[Board] [Ica-osgeo-labs] [OSGeo-Discuss] The LAS format, the ASPRS, and the “LAZ clone” by ESRI

Sun Mar 1 13:38:23 PST 2015

Colleagues,

I see these kind of developments also directly affecting Open Principles in Geo Education that "Geo for All" , OSGeo, ICA all stand for and are working together in our common mission of making geospatial education and opportunities accessible to all.

"Geo for All" will take a stand on this as it not only affects our Academic colleagues and students working in LIDAR research and teaching but will have long term impacts on Open Principles in Geo Education. We will work to put our ideas in the Open Letter from OSGeo explaining this.

"Geo for All" started from very humble beginnings and this was only possible because academic colleagues globally came together to change the status of Geo education. For decades even though there was great progress in GIS technologies, educational opportunities esp. in developing and poor countries were very small. This is now changing dramatically thanks to the efforts of our colleagues from Nepal to Uruguay.

We got excellent support from all sectors (universities, industry , governments etc) but to my surprise ESRI was the only proprietary vendor who was trying  to undermine this initiative indirectly from the very start. I still cannot understand why this particular vendor wants to do that. I really hope the proprietors of this company will also support Open Principles in Geo Education (not just telling externally on Openness but actually practicing this). We want to have good relations with everyone in the Geospatial domain , so our hand of friendship is always open. So please let us all work together.

Hardware costs are (and will) keep coming down, internet access is increasing (and will keep  increasing)  even in developing countries and with free and open source software, even poor schools in developing countries are getting small computer labs established ( i know this from my experience in India) .The convergence of all these factors with a great team of dedicated people is changing geoeducation forever.

I strongly believe access of good quality education is everyones birthright and now we are for first time in history getting opportunity to make this possible. We will not accept putting artificial barriers like high cost proprietary software (which quite frankly they won't be able to even think of affording) which will continue denying quality education opportunities for millions of students globally (both in developed and developing countries).

So why should i care? Because i learned one of the most important lessons in my life in my childhood from my grandmother (who though did not get the opportunity of "proper education" herself taught me the importance of the values of  sharing and about  "Vasudeva Kudumbam" which means "We all belong to one large Universal family" and " Geo for All" is for my Universal family and i will do everything in my abilities to make sure education opportunities are open to all.

Best wishes,

Suchith

________________________________________
From: ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Cameron Shorter [cameron.shorter at gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2015 7:37 PM
To: Hogan, Patrick (ARC-PX); Paul Ramsey; Carl Reed
Cc: P Kishor; Scott Simmons; ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] [Board] [OSGeo-Discuss]  The LAS format, the ASPRS, and the “LAZ clone” by ESRI

What would strengthen a position for use of Open LIDAR interfaces would
be if such an Open LIDAR interface were introduced into the OGC
standards program.

Carl,
I'd be interested to hear you (or someone else from the OGC) explain how
people should approach initiating an Open LIDAR standard, and how much
effort / cost would be required to do so.

The OSGeo community can then assess whether there is sufficient
motivation to initiate such development of a standard.

Patrick,
For an Open Letter from OSGeo, it would be a very powerful statement if
we can list a number of influential organisations who will commit to
developing an open, interoperable standard. (This can be a section of
the open letter with signatures).

