Developing a Free and Open Source Software Based Spatial Data Infrastructure

Developing a Free and Open Source Software based Spatial Data Infrastructure

Jeroen Ticheler

1 License

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2 The acronyms ☺

OGC - Open Geospatial Consortium ISO - International Standards Organization SDI - Spatial Data Infrastructure FOSS - Free and Open Source Software GEOFOSS - GeoSpatial FOSS ;-)

3 I’ll only use ﬁve acronyms in the presentation, so we’ll say them out loud together starting really easy! Overview

What is Free and Open Source Software? Complexity of a Spatial Data Infrastructure Some examples Expert communities The future

4 What is Free and Open Source Software?

5 What is Software?

Instructions that make hardware work Programmers write scripts that can be understood by people and by compilers: the source code Compiled software can not be ﬁxed or adapted to user needs

6 What is Software?

A key property is that it can be inﬁnitely copied without any loss

7 What is FOSS?

FOSS provides access to the source code of an application You are Free to use software and modify the source code to suit your needs

8 Source code is often the most secret property of a company What is FOSS?

FOSS Closed Source

The most prominent examples

9 Some of the most prominent examples of Open Source versus Commercial software: Linux vs Windows Mozilla Firefox vs Internet Explorer OpenOfﬁce vs Microsoft Ofﬁce What FOSS is not!

FOSS does not come for free FOSS is not the same as Open Standards! (although there is a strong tendency towards full compliance with international standards)

10 Just two examples Do you use FOSS?

With every single browse on the YES! Internet With almost every email you send

11 Some of the applications we almost all use without knowing, but that are vital to the existence of the Internet as we know it: -DNS => Bind -Web server => Apache - -Email => sendmail -Servers => Linux Complexity of a Spatial Data Infrastructure

12 Standards are required!

13 To make almost any system work, standards are required. Open Geospatial Consortium ISO-TC211

Standards are required!

14 OGC and ISO provide a large number of the required standards for an SDI Web Map Service - Style Layer Descriptor - Filter Encoding - Controlled vocabularies - Web Feature Service - RSS - Semantics - EPSG - Geography Markup Language - WSDL - Catalog Services for the Web - HTTP - Open Archive Initiative - FGDC - Web Coverage Service - SOAP - Web M a p C o n t e x t - G e o T I F F - W e b Coordinate Transformation Service - Z39.50 - Web Pricing and Ordering Service - ISO 19115 - XML/XSL/XSD -

CSS - Web Processing Service - HTML 15 - To get the impression, a list of standards commonly used in an SDI (mainly based on OGC and ISO specs) - Not to mention the number of versions for each spec - This is only the top of the iceberg and mentions only the reasonably stable standards that have a fair amount of implementations GEOFOSS based SDI Software Architecture

Thick (Desktop) Client Thin (Web) Client

Client (uDig, QGIS, gvSIG, ArcGIS, Google Earth) (MapBuilder, InterMap, KaMap, OpenLayers) pplications a

WMS (T-)WFS WCS CSW Direct (DC, FGDC, (GIF, PNG, (GML, (TIFF, ISO19115/ Access JPG, KML) Shapeﬁle) GeoTIFF,...) Interfaces 19139) ers

v Map Server Catalog Server (GeoServer, MapServer, Deegree) (GeoNetwork) Ser

(Geo-)Database File System (MySQL, Postgresql/PostGIS DBMS) (Vector data & satellite images) (Vector data (both archive and for editing), Metadata) Databases

GeoNetwork opensource 2006

16 Here’s an overview of some of these basic components. All of them FOSS except for the mentioned ESRI ArcGIS and Google Earth. For simplicity I have left out related standards as well as several other FOSS applications (e.g. GeoTools, GDAL/OGR, MapGuide, GRASS etc...) Some examples

17 GeoNetwork opensource

18 I take the opportunity to do some marketing of GeoNetwork opensource here :-) http://geonetwork.sourceforge.net 19 A view on a data description page + quicklooks Mixed search results

20 Search results in the catalog coming from different catalogs that are properly attributed. The interface provides direct access to data and map services. InterMa GeoSer Ma P p opensour ostGIS pSer v v er er ce

21 The InterMap opensource map viewer showing a range of WMS services from distributed map servers. The composition can be made on the fly or through Web Map Context documents. The slide also lists the applications that may be working in the back ground to provide the map views. F A O GeoNetw ork

22 Customized version of GeoNetwork for the FAO GeoNetwork homepage. User Friendl uDig - y Desktop GIS

23 An example of a FOSS desktop GIS application gvSIG

24 Another Desktop GIS, connecting directly to the GeoNetwork catalog and pulling in data described in the catalog records. Many other applications exist that go well beyond e.g. Google Maps oferings (KaMap, OpenLayers, MapBuilder, ...) Expert Communities

25 This Rail-track was a really cool driving experience!!!

Only one exploded suspension in the middle of nowhere!

Interpretation of standards can prevent things to nicely work together

26 OpenGeospatial Consortium CITE test suites includes Open Source Reference Implementations The FOSS development model proofs useful where there is a need for implementing standards in a consistent and transparent manner. Experts required!

27 So we need experts that know how to read a map! To get the standards to interoperate, the input and knowledge of a wide range of specialists in required, or at least highly beneﬁcial. Research institutes Universities Government Business Communities

Experts required!

28 Experts from diverse communities with complementary expertise can provide the required knowledge Expert communities can be formed around FOSS projects to solve common problems

FOSS Projects: - listed before FOSS Foundations, e.g.: - Apache Foundation - Open Source GeoSpatial Foundation (OSGeo)

29 Expert communities can reach far beyond the boundaries of a single company. Large expert communities do already exist. Foundations also exist and can provide legal protection, coordination, infrastructure, marketing, fundraising etc... Each participant has speciﬁc needs

30 At the same time, large parts of the required systems are or should be identical. Jointly participants agree on how the standard building blocks are developed...

31 Hi! Speak OGC?

Hi! Sure!

... and ensure that each component will ﬁt within the broader system architecture

32 The future

33 The future of (Geo)FOSS Shift from license to services based business model ๏ Support contracts for who needs them ๏ Add-on services & tools ๏ Competition ๏ Local capacity building ๏ Strong uptake at a global, non-exclusive scale

34 - More and more applications will be released as open source - Money otherwise spend on licenses can be invested in local capacity building - Need for strategic investments in these information systems The future of GeoFOSS

Community building Further tool integration Need for more complex and innovative information systems ๏ Architecture development ๏ Web semantics ๏ Scalable from the local community to global level

35 Through the process of designing a UNSDI, the GeoNetwork project hopes to contribute to the process of building these complex information systems by bringing together experts in the ﬁeld of SDIs at national and international level. Conclusions

The GeoFOSS strategy should result in: Effective system development Effective data and information sharing Sustainable development and sustainable management of scares resources And ultimately...

36 We can all have a custom tool...... while we developed the basis only once