASS is resurrected in 1998 after
freely floating on the Internet in deep freeze for a while.
It is still active to this day.
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15. My private, little Open Source story
1998 Foundation of CCGIS as a one-man-show
Start of the development of Internet Map Servers.
Making business by implementing specific GIS applications.
2002: The German cadastral software SICAD is sold to AED,
which was previously acquired by ESRI.
As a result ESRI takes over the German cadastre.
Suddenly SICAD partners are ESRI partners?!?
Implementation cost using ArcObjects not viable.
Looking for alternatives (Intergraph, Autodesk, MapInfo, etc.).
The solution: MapServer running on FreeBSD (a free UNIX),
later PostGIS, etc.
2003: Consequently our geoportal software Mapbender is
released as Free Software.
2005: Wikipedia meets in Frankfurt, first interest in maps.
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16. Open Geospatial Foundation
2005: Autodesk secretly decides to launch their GIS software as
Open Source piggybacking on MapServer. The community is
aghast! How can they dare? A big, fat, long discussion ensues.
Who owns this Open Source Software?
What's in a name?
What does good Open Source practice really mean?
How much "control" does a software development team
need?
Java/C++: Who is Friend who is Foe?
Can there be more than one Best Ever software?
...
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17. OSGeo
After thoroughly debating and answering these important
questions the Open Source Geospatial Foundation
is born in February 2006:
Global
Inclusive
Do-ocratic
Truly Open
It is an umbrella organization of initially eight Open Source
software projects including GRASS. Everybody is happy.
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18. The Internet
Meanwhile the Internet has become a viable option for distributed
computing.
Google shows that maps work on the Web.
There are Open albeit independent answers:
OpenLayers - software
OpenStreetMap - data
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19. Open Data
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20. Schuyler Erle
Your software is great. But it is worth nothing - without Data!
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21. Read all the details about Open Data - Taming the Beast .
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24. Learning Open Data Friendship
“ Open Data Friendship, also referred to as Beast
Control or Beast Trick, is the Force ability to
control data. Once calmed, the data can be used
by the Force user in various ways, including as a
service or INSPIRE beast. ”
Inspired by Star Wars , adopted for Data Wars
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25. Where are we with Open Data?
Just across the chasm - or maybe not quite yet.
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26. Public & Government Data
Data collected by the government shall be:
Freely accessible
Unencumbered by legal restrictions
Open for private and commercial use
The collection, maintenance and provision is funded by the
public. Therefore It is a public good.
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27. Community Driven Data
Often volunteer driven Ad-Hoc collections of data.
Spatial data is collected and maintained by a crowd.
It shall be clearly licensed (but often is not).
Anybody can use, modify and redistribute.
Derived products (for example maps) may be copyrighted.
The data stays open and publicly avaialable.
Nota bene: According to Wikipedia the term crowdsourcing is nowadays used in a different context.
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28. How does it all tie together?
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29. OpenStreetMap has an API
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30. But OpenStreetMap also has Data!
Usage of the data is regulated by the ODbL license:
Use of the data is free and open for anybody
Use of the map service is gratis (but limited)
Setting up your own servers is encouraged
The source of derivative works must be made available on
request (see licensing)
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31. Ordnance Survey Great Britain OpenSpace
(API)
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32. OpenStreetMap, Ordnance Survey, ++
So why not download all of this great data...
VectorMap District(r) from Ordnance Survey Great Britain
Ways, footpaths, rivernames, pubs from OpenStreetMap
Rights of way from municipalities
Designated offroad bicycle tracks
The hills database
...plus many more sources...
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33. ...overlay and individually style them on an Open Source
software stack (PostGIS, MapServer, Mapbender)...
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34. ...and print the result on fabric: SplashMaps - For the REAL
outdoors!
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36. FreeGIS
Paolo Viskanic from R3 GIS has a similar story to tell. In
cooperation with TIS and other interested parties this lead to
the foundation of the project FreeGIS.net which is based on:
MapServer
PostGIS
GisClient
FreeGIS.net Viewer
PyWPS
OpenLayers
Feel free to join us in the afternoon for a workshop showing how
the project includes all aspects of Openness to implement
INSPIRE.
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37. Summary
Geospatial Openness come in three complementing tastes:
Open Standards
Open Source Software
Open Data
They all have come to stay
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38. Thank you for your Attention
A Brief History of Open Geospatial
Presented by Arnulf Christl / metaspatial
This presentation is available at: http://metaspatial.net/conferences/open-geospatial-history.html
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