[Liblas-devel] Open source lidar software?

[Michael P. Gerlek]

Well, it's not at all clear actually -- I heard today that the Fusion source
is in fact available, but I've not found a link yet or seen the license
terms.  I'll post if I learn more, because I've heard good things about
Fusion and would be happy to include it in my list.


\begin{rant}
The question of Fusion aside, I'll go out on a limb here and note that,
based on the googling and downloading I've done on this topic, there is
still a lot of misunderstanding in the world about what "open" means.  Long
before you even get into the debate about whether the GPL is good or not,
you need to publish the source code with some sort of explicit licensing
claim.  Having an easily-downloadable, no-cost, ready-to-install binary is
great, and I use many such tools, but *please* don't imply they are "open
source" unless you offer a download of the source code -- and a license --
right along with them.  We (OSGeo-type folk) still need to keep educating
people on this.
\end{rant}

-mpg


> -----Original Message-----
> From: liblas-devel-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:liblas-devel-
> bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Peter Tittmann
> Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2011 5:43 PM
> To: liblas-devel at lists.osgeo.org
> Subject: Re: [Liblas-devel] Open source lidar software?
> 
> Oops, missed your caveat...
> 
> On 04/06/2011 10:19 AM, Michael P. Gerlek wrote:
> > I'm doing an informal survey of the landscape for open source lidar
> > software (visualization, format conversion, dem generation,
> > filtering/classification, etc), and it turns out the world is a lot more
bleak
> than I'd expected:
> >
> > * liblas
> > * laszip
> > * libE57 (beta)
> > * DielmoOpenLidar
> > (http://www.dielmo.com/eng/ficha-tecnologia.php?prod=21)
> > * MCC-lidar (http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/mcclidar/)
> > * SAGA
> > * Quantum GIS (qgis)
> > * OSSIM
> > * GDAL
> >
> > Does anyone have any others to add to the list?  I'm only interested
> > in tools for which source is available under a legit OSI license and
> > which seem to be relatively stable and/or actively maintained -- so
> > this excludes Fusion, ALPS, Opals, ALDPAT, lastools, fullanalyze, ...
> >
> > -mpg
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Liblas-devel mailing list
> > Liblas-devel at lists.osgeo.org
> > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/liblas-devel
> 
> --
> Peter Tittmann
> Geography Graduate Group
> UC Davis
> c. 707 849 4135
> 
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