Presentation on "Open Source Possibilities" for geospatial to NSGIC 2011 annual conference in Boise, ID. Presented by Michael Terner, AppGeo and Learon Dalby, Sanborn.
24. Kind of like an open source SDE/Oracle SpatialBrilliant person and excellent public speaker who puts it out there in plain terms Several of the following slides were presented at the recent FOSS4G conference, and are used with permission
25. What is open source software? Managed as a project with a team of contributors Source code of software is freely available Software license often allows free deployment Slides from Paul Ramsay, used with permission.
28. Open source and proprietary software companies are similar, but different Open Source Corp Proprietary Corp They both need to serve customers and make money The intellectual property comes from different places Slides from Paul Ramsay, used with permission.
29. There are now companies that provide support and services for geospatial OSS OpenGeo is following the “Red Hat model” Insurance: That if something is broken, some entity will help get it fixed; you can obtain support Assurance: That there is knowledge and expertise to assist you with deploying and solving problems with these tools Slides from Paul Ramsay, used with permission.
30. Many commercial companies employ open source Google Linux in its web farms Amazon The Xen virtual machine environment 85 of 135 third-party libraries are OSS Under 18 different OSS licenses Slides from Paul Ramsay, used with permission.
32. Opportunities Release cycles New features can be added more quickly Learon’s/DoD’s point: “Agility/Flexibility/Faster Delivery” You can pay for a feature Incremental improvements through releases 10.0 9.0 8.0 Versions 7.0 6.0
33. Challenges Meaningful quote at the conference: “Free is the least important word in FOSS4G” (FOSS4G = Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial) Free does not mean that there are no costs You can/should pay for support There are costs in training staff Etc.
34. Challenges Picking your tools It’s a large marketplace Server, desktop, DB, client framework, caching, ETL, etc. Many projects Many companies What do you need? How does it all fit together?
35. So what’s going on with FOSS4G in the NSGIC community? Massachusetts, Oklahoma and New Jersey Any others? Three questions What are you doing? Why did you do it? Any advice to offer? PS: None of these states has abandoned Esri
36. Massachusetts What are you doing? Powers OGC compliant web services Including consumable public services consistent with state’s overall services oriented architecture Consumed by wide variety of public and agency applications Including Oliver & Morris, public facing viewers
37. Massachusetts Why did you do it? Adopted OGC API over 10 years ago In 2001, ArcIMS was not up to task of affordably publishing 100+ OGC compliant map services Have viewed OSS as a supplement, not a replacement for Esri technology
38. Massachusetts Any advice to offer? Support exists, but finding it and becoming familiar with the new model takes some time Ensure you have access to adequate technical support via consultants and/or staff for configuration and deployment
39. Oklahoma What are you doing? Powers the OKMaps clearinghouse Catalog, data viewer, consumable OGC web services
40. Oklahoma Why did you do it? Reduce licensing costs Original project was grant funded, no budget for maintenance Ability to “clone this clearinghouse” and provide to counties so they can help feed the state system Not yet, however
41. Oklahoma Any advice to offer? “Although one may avoid licensing costs, there are still significant costs” Need for staff expertise Good professional partner OSS is under constant development, important to stay current on releases
42. New Jersey What are you doing? OGC web services (WMS, WFS) to power a variety of agency applications & Publish data to The National Map Web application front-end is OpenLayers; backend is EsriArcGIS Server REST/cached base map OGC compliant orthophoto services Via a LizardTech Express Server
43. New Jersey Why did you do it? Fill in some gaps in the Esri product offerings Robust OGC support JavaScript development before release of REST API Supplement existing Esri infrastructure Comfortable with a heterogeneous environment
44. New Jersey Any advice to offer? When you venture into OSS, understand the release cycle and model Daily builds are available and sometimes have something you want But can be less stable
45. Conclusion It’s continuing to mature Quality of tools Business ecosystem It’s adding value To both government and business We’re likely to be seeing more of it, not less
