[OSGeo-Discuss] Software Standards - The Ugly Truth
Bruce.Bannerman at dpi.vic.gov.au
Bruce.Bannerman at dpi.vic.gov.au
Sun Jun 24 16:49:18 PDT 2007
Hi Landon,
IMO, to put another perspective on it:
Many organisations over the years have invested significant sums of money,
time and effort into implementing spatial tools and customising them to
meet their needs.
I can think of any number of examples over the last few decades where that
investment has had to be thrown away and reimplemented using another
product. Some examples are (fill in the blanks as you see fit):
- A vendor ceases to be financially viable and shuts up shop.
- A vendor is taken over by another entity to: remove competition;
purchase market share;
because its trendy to have one of those in the portfolio; or any number
of other reasons.
- A vendor retires a product range to focus on a new technology, but
doesn't worry about
providing an upgrade path.
I'd say that most organisations have been bitten by any one of these
examples.
The OGC standards in particular, give organisations a way to try and
abstract their business functionality in such a way that they will be able
to swap in and out, vendor or open source components, as they deam
appropriate. If its done right they won't need to go back to first
principles and start from scratch when they decide to do so.
While the OGC standards may not be perfect at the moment, they are are
quite functional and are certainly based on a solid understanding of our
discipline (as a reading of the abstract documentation will show).
I personally think that if we are willing to get involved, we will be able
to help refine the standards and their implementation, even if it is just
by using various products and standards and providing feedback.
I applaud the OSGeo projects that are basing their design on the OGC
standards. To me as an implementer, it just makes good sense.
Bruce
"Landon Blake" <lblake at ksninc.com>
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23/06/2007 02:19 AM
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[OSGeo-Discuss] Software Standards - The Ugly Truth
I’m sending this to GeoWanking and OSGeo discuss, so I apologize in
advance if your inbox gets hit with it twice. :]
I've written a blog post on the OpenJUMP blog about some of the
problems with software standards.
I imagine this post will make some people upset, but I think it raises
some valid points. I don't think that everyone involved in open source
GIS will agree with me, but I think I identify some problems with the
love of standards that our of particular interest to our community.
(In a way that isn't of interest to those that develop closed-source
GIS programs.)
At any rate, the post is a long one, so if you do read it give
yourself 5 or 10 minutes. Before you flame me remember that I'm just a
surveyor that has seen too much sun, and that my opinion doesn't count
for a whole lot in the big scheme of things. :]
You can read the post here:
http://openjump.blogspot.com/
The Sunburned Surveyor
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