Abstract
All over the world, organizations are increasingly considering the adoption of open source software and open data. In the geospatial domain, this is no different, and the last few decades have seen significant advances in this regard. We review the current state of open source geospatial software, focusing on the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) software ecosystem and its communities, as well as three kinds of open geospatial data (collaboratively contributed, authoritative and scientific). The current state confirms that openness has changed the way in which geospatial data are collected, processed, analyzed, and visualized. A perspective on future developments, informed by responses from professionals in key organizations in the global geospatial community, suggests that open source geospatial software and open geospatial data are likely to have an even more profound impact in the future.
Highlights
Openness typically refers to transparency, to free and unrestricted access to information, and to inclusive consensus-based decision-making [1]
We review the current state of open source geospatial software, focusing on the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) software ecosystem and its communities, as well as three kinds of open geospatial data
This section reviews the current state of these three kinds of open geospatial data: Data contributed by volunteers who organize themselves into communities that collect and maintain geospatial data, as in the case of OpenStreetMap; authoritative data collected and published by public administrations in the spirit of freedom of access to information; and open scientific geospatial data where research results are published to encourage their reuse
Summary
Similar to open source software, many open datasets emerged from the need to collaboratively collect data. In order to contain the scope of this paper, we considered actively contributed open data only Another kind of open data or knowledge is rooted in the principle that some information should be shared and available to anyone without any restrictions to rights of access or use. This section reviews the current state of these three kinds of open geospatial data: Data contributed by volunteers who organize themselves into communities that collect and maintain geospatial data, as in the case of OpenStreetMap; authoritative data collected and published by public administrations in the spirit of freedom of access to information; and open scientific geospatial data where research results are published to encourage their reuse
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