[Inspire-data] Re: State of INSPIRE with FOSS (long)

[Jeroen Ticheler]

Hi Just,
Thanks for this excellent summary and suggestions made. I'm very keen on getting such INSPIRE stack ready and marketed in similar ways that the large vendors do. Taking an approach like OpenGeo does and include GeoNetwork in  the mix. I'm sure there are others who would join, and it would require an investment from our part to make it happen with a clear idea on how to earn the revenue required to support this and build further. 
Ok, this is short, boarding for Ankara now to get the Turkish geoportal up and running in the next few Easter days :-)
Ciao,
Jeroen

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Op 21 apr. 2011 om 12:20 heeft Just van den Broecke <just at justobjects.nl> het volgende geschreven:

> Hi,
> 
> This mail (sorry for cross-posting) is to provoke some thinking with regards to INSPIRE with FOSS, its products, the INSPIRE timeschedule and the competition with proprietary INSPIRE solutions. Also since I have no immediate answers I am seeking some wisdom from you clever FOSS folks.
> 
> The issues below are somewhat colored for the Dutch situation, the questions I get, and focus on Download and View Services (viz WFS/WMS). Metadata/CSW for INSPIRE through GeoNetwork is in quite good shape IMO.
> 
> - FOSS products: deegree v3, GeoServer (GS) and recently MapServer are all providing INSPIRE extensions. These are however in various stages of development and priorities (e.g. GS WMS first and deegree WFS first), using very different architectures (deegree Blob storage upcoming hybrid, GS on-the-fly relational mapping) and different focus.
> I think this diversity is good (where is Python?) but the situation is currently that neither is INSPIRE-ready for both WMS (1.3) and WFS (2.0?) with GML 3.2.1.
> 
> - INSPIRE timeline: Discovery (CSW) and View (WMS) services (Annex I) have to be operational by november 2011, Download (and Transformation) Services (WFS) by dec 2012. See also
> http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/index.cfm/pageid/44
> 
> - Proprietary solutions: apart from some smaller vendors like Snowflake, and larger ones for FME, also ESRI has entered the INSPIRE market. ESRI's solution is provided by the German firm Conterra:
> http://www.conterra.de/en/products/esri-software/afi.shtm
> As usual, dressing is sharp, brochures glossy and maybe their solution actually works.
> 
> - FOSS success: in the past two years National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies (NMCA's) have been prototyping/testing various FOSS and Proprietary solutions and architectures, mainly for the entire "INSPIRE chain", i.e. Transformation (ETL), services (WMS/WFS/CSW). Like for example within ESDIN (www.esdin.eu) where the focus was on Transformation and WFS, about 13 out 15 NMCAs finally used FOSS tools like PostGIS, GDAL, deegree3 because these actually worked.
> See also http://2010.foss4g.org/presentations_show.php?id=3416 ;-)
> 
> - More FOSS success: Planetek with lat/lon (deegree) have been chosen to build the European INSPIRE Geoportal. See http://www.planetek.it/eng/projects/inspire_geoportal and GeoServer is/has contracts with various NMCAs (UK OS and IGN FR?) to develop INSPIRE extensions.
> 
> - The problem: currently the situation has come that NMCAs are actually choosing "an INSPIRE solution" and the ESRI's of this world are entering the game at the same time. The smart NMCAs like IGN and OS may just acknowledge that FOSS will bring them long term benefits. The problem IMHO at this moment is that there is no complete "FOSS INSPIRE Stack". For example, the solution used in the inspire-foss project (http://code.google.com/p/inspire-foss/) with GDAL/XSLT/PostGIS/deegree3/GeoExt lacks a compliant WMS 1.3. GeoServer is also still not there for INSPIRE WMS 1.3 and lacks a robust WFS/data mapping solution (and as a warning to GS-devs, getting this right, INSPIRE-compliant and performant is much much harder than you think). Diversity is good, but for the NMCAs to which I have been presenting the situation is unclear. Maybe we are too honest in the FOSS world as many proprietary products may not be ready either.
> 
> - The way out: the inspire-foss project has always been geared on multiple INSPIRE solutions, e.g. not just deegree-only, though this is still a very strong solution for ETL+fast WFS serving. As said, part of this mail is to clarify what I think is the current situation but also to possibly get ideas from you. Others may think that INSPIRE is just a nasty heavy beast designed top-down without any rational software engineering constraints and will just fade away as so many all-encompassing standards' frameworks that had no prior proven implementation (remember the ISO 7-Layer OSI stack?). We may find INSPIRE back in another format (OSM?). Basically this mail comes back to what Jeroen Ticheler, Arnulf, Jo Walsh and others had already formulated 2/3 years ago:
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/INSPIRE and http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/INSPIRE_data_experiments
> 
> I think we have come a long way since then and have proven/diverse INSPIRE FOSS solutions though in various stages. I realize I have maybe been too much focused on technique/software, loosing the bigger picture, and that we need to have something more integrated both in organization (OSGeo?) and in the software ("INSPIRE Stack" with component options). If you got as far as here thanks for reading !
> 
> best regards,
> 
> --Just
> 
> Just van den Broecke
> The Netherlands
> www.justobjects.nl
> 
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> 
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