Talk:Open Source and Open Standards

This article is a collaborative work by OGC and OSGeo. Please feel free to add comments, amend wording or open a conversation on the OSGeo Standards mailing list. The document is a high level summary only. It should be under regular review to ensure up-to-dateness (check the history for latest edits and links to the stable download location).

History

The document was started by Carl Reed, Chief Technology Officer of The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). This White Paper was initially adapted partly from articles by Carl Reed published previously in Directions Magazine and GeoWorld. For a more comprehensive explanation of "openness", see another OGC White Paper by Carl Reed, "The Importance of Going Open".

The first round of integrating OSGeo's position was done by Arnulf Christl, President of The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo). The Open Source aspect has been adapted from articles by Arnulf Christl in "FLOSS in Cadastre and Land Registration - Opportunities and Risks" in a publication by the FAO and FIG Commission 7 WG 7.3. For standardised definitions of Open Source and Free Software please refer to the Free Software Foundation (http://fsf.org) and the Open Source Initiative (http://opensource.org/).

The text was then collaboratively reviewed, edited and finalized by a dozen active OSGeo and OGC members. Thanks especially to Gavin Fleming, Lance McKee, Markus Neteler, Athina Trakas, Michael Gerlek, Adrian Custer, Jeff McKenna, Cameron Shorter, Carl Reed, Frank Warmerdam, Steven Ramage, Daniel Morissette and Arnulf Christl for their contributions.

The paper was approved by the OSGeo Board of Directors in their 2011-05-05 Board meeting.

Disclaimer

Thanks to all the people who have contributed to making this White Paper a comprehensive document! Please understand that it will always be a compromise because positions on Openness vary greatly from one community to the next.