<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div class="Ih2E3d"><br><br></div>I never (I think I never did) argued that Shapefile is not open. I
<br>argued that it is not Free. I could be wrong.<br><div class="Ih2E3d"><br>></div></blockquote><div>Here's the open published specification: <a href="http://www.esri.com/library/whitepapers/pdfs/shapefile.pdf">http://www.esri.com/library/whitepapers/pdfs/shapefile.pdf
</a><br>Do what you will with it. I don't know in this case what you imply by Free. Might ESRI make changes in the future that they don't publish? Maybe, but at this version of shapefiles -- that are pervasive throughout the industry, I would doubt they would forgo backwards compatibility and this version of the specification is out there and free and open as far as I can tell.
<br> </div></div>