OSGeo - User contributions [en]

User:Maximdubinin

2015-12-02T03:30:44Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin:

[[File:Maximdubinin-photo-cv.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Maxim Dubinin]]

==Who I am==

Hello, my name is Maxim Dubinin, I am currently:

* Founder and CEO of [http://nextgis.org NextGIS] - Opensource geospatial solutions provider
* Founder and current head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab] - Geospatial community for experts and amateurs for Russian-speaking audience, founded in 2001.

==What I've done==

Things I have done personally or initiated or led:

* Wrote over 220 articles majority of which are about opensource GIS tools and data ([http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgis-lab.info%2Fscripts%2Fforum-user-qa.php%3Fuserid%3D2%26username%3D%25D0%259C%25D0%25B0%25D0%25BA%25D1%2581%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BC%2520%25D0%2594%25D1%2583%25D0%25B1%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD en], [http://gis-lab.info/scripts/forum-user-qa.php?userid=2&username=%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BC%20%D0%94%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD ru])
* Participated in 11 communal projects at GIS-Lab and coordinated 5 of them, including translation of GRASS and gvSIG manuals, OSGeo Live docs, creation of the first truly open dataset of administrative division of Russia, etc.
* Wrote and co-authored 20+ QGIS plugins, submitted [http://hub.qgis.org/users/337 100+ bugreports], participated in GDAL and QGIS source tree
* Sponsored OpenLayers and QGIS
* NextGIS is among [https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2014/07/20/welcome-corporate-members/ first 4 corporate sponsors] of OpenStreetMap, Gold-sponsored OSM Baltics Conference in Tartu, 2013 ([http://sotm-baltics.org/ link])
* Threw the first Russian OpenStreetMap mapping party in 2009
* Started daily OSM extracts to OSM/PBF and ESRI Shapefiles for Russia (incl. regional ones) and former USSR for 5+ years since 2009
* Jump started Russian OpenStreetMap Council in 2011
* Organized Open GIS conference in Moscow in 2012 and 2015 (http://gisconf.ru): 400+ attendants from 150+ organizations, 2 days, 4 simultaneous sections (2 presentations, 2 workshops).

All these accomplishments would not be possible without many co-authors, helpers, fellow enthusiasts to whom I'm eternally grateful.

==More about myself==

You can reach me at: '''sim@gis-lab.info'''

All personal info, list of publications, CV, more contacts etc can be found here: http://m-d.me

My GitHub stuff is [https://github.com/simgislab here].

My OSM [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Sim profile].

NextGIS GitHub is [https://github.com/nextgis there].

{{OSGeo Member
|Name=Maxim Dubinin
|Country=Russia
|City=Moscow
|Coordinate=55.7685, 37.8156
|Email=sim@gis-lab.info
|Website=http://m-d.me
}}

[[Category:OSGeo Charter Member]]
[[Category:OSGeo Member]]

User:Maximdubinin

2015-12-02T03:26:36Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin:

{{OSGeo Member
|Name=Maxim Dubinin
|Country=Russia
|City=Moscow
|Coordinate=55.7685, 37.8156
|Email=sim@gis-lab.info
|Website=http://m-d.me
}}

[[File:Maximdubinin-photo-cv.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Maxim Dubinin]]

==Who I am==

Hello, my name is Maxim Dubinin, I am currently:

* Founder and CEO of [http://nextgis.org NextGIS] - Opensource geospatial solutions provider
* Founder and current head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab] - Geospatial community for experts and amateurs for Russian-speaking audience, founded in 2001.

==What I've done==

Things I have done personally or initiated or led:

* Wrote over 220 articles majority of which are about opensource GIS tools and data ([http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgis-lab.info%2Fscripts%2Fforum-user-qa.php%3Fuserid%3D2%26username%3D%25D0%259C%25D0%25B0%25D0%25BA%25D1%2581%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BC%2520%25D0%2594%25D1%2583%25D0%25B1%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD en], [http://gis-lab.info/scripts/forum-user-qa.php?userid=2&username=%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BC%20%D0%94%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD ru])
* Participated in 11 communal projects at GIS-Lab and coordinated 5 of them, including translation of GRASS and gvSIG manuals, OSGeo Live docs, creation of the first truly open dataset of administrative division of Russia, etc.
* Wrote and co-authored 20+ QGIS plugins, submitted [http://hub.qgis.org/users/337 100+ bugreports], participated in GDAL and QGIS source tree
* Sponsored OpenLayers and QGIS
* NextGIS is among [https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2014/07/20/welcome-corporate-members/ first 4 corporate sponsors] of OpenStreetMap, Gold-sponsored OSM Baltics Conference in Tartu, 2013 ([http://sotm-baltics.org/ link])
* Threw the first Russian OpenStreetMap mapping party in 2009
* Started daily OSM extracts to OSM/PBF and ESRI Shapefiles for Russia (incl. regional ones) and former USSR for 5+ years since 2009
* Jump started Russian OpenStreetMap Council in 2011
* Organized Open GIS conference in Moscow in 2012 and 2015 (http://gisconf.ru): 400+ attendants from 150+ organizations, 2 days, 4 simultaneous sections (2 presentations, 2 workshops).

