punkish: What Can SDI Learn From Open Source

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# What Can SDI Learn From Open Source
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GSDI-9, Santiago de Chile • Nov 09, 2006

Puneet Kishor (Plazi) and Steve Ventura

Released under a [CC0 Public Domain Dedication](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).

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## What Can SDI Learn From Open Source

* Actually, quite a lot
* Including a few things it probably should not

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## Basis For Assertion

* Not just academic research but *hands-on* professional experience
* I write open source geospatial and database programs and applications and *get paid* for it
* Some of these programs solve very beastly computational problems that I am *unable* to solve with COTS proprietary software
* For my work, I depend upon an open source which is less like an *infrastructure* and more like a *commons*

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## Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI)

* **National SDI:** the technologies, policies, and people _necessary to promote sharing_ of geospatial data throughout all levels of government, the private and non-profit sectors, and the academic community – Federal Geographic Data Committee
* **Global SDI:** supports the establishment of _globally compatible_ local, national, and regional spatial data infrastructures, and supports interdisciplinary training, education and research activities that advance SDI development – Global SDI Committee

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## Growth of Clearinghouses

![Growth of clearinghouses](img/growth_of_clearinghouses.png)

![Liberar](img/growth_of_clearinghouses_y_que.png)

* Accompanied by a decline in *Suitability Index*
* These low values could be the consequence of the fact that the functional capabilities of clearinghouses do not fit expectations of the GI community, e.g. more *web services* and *user-friendly interfaces*

<cite>Crompvoets, Joep and Arnold Bregt. 2006. Worldwide Development Of National Spatial Data Clearinghouses (2000-2005)</cite>

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## Spatial Data Commons

* originating principally from *public sources*, made *freely available* for general use. Because –
    * *legal* – (no legal incentives stemming from from exclusive property rights needed by the govt)
    * *ethical* – (people have already paid for it)
    * *political* – (transparency is undermined otherwise)
    * *socioeconomic* – (greatly more impact if more users)

* The *commons* can enable the products made possible by the *infrastructure* to *reach the people*
* commons – made possible by the principles of *free and open source*

<cite>Uhlir, Paul. 2006. The Global Information Commons for Science Initiative and Its Relevance to Improved Access and Use of Geospatial Data</cite>

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## Free or Open Source?

* Free as in *Freedom*
* Open Source as in uncompiled source
* Can't be Free *unless* Open Source

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## Free or Open Source?

* Free – a matter of *right*
* Open Source – a matter of *practice*
* Free *and* Open Source – *right* to *practice* as you please

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## F/LOSS (or FLOSS)

* Free/Libre Open *Source Software*
* Free/Libre Open *Data*
* Free/Libre Open *Information*
* Free/Libre Open *Applications*
* Free/Libre Open *Knowledge*

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## Comparing Support

* Proprietary
    * Get a support contract
    * Call a vendor
    * Be put on hold or wait for callback
    * Have a queued conversation
* FLOSS
    * Subscribe to mailing list
    * Ask a question
    * Get an answer within a few minutes

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## Comparing Innovation

* Proprietary
    * Use the Vendor's toolbox
    * Function within Vendor's limits
* FLOSS
    * No limits of technology
    * No limits of subject-matter
    * Limited only by creativity

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## Comparing Cost

* operating system/web server – proprietary: $200; FLOSS: $0
* database – proprietary: $50,000; FLOSS: $0
* spatial enabler for rdbms – proprietary: $7,500; FLOSS: $0
* desktop gis – proprietary: $1,500; FLOSS: $0
* web map server – proprietary: $5,000; FLOSS: $0
* programming language/IDE – proprietary: $500; FLOSS: $0
* support – proprietary: $5,000; FLOSS: $0
* Using FLOSS – Priceless

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## What FLOSS Is Not

* Anti-commercial
* Necessarily free of monetary cost
* Against making money
* Socialist or Communist or Capitalist

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## What FLOSS Is
 
* simply the freedom
    * to do what you want
    * with a tool or data that you may have already paid for

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## Importance of Open Standards

* FLOSS was born from open standards
* FLOSS is not only *for* open standards, FLOSS *cannot exist without* open standards

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## Importance of Open Standards

* Sharing only possible if there are at least three structural supports
    * *legal* – clearly understandable licenses, agreements and commitment
    * *cultural* – desire
    * *technological* – open formats and fast and easy communications

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## Similarities Between GIS and FLOSS

* FLOSS depends on sharing of ideas, techniques, data, and applications
* GIS practioners have promoted sharing as being essential to success
* Seems like a marriage made in heaven
* But, there are a few caveats

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## What GIS Shouldn’t Learn From FLOSS

* A Babel of Licenses
    * More than 90 different licenses, perhaps many more
    * Each license with a different level of restriction
    * Each license with a different level of contagious-ness
    * Mechanisms such as *Creative Commons* licensing can help

* Social Networking Communities vs. Networking Social Communities
    * Successful cyber communities have sprung from FLOSS
    * Expecting the same from physical communities may be unrealistic
    * But there are models out there, por ejemplo, the concept of *minga* as practiced by the Shuar Indians in Ecuador

* Ease of Use
    * not as easy as some of the desktop GIS software, but the gap is narrowing

* Decisions are made around camp-fires, not around mouse and keyboard
    * The kind of data managed by GIS inherently different from that managed by other collaborative computing efforts
    * Land and its resources hold different value to communities than that held in Flickr or wikipedia
    * Nevertheless…

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## A Few Examples

* Made Possible by Open Standards and Open Source Technology and Data
# Example 1
# Example 2

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## Get In Contact, Get Involved

* [Learn more about Open Source Geospatial Foundation](www.osgeo.org)
* [Join the OSGeo Education and Curriculum Committee](edu.osgeo.org)
* [Get, use, and promote Free GIS](www.freegis.org)
* [Get, use, and promote Free Software](www.fsf.org)

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## Final Thought

![Liberar](img/liberar.png)