[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: scale of FOSS projects

[Gilberto Camara]

Dear all

jo at frot.org stated:
(...)
 > In the past i've heard it suggested that really successful open source
 > projects now need serious organisational backing. They can't be built
 > by a network of partly-funded enthusiast contributors alone.
(...)
 > If this is inevitable, why? Is innovation less possible outside the
 > "enterprise"? Is this even a FOSS problem or a computing-in-the-broad 
 > one?

As one of the list members who argued in favour of serious
organizational backing for OSS, let me throw my ideas on the issue:

(a) True innovation is extremely hard in any field. Companies and
     governments worldwide aim at promoting and producing innovation,
     but breakthroughs come slowly and the winners are always a
     happy few.
(b) To have a software development that is at the same time
     innovative and cooperative is even more difficult. Cooperation
     requires shared conceptualizations. This is much easier to
     achieve when the aim is to reproduce an existing design.
     This is the case of OSGEO projects that aim to have an
     open source version of OGC specifications.
(c) Many innovations are produced at academic institutions.
     Most of those institutions have no incentive nor mission
     to support open-source development projects. Taking these
     innovations out of academia and giving them institutional
     support (private or public) is a way to ensuring these
     innovations are exposed to the market. Those with real value
     will survive.
(d) For better or worse, the GIS arena is currently
     OGC-driven. OGC has levelled the market, by producing a set
     of common specifications, that both OS and proprietary systems
     must adhere to. By nature, standards bodies tend to
     stifle innovation. OGC has helped us make a lot of progress
     on vector-based GIS and web services. By contrast, OGC has
     reduced the motivation for innovation in issues such as
     spatial analysis, raster-based GIS, semantics,
     visualization, interfaces, and spatio-temporal models.
(e) Our current dilemma is that almost all FOSS4G products are
     focused on OGC-compliance. This reduces the potential for
     innovation and generates very similar products.

Thus, innovation in GIS is likely to come from outside
the OGC-compliance focus that pervades our community.
We need new interface paradigms, new ways of interacting
in with mobile devices, new ways of modelling environmental
change. Someone, somewhere, might be working on these innovations.
I hope that it evolves it an open source product.

Best Regards
Gilberto

P.S. For those who are interested, may I immodestly
suggest some readings on the topic:

G. Camara, F. Fonseca, "Information Policies and Open Source Software
in Developing Countries." JASIST, vol 58(1):121-132, January 2007.
http://www.dpi.inpe.br/gilberto/papers/camara_fonseca_jasist.pdf

G.Camara, H. Onsrud,
"Open Source GIS Software: Myths and Realities."
In: Julie M. Esanu and Paul F. Uhlir, Eds, Open Access and the Public 
Domain in Digital Data and Information for Science: Proceedings of an 
International Symposium. Washington, The National Academies Press, 2004.
http://www.dpi.inpe.br/gilberto/papers/camara_open_source_myths.pdf

G. Câmara et al., “TerraLib: An open-source GIS library for large-scale 
environmental and socio-economic applications”. In: Brent Hall (ed), 
“Open Source Approaches to Spatial Data Handling”.
Berlin, Springer, 2008.
http://www.terralib.org/docs/papers/TerraLib-OSBook-versionJanuary2008.pdf

-- 
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Dr.Gilberto Camara
Director General
National Institute for Space Research (INPE)
Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil

voice: +55-12-3945-6035
fax:   +55-12-3921-6455
web:   http://www.dpi.inpe.br/gilberto
blog:  http://techne-episteme.blogspot.com/
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