All these accomplishments would not be possible without many co-authors, helpers, fellow enthusiasts to whom I'm eternally grateful.

==More about myself==

You can reach me at: '''sim@gis-lab.info'''

All personal info, list of publications, CV, more contacts etc can be found here: http://m-d.me

My GitHub stuff is [https://github.com/simgislab here].

My OSM [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Sim profile].

NextGIS GitHub is [https://github.com/nextgis there].

[[Category:OSGeo Charter Member]]
[[Category:OSGeo Member]]

User:Maximdubinin

2015-12-02T03:26:05Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin:

{{OSGeo Member
|Name=Maxim Dubinin
|Country=Russia
|City=Moscow
|Coordinate=55.7685, 37.8156
|Email=sim@gis-lab.info
|Website=http://m-d.me
\}}

[[File:Maximdubinin-photo-cv.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Maxim Dubinin]]

==Who I am==

Hello, my name is Maxim Dubinin, I am currently:

* Founder and CEO of [http://nextgis.org NextGIS] - Opensource geospatial solutions provider
* Founder and current head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab] - Geospatial community for experts and amateurs for Russian-speaking audience, founded in 2001.

==What I've done==

Things I have done personally or initiated or led:

* Wrote over 220 articles majority of which are about opensource GIS tools and data ([http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgis-lab.info%2Fscripts%2Fforum-user-qa.php%3Fuserid%3D2%26username%3D%25D0%259C%25D0%25B0%25D0%25BA%25D1%2581%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BC%2520%25D0%2594%25D1%2583%25D0%25B1%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD en], [http://gis-lab.info/scripts/forum-user-qa.php?userid=2&username=%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BC%20%D0%94%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD ru])
* Participated in 11 communal projects at GIS-Lab and coordinated 5 of them, including translation of GRASS and gvSIG manuals, OSGeo Live docs, creation of the first truly open dataset of administrative division of Russia, etc.
* Wrote and co-authored 20+ QGIS plugins, submitted [http://hub.qgis.org/users/337 100+ bugreports], participated in GDAL and QGIS source tree
* Sponsored OpenLayers and QGIS
* NextGIS is among [https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2014/07/20/welcome-corporate-members/ first 4 corporate sponsors] of OpenStreetMap, Gold-sponsored OSM Baltics Conference in Tartu, 2013 ([http://sotm-baltics.org/ link])
* Threw the first Russian OpenStreetMap mapping party in 2009
* Started daily OSM extracts to OSM/PBF and ESRI Shapefiles for Russia (incl. regional ones) and former USSR for 5+ years since 2009
* Jump started Russian OpenStreetMap Council in 2011
* Organized Open GIS conference in Moscow in 2012 and 2015 (http://gisconf.ru): 400+ attendants from 150+ organizations, 2 days, 4 simultaneous sections (2 presentations, 2 workshops).

All these accomplishments would not be possible without many co-authors, helpers, fellow enthusiasts to whom I'm eternally grateful.

==More about myself==

You can reach me at: '''sim@gis-lab.info'''

All personal info, list of publications, CV, more contacts etc can be found here: http://m-d.me

My GitHub stuff is [https://github.com/simgislab here].

My OSM [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Sim profile].

NextGIS GitHub is [https://github.com/nextgis there].

[[Category:OSGeo Charter Member]]
[[Category:OSGeo Member]]

User:Maximdubinin

2015-12-02T03:25:32Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin:

{{OSGeo Member
|Name=Maxim Dubinin
|Country=Russia
|City=Moscow
|Coordinate=37.8156, 55.7685
|Email=sim@gis-lab.info
|Website=http://m-d.me
\}}

[[File:Maximdubinin-photo-cv.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Maxim Dubinin]]

==Who I am==

Hello, my name is Maxim Dubinin, I am currently:

* Founder and CEO of [http://nextgis.org NextGIS] - Opensource geospatial solutions provider
* Founder and current head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab] - Geospatial community for experts and amateurs for Russian-speaking audience, founded in 2001.

