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

[P Kishor]

On 11/14/07, David William Bitner <david.bitner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> >
> >
> >
> > 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

yes, I am aware of this, and have used it on and off over the past decade.

>
> 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.
>

ok, so there may or may not be an issue. I did bring it up, and so I
risk the discussion focusing on this aspect too much. Let's forget
about this aspect for now.

Shall we focus on the technical limitations of Shapefiles in order to
keep moving forward?

Many thanks,

Puneet.