Geospatial openness: from software to standards & data

Amin Mobasheri,Maria Antonia Brovelli,Marco Minghini,Victoria Rautenbach

doi:10.1186/s40965-020-0074-y

Abstract

This paper is the editorial of the Special Issue “Open Source Geospatial Software”, which features 10 published papers. The editorial introduces the concept of openness and, within the geospatial context, declines it into the three main components of software, data and standards. According to this classification, the papers published in the Special Issue are briefly summarized and a future research agenda in the open geospatial domain is finally outlined.

Highlights

The Open Definition qualifies knowledge as open “if anyone is free to access, use, modify, and share it — subject, at most, to measures that preserve provenance and openness” [1]
With the 10 papers described above, this Special Issue offers a glimpse into the current status of open geospatial solutions, differentiating them into software, standards and data but at the same time highlighting the intrinsic interconnections existing between them and their communities
The fact that geospatial data management has become mainstream and that spatial data often represents only a portion of the amount of digital information that is available and needs to be used to solve today’s challenges. Emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Application Programming Interface (API) are shifting the focus from the nature of data to the way that data can be used, i.e. – once again – on interoperability

Summary

Introduction

The Open Definition qualifies knowledge as open “if anyone is free to access, use, modify, and share it — subject, at most, to measures that preserve provenance and openness” [1]. The Special Issue features 10 papers (all accessible at https://www.springeropen.com/collections/osgs), which are grouped in the following three sections according to the category they primarily belong to: open geospatial software, standards and data. The software tools described in the first and second papers are general-purpose products, targeting users from (potentially) different domains and developed to implement or make use of one or more OGC standards; in contrast, the third paper describes applications of a geospatial algorithm specific to the hydrology domain.

Results

Conclusion