[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: idea for an OSGeo project -- a new, open data format

[David William Bitner]

>
>
> I never (I think I never did) argued that Shapefile is not open. I
> argued that it is not Free. I could be wrong.
>
> >
>
Here's the open published specification:
http://www.esri.com/library/whitepapers/pdfs/shapefile.pdf
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.
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