[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Sign the Hague declaration

[Frank Warmerdam]

Benjamin Henrion wrote:
>> 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.
> 
> Free of patents? ESRI has always been the "Microsoft of GIS", so beware
> of patents on this particular format.

Benjamin,

It is hard to always ensure there cannot be a patent that could apply,
but for a simple format like shapefile it would be hard to apply a patent.

Note that a company can hold patents on "open standards" too.  The fact
that one company promulgates a format does not give them that much leverage
in patenting it.  Patents are a danger onto their own, and not directly tied
(IMHO) to the open standard vs. nominally proprietary format discussion.

>> 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.
> 
> "Practical guys" makes compromises with freedom. As a citizen, I don't
> accept the government rolling over my basic rights.

I do not accept your claim that my being practical is equivelent to making
compromises with freedom.  I also do not accept that getting government
data in open standard formats is a basic right, and attempting to make this
equivelence to some degree cheapens the really basic rights (like rights
to due process under the law, etc).

I would add, taking such a position is very alienating to the bulk of humanity
that you need to get behind an idea like this before it will actually take
root.

I think there is a great danger to the open source, open data, and open
standards efforts in the attempts to legislate them.  Done carelessly,
legislation will inevitably lead to situations that are rediculous and this
will discredit the whole effort.  We see similar things with free healthcare,
unions, minority rights (all of which I support) which if promoted without
reference to common sense will result in a serious backlash.

Certainly the government mandated use of some large unwieldy "standard"
file formats in the geospatial realm has left a lot of people with a
bad taste in their mouth with regard to "standards".

I can see I'm getting rather broad here.  I'd better stop now.

Best regards,
-- 
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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