[Freegis-list] relationship between Open Source GIS and open standards

[Arnulf Christl (CCGIS)]

> On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 20:35:44 +0100, Bart van den Eijnden
> <bartvde at xs4all.nl> wrote:
>> Hi list,
>>
>> I was wondering why there is such a strong link between Open Source GIS
>> and open standards, such as the OGC standards. Some of the reasons I
>> could think of are:
[...]

Somewhat belated more ideas:

Geodata is inherently borderless hence interoperability is especially
important. Geodata by nature is large, expensive, cost intensive and
persistent. Geo people likewise tend to have a long memory. The need for
interoperable and future-proof software thus is very high.

This is true independently of development models or software licences.

Open Source (though i tend to like the term Free Software better)
development models are more often solution oriented. People (users) asking
for standards will get them pretty quick for several reasons. Less effort
and time has to be put into strategic or commercially motivated
considerations by the developer: Who might be compatible that we don't
want to be compatible with. The developers' dream comes true: Any
implementation following accepted standards will automatically broaden the
scope of the software for every potential user. It is easier to compare,
debug and test development with other standardized solutions.
No product management team will hassle developers with strategic
considerations.

Our personal experience is rather more trivial. It is a lot easier to
implement a clean standard specification and tell the counterpart to do
likewise than to constantly reinvent the wheel for every existing
non-standard interface (some might argue?!).
OGC standards have grown from a lot of experience (again a great many
thanx to all those who are involved, free and unfree!) and always try to
see the whole scope. Chances are high (and we see it happen every day)
that new problems are solved by simply combining existing standardized
components.

Last but not least there are a great many Free Software advocates out
there shouting out load that implementing open standards is what you need
- maybe this could also have some effect.
:-)

Best,
Arnulf