On 2/03/2015 4:57 am, Hogan, Patrick (ARC-PX) wrote:
> Paul,
> I would care to refine the 'yawn' context of 'doing the right thing,' that of standing up to actions that directly contravene an organization's 'open exchange' mission. This would seem the kind of *engaged integrity* quite apart from one deserving a yawn. If your kids do something directly contrary to what the family needs for a healthy exchange of information, if a yawn is the response, there are even more serious issues at stake.
> -Patrick
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Ramsey [mailto:pramsey at cleverelephant.ca]
> Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2015 9:32 AM
> To: Carl Reed
> Cc: Cameron Shorter; P Kishor; Suchith Anand; Scott Simmons; OSGeo Discussions; Hogan, Patrick (ARC-PX); OSGeo-Board; ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org
> Subject: Re: [Board] [OSGeo-Discuss] [Ica-osgeo-labs] The LAS format, the ASPRS, and the “LAZ clone” by ESRI
>
> Carl,
>
> No, it doesn't really clarify it. I think what people are wondering is "does OGC have a default mission and position that closed formats are bad for the industry and would it publicly admonish a member who took actions that ran counter to that position".  I assume that, as a "member driven organization" whose membership includes the offender, the OGC will not be standing up and publicly saying "this company is contravening the spirit of our organization and mission, that it is supposedly supportive of".
>
> Am I incorrect?
>
> WRT to OSGeo, I think that black letter cases like this come along infrequently enough that it would not be at all inappropriate for OSGeo to publicly state what is wrong with the direction being taken in the world of LAS formats. The only trouble is, it's exactly what everyone expects we would do, and therefore will be greeted with a collective yawn. But it is the right thing, so we should still do it.
>
> ATB,
>
> P.
>
> On Sun, Mar 1, 2015 at 8:23 AM, Carl Reed <creed at opengeospatial.org> wrote:
>> All -
>>
>> The OGC is not currently involved in activities related to defining or
>> maintaining LIDAR specific modeling and related encoding standards.
>> Any work the OGC has been doing WRT LIDAR is within the context of
>> processing, visualization, and analytics. Obviously, existing OGC
>> standards such as WCS and GMLJP2 can be used to encode and share small, processed LIDAR data sets.
>> Feel free to check OGC email archives, project pages, and so forth for
>> documentation on any ongoing discussions in the OGC related to LIDAR.
>>
>> http://www.opengeospatial.org/pub/www/ows9/innovations.html : The
>> thread participants looked at NITF, LIDAR, and DAP/OPeNDAP, and
>> investigated their re-implementation in an OWS environment with a focus on the Web.
>>
>> or
>>
>> http://koenigstuhl.geog.uni-heidelberg.de/publications/bonn/conference
>> /LanigGeoinformatik09.pdf
>>
>> for examples.
>>
>> Hope this clarifies the current OGC position.
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Carl
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message----- From: Suchith Anand
>> Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2015 4:20 AM
>> To: Cameron Shorter ; P Kishor ; Suchith Anand
>> Cc: discuss at lists.osgeo.org ; Hogan, Patrick(ARC-PX) ;
>> board at lists.osgeo.org ; ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org
>> Subject: Re: [Board] [OSGeo-Discuss] [Ica-osgeo-labs] The LAS format,
>> the ASPRS, and the “LAZ clone” by ESRI
>>
>>
>> Hi Cameron,
>>
>> Thank you for this excellent suggestion. I remember this previous
>> Geoservices REST API issues and discussions.
>>
>> Patrick - Could you please start a wiki page and input as much
>> information as you know on this (ideally in the same structure as the
>> Geoservices REST API wiki ). Once it is ready, please email the
>> community and OSGeo Board and we all can look into this.
>>
>> Anyone from OGC willing to help with this?
>>
>> I think this should be open letter from the OSGeo Board to the whole
>> Geo community. I really hope this proprietary vendor (ESRI) will be
>> decent enough to not keep repeating these inappropriate actions in the future.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Suchith
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: Cameron Shorter [cameron.shorter at gmail.com]
>> Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2015 10:47 AM
>> To: P Kishor; Suchith Anand
>> Cc: discuss at lists.osgeo.org; Hogan, Patrick (ARC-PX);
>> board at lists.osgeo.org; ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org
>> Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [Ica-osgeo-labs] The LAS format, the
>> ASPRS, and the “LAZ clone” by ESRI
>>
>> Patrick, others,
>> OSGeo and related OGC communities have been successful previously in
>> stopping ESRI's inappropriate creation of OGC standards. See here:
>> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Geoservices_REST_API
>>
>> I'd suggest that if we as OSGeo wish to be effective at blocking a
