[OSGeo-Announce] OGC and OSGeo Sign Memorandum of Understanding

[Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)]

From: http://www.opengeospatial.org/pressroom/pressreleases/944
Wayland, Mass., January 7, 2009 - In Valencia, Spain, at the December  
Technical Committee meetings of the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.  
(OGC), the OGC and the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo)  
signed a Memorandum of Understanding to coordinate in advancing open  
geospatial standards (OGC's mission) and open source geospatial  
software and data (OSGeo's mission).

Mark Reichardt, CEO and President of the OGC, explained that,  
"Openness benefits markets. Vendors of proprietary software have  
found that today's more open and complex "business ecosystem," which  
includes both open source software and open standards, is good for  
their businesses. It's also good for technology users. It makes sense  
for the OGC to work with the OSGeo."

Open source software is software that has been designed and developed  
in an open, community process. The OGC's open standards are similarly  
developed in an open, community process, but they are specifications  
(for interfaces, encodings and best practices), not software.

Arnulf Christl, President of OSGeo, said, "We look forward to  
collaborating with the OGC to identify open source technologies that  
can be used as reference implementations for OGC standards and to  
identify standards requirements that result from our open source  
geospatial software development programs."

The MOU provides for the assignment of up to six one-year Individual  
Memberships in the OGC. Memberships will be selected by OSGeo and are  
subject to OGC qualifications for Individual Membership.

The OSGeo is a not-for-profit organization founded in 2006 whose  
mission is to support and promote the collaborative development of  
open source geospatial technologies and data.

The OGC® is an international consortium of more than 365 companies,  
government agencies, research organizations, and universities  
participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available  
geospatial standards. OpenGIS® Standards support interoperable  
solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based  
services, and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology  
developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and  
useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled.  
Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/.

Contact:
Sam Bacharach
Executive Director, Outreach and Community Adoption
Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc
tel: +1-703-352-3938
sbacharach at opengeospatial.org