[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Sign the Hague declaration

[Frank Warmerdam]

Landon Blake wrote:
> I thought it might be wise to point out that this discussion seems to be
> getting a little aggressive, and possibly a little personal.
> 
> All sides have made valid points. It's obvious that Mr. Fee isn't going
> to agree with many of us on this particular issue, and his opinion is
> worth considering.
> 
> I would remind Mr. Fee, very humbly (of course), that he is on the OSGeo
> mailing list, so in some respects he's chosen a fight in which he is
> very outnumbered. I don't know how productive it is to aggressively
> defend something like the .doc format on a mailing list for proponents
> of open source software. :]
> 
> You'll probably have about as much success as you would touting the .odt
> format on a mailing list for the Microsoft Word fan club. :]

Landon,

James is making valid points about practical aspects of openness.  I
hesitate to sign the declaration because it seems to absolutist and
not recognizing of practical aspects of openness (as opposed to de-jure
definitions of open standards).

I personally am dubious this discussion will accomplish anything useful
because of the vague generalities of the original proposition, and the
lack of a real purpose to the discussion.  But I'm also not inclined to
discourage James or others from expressing their position once the
discussion has started.

Another example often given a bit more in our realm than .doc files is
shapefiles.  They are technically a proprietary format belonging to
one proprietary vendor.  But the format is published, widely implemented
in free and proprietary software and quite understandable. So I think it
is reasonable for government data to be distributed in this format.

On the other hand, in many cases, government agencies have ended up
publishing data in formats like SAIF, SDTS and various highly custom
GML schemas that are technically open, but for practical purposes they
are very difficult to utilize.

What I would like to discourage is governments distributing in file
formats (like the mentioned new ESRI File Geodatabase) that are effectively
closed - at least for the time being.

Like MPG, I'm sympathetic to the goals of the declaration but am concerned
it is not sufficiently practical.  And I'm a very practical guy.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org