In the year 2012 the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management requested that a paper be published that explained the future trends in Geospatial Information Management. This essay focuses on one of those trends, namely open-source. In this essay we will describe the trend, its importance as well as the challenges and opportunities of open-source regarding Geospatial Information Systems (GIS). We will also focus on the effects of open-source GIS software on our graduating class and will consider the trend from a global and South African perspective.
Contrary to popular belief, free software is not necessarily equivalent to open-source software, and vice versa. According to the Open-Source Initiative, open-source refers to software whose design and source code is publicly available for study, use, modification and redistribution by anyone under a free software license. For example, Google Earth is a GIS application that is freely available for download and use, however, its source code is not publicly available (Tsou & Smith, 2011: 2).
Open-source GIS products are becoming more popular in the geospatial community as a viable alternative to proprietary software (Carpenter & Snell, 2013: 14). Projects such as Quantum GIS, PostGIS and Open Layers have been able to attract large amounts of users and developers, which has subsequently influenced software functionality and support and raised their attractiveness to new users. (Steiniger & Hunter, 2013: 137 and Sherman, 2009)
The idea behind open-source was that groups or communities of people with common interests can work in collaboration on a project and handle improving and maintaining it rather than have it handled by a single company or enti...
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...d the International Cartographic Association. (2014) About [Online] Available at: http://www.geoforall.org/about/ [Accessed 28 March 2014]
The Open-Source Geospatial Foundation and the International Cartographic Association. (2014) Mission - “Making geospatial education and opportunities accessible to all” [Online] Available at: http://www.geoforall.org [Accessed 28 March 2014]
The Open Source Initiative. (n.d.) The Open Source Definition [Online] Available at: http://opensource.org/osd [Accessed 25 March 2014]
Tsou, M. H. & Smith, J. (2011). Free and Open Source software for GIS education. [Online] Available at: http://www.iapad.org/publications/ppgis/tsou_free-GIS-for-educators-whitepaper.pdf [Accessed 25 March 2014]
Yeung, A. K. & Hall, G. B. (2007) The GeoJournal Library, vol. 87, Spatial database systems: design, implementation and project management, Springer.
In a world where geography only makes the headlines or points of coffee house discussion if a new study is released about how terrible students are at it, however, amazingly there ARE still students and people alike that simply love it and are thriving in their point of interest. Some stare at maps endlessly searching for things that most people would never even care to look at such as what makes this state similar with this state or why is the population more or less here. Some long to find and view the rarest maps available; others embrace the future by participating in an activity known as geocaching. Geocaching is when the participant visits special areas with “treasures” hidden using their GPS devices and smartphones. Some people even draw thousands of their own imaginary maps, highlighting details in worlds and countries they long to visit.
...have direct access to billions of clients promptly, the developments of open source communities and attitudes, all these captivating developments are sure to transform the autocratic Soviet-like stone monuments of today into interests that people of political economy.
...t is undeniably embracing open source more and more, ... Microsoft Building Hybrid Open Source Software Development Model ... Jun 11, 2008 ...
...l estate industry. From the decision to lend money for the construction of a new skyscraper in Chicago, to the choice between the corners of a highway intersection for a new gas station, GIS plays a crucial role in allowing the key participants to make more informed decisions. Judging from the incorporation of GIS applications by today’s real estate companies, the importance of this tool will only continue to expand.
Technological advances have made it easier for analysts as well as policy makers to access all the information they need. Open source information now accounts for 90 percent of the informati...
Comparing to "Free Software", the term ``open source software'' is associated with a different engineering approach, different values, and even a different criterion for which licenses are acceptable. We differentiate the Free Software movement and the Open Source movement with different views and goals, although engineers can and do work together on some practical projects.
Hillier, A., & Culhane, D. (2013). GIS Applications and Administrative Data to Support Community Change. In M. Weil (Ed.), The Handbook of Community Practice (2nd ed., pp. 827-844). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Retrieved from
The information system that will be evaluated in this paper is from Malaysia. This information system is used by one of the government department in Malaysia. The government department involved is Department of Survey and Mapping Malaysia or in Malay Jabatan Ukur dan Pemetaan Malaysia (JUPEM). JUPEM started in 1885 and actually one of the earliest departments in Malaysia where it main purpose is to perform survey and mapping activities within Malaysia and also country international boundaries. The vision of establishment of JUPEM is to make JUPEM an important organization that provide survey and mapping services outstandingly and together with geospatial data management to accomplish the nation’s vision.
Geographers plan new communities, decide where new highways should be placed, and establish evacuation plans. Computerized mapping and data analysis is known as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), a new frontier in geography. Spatial data is gathered on a variety of subjects and input onto a computer. GIS users can create an infinite number of maps by requesting portions of the data to plot.
As applications of geospatial technologies continuously break the disciplinary barrier, the need for books on these technologies to reach diverse audiences is greater than ever. The challenge, however, is to write a book on this complicated subject that incorporates the knowledge of multiple disciplines and makes it valuable for those who may or may not have diverse educational backgrounds, but require using these technologies. Most books on geospatial technologies target a specific audience. Contrary to this, Geographical Information Science tries to target three different audiences (users, students, and engineers) by using formats and languages comfortable to them. While this effort is laudable, maintaining the balance and attractiveness to all the three audiences is challenging. The author, Narayan Panigrahi, has accomplished this balancing act but with mixed outcomes. His computer science background is clearly seen in the structure and contents of the chapters.
Open source software is becoming more widespread as the IT industry expands. This type of software is great for the people that choose to build their own versions of applications. Some view this type of software to be unethical and crippling to companies that release programs in order to make a profit. Having access to the source code can benefit end-users in more ways than one and could potentially result in a better product.
People: The most important and powerful part if GIS. With the introduction of the computers, they’ve been used for various purposes and by different experts and institutions, thus with the increasing use of computers, GIS has just not been limited to the GIS experts. It has been used by schools, by botanists to locate and map various plant species, by hydrologists and geologists, police has been utilizing it for solving crimes, also used by disaster management authorities etc. With the availability of various open source softwares and freewares the user community has increased exponentially.
The aim of this paper is to define the terms ‘Information and Communication Technologies’ (hereinafter ‘ICT’ without emphasis), ‘ICT Security’ and ‘Open Source Software’ (hereinafter ‘OSS’ without emphasis). This paper will focus on discussing the concept of ‘ICT Security in OSS’ suggested in well-known sources (The UNESCO 2007; Bakari 2007; Open Source Software Work Group 2010; Australian Government Information Management Office 2011).
GIS is an emerging method of data storage and interpretation. GIS is, simply put a database. It is many tables of data organized by one common denominator, location. The data in a GIS system is organized spatially, or by its physical location on the base map. The information that is stored in the database is the location and attributes that exist in that base map, such as streets, highways, water lines, sewers, manholes, properties, and buildings, etc. each of these items don’t just exist in the database, the attributes associated with the item is also stored. A good example of this would be a specific sewer line, from and arbitrary point A to a point B. Ideally, the sewer line would be represented graphically, with a line connecting the two points or something of the like. When one retrieves the information for that line in particular, the attribute data would be shown. This data would include the size of pipe, the pipe material, the upper invert elevation, the downstream invert elevation, the date installed, and any problem history associated with that line. This is the very gist of what a GIS system is.
The risks and rewards of such efforts being borne by regional members. Scalability of infrastructure projects can be replicated and the lessons learned can be transferred from one regional group to another until all the continent has a robust GIS infrastructure and allow less dependence from image providers Because the regional groupings are already functional dialogue, planning and implementation of GIS projects would be much easier along already established regional