>> vendor lock-in tactic, as seems to be the case, then we should
>> consider developing a similar wiki page for the LAS format debate.
>>
>> 0. Write an open letter (who to? OGC?) 1. Describe the issue. (Is
>> there someone who knows the issues well enough to describe them?) 2.
>> Describe technically why one format is or is not better than the
>> other, on both a technical and commercial point of view.
>> 3. Is the Open LIDAR format an OGC standard?
>> 4. If needed, collect signatures.
>> 5. If needed, ask OSGeo Board to present the open letter
>>
>> On 28/02/2015 11:18 am, P Kishor wrote:
>> Thanks Patrick for surfacing this. Yes, this should be opened up for
>> scrutiny by the entire community and we should all weigh in.
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 4:13 PM, Suchith Anand
>> <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk>
>> wrote:
>> Hi Patrick,
>>
>> Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I believe the OSGeo Board
>> need to look into this and prepare a position paper with inputs from
>> the community as this has wider implications. This also need to be
>> discussed with like minded organisations. We all can provide the needed support for this.
>>
>> Jeff and OSGeo Board - please add this to the next month Board
>> meeting's agenda items. Thanks.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Suchith
>>
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From:
>> ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at l
>> ists.osgeo.org>
>> [ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces@
>> lists.osgeo.org>] On Behalf Of Lene Fischer
>> [lfi at ign.ku.dk<mailto:lfi at ign.ku.dk>]
>> Sent: Friday, February 27, 2015 6:29 PM
>> To: Hogan, Patrick (ARC-PX);
>> ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org>
>> Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] The LAS format, the ASPRS, and the “LAZ clone”
>> by ESRI
>>
>> +1
>>
>>
>> Lene Fischer
>> Associate Professor
>>
>> Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management University
>> of Copenhagen
>>
>> MOB +45 40115084<tel:%2B45%2040115084>
>> lfi at ign.ku.dk<mailto:lfi at ign.ku.dk><mailto:lfi at ign.ku.dk<mailto:lfi at ig
>> n.ku.dk>>
>>
>>
>> [cid:image001.gif at 01D052C3.B23B1060]
>>
>>
>>
>> Fra:
>> ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at l
>> ists.osgeo.org>
>> [mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-b
>> ounces at lists.osgeo.org>]
>> På vegne af Hogan, Patrick (ARC-PX)
>> Sendt: 27. februar 2015 18:48
>> Til:
>> ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org>
>> Emne: [Ica-osgeo-labs] The LAS format, the ASPRS, and the “LAZ clone”
>> by ESRI
>>
>> Dear OSGEO,
>> For what our good name is worth. . .
>> Do we have an opinion on something so essential as an open standard
>> for a data format?
>> Speak now, or forever hand over your wallet. Individual and collective
>> response encouraged.
>>
>> Can OSGEO provide a short position paper commenting on our values?
>> I.e., “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [data] are
>> created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
>> unalienable Rights, that among these [is Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Openness].”
>>
>> The LAS format, the ASPRS, and the “LAZ clone” by ESRI
>> http://rapidlasso.com/2015/02/22/lidar-las-asprs-esri-and-the-laz-clon
>> e/
>>
>> [First paragraph]
>> We are concerned about ESRI’s next moves in forcing yet another
>> proprietary format into wide-spread deployment. Forwarded emails,
>> retold conversations, and personal experiences suggest that sneaky
>> tactics<http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/> are
>> being used to disrupt the harmony in open LiDAR formats that we have
>> enjoyed for many years.
>> [cid:image002.jpg at 01D052C3.B23B1060]
>>
>> Thanks much,
>> -Patrick
>> Project Manager
>> NASA World Wind
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Puneet Kishor
>> Manager, Science and Data Policy
>> Creative Commons
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Discuss mailing list
>> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:Discuss at lists.osgeo.org>
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>
>>
>> --
>> Cameron Shorter,
>> Software and Data Solutions Manager
>> LISAsoft
>> Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
>> 26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
>>
>> P +61 2 9009 5000,  W www.lisasoft.com<http://www.lisasoft.com>,  F
>> +61 2
>> 9009 5099
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>> Please do not use, copy or disclose the information contained in this
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--
Cameron Shorter,
Software and Data Solutions Manager
LISAsoft
Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009

P +61 2 9009 5000,  W www.lisasoft.com,  F +61 2 9009 5099

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University of Nottingham.

This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an
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