==What I've done==

Things I have done personally or initiated or led:

* Wrote over 220 articles majority of which are about opensource GIS tools and data ([http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgis-lab.info%2Fscripts%2Fforum-user-qa.php%3Fuserid%3D2%26username%3D%25D0%259C%25D0%25B0%25D0%25BA%25D1%2581%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BC%2520%25D0%2594%25D1%2583%25D0%25B1%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD en], [http://gis-lab.info/scripts/forum-user-qa.php?userid=2&username=%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BC%20%D0%94%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD ru])
* Participated in 11 communal projects at GIS-Lab and coordinated 5 of them, including translation of GRASS and gvSIG manuals, OSGeo Live docs, creation of the first truly open dataset of administrative division of Russia, etc.
* Wrote and co-authored 20+ QGIS plugins, submitted [http://hub.qgis.org/users/337 100+ bugreports], participated in GDAL and QGIS source tree
* Sponsored OpenLayers and QGIS
* NextGIS is among [https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2014/07/20/welcome-corporate-members/ first 4 corporate sponsors] of OpenStreetMap, Gold-sponsored OSM Baltics Conference in Tartu, 2013 ([http://sotm-baltics.org/ link])
* Threw the first Russian OpenStreetMap mapping party in 2009
* Started daily OSM extracts to OSM/PBF and ESRI Shapefiles for Russia (incl. regional ones) and former USSR for 5+ years since 2009
* Jump started Russian OpenStreetMap Council in 2011
* Organized Open GIS conference in Moscow in 2012 and 2015 (http://gisconf.ru): 400+ attendants from 150+ organizations, 2 days, 4 simultaneous sections (2 presentations, 2 workshops).

All these accomplishments would not be possible without many co-authors, helpers, fellow enthusiasts to whom I'm eternally grateful.

==More about myself==

You can reach me at: '''sim@gis-lab.info'''

All personal info, list of publications, CV, more contacts etc can be found here: http://m-d.me

My GitHub stuff is [https://github.com/simgislab here].

My OSM [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Sim profile].

NextGIS GitHub is [https://github.com/nextgis there].

[[Category:OSGeo Charter Member]]
[[Category:OSGeo Member]]

User:Maximdubinin

2015-12-02T03:18:58Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin:

[[File:Maximdubinin-photo-cv.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Maxim Dubinin]]

==Who I am==

Hello, my name is Maxim Dubinin, I am currently:

* Founder and CEO of [http://nextgis.org NextGIS] - Opensource geospatial solutions provider
* Founder and current head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab] - Geospatial community for experts and amateurs for Russian-speaking audience, founded in 2001.

==What I've done==

Things I have done personally or initiated or led:

* Wrote over 220 articles majority of which are about opensource GIS tools and data ([http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgis-lab.info%2Fscripts%2Fforum-user-qa.php%3Fuserid%3D2%26username%3D%25D0%259C%25D0%25B0%25D0%25BA%25D1%2581%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BC%2520%25D0%2594%25D1%2583%25D0%25B1%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD en], [http://gis-lab.info/scripts/forum-user-qa.php?userid=2&username=%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BC%20%D0%94%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD ru])
* Participated in 11 communal projects at GIS-Lab and coordinated 5 of them, including translation of GRASS and gvSIG manuals, OSGeo Live docs, creation of the first truly open dataset of administrative division of Russia, etc.
* Wrote and co-authored 20+ QGIS plugins, submitted [http://hub.qgis.org/users/337 100+ bugreports], participated in GDAL and QGIS source tree
* Sponsored OpenLayers and QGIS
* NextGIS is among [https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2014/07/20/welcome-corporate-members/ first 4 corporate sponsors] of OpenStreetMap, Gold-sponsored OSM Baltics Conference in Tartu, 2013 ([http://sotm-baltics.org/ link])
* Threw the first Russian OpenStreetMap mapping party in 2009
* Started daily OSM extracts to OSM/PBF and ESRI Shapefiles for Russia (incl. regional ones) and former USSR for 5+ years since 2009
* Jump started Russian OpenStreetMap Council in 2011
* Organized Open GIS conference in Moscow in 2012 and 2015 (http://gisconf.ru): 400+ attendants from 150+ organizations, 2 days, 4 simultaneous sections (2 presentations, 2 workshops).

All these accomplishments would not be possible without many co-authors, helpers, fellow enthusiasts to whom I'm eternally grateful.

==More about myself==

You can reach me at: '''sim@gis-lab.info'''

All personal info, list of publications, CV, more contacts etc can be found here: http://m-d.me

My GitHub stuff is [https://github.com/simgislab here].

My OSM [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Sim profile].

NextGIS GitHub is [https://github.com/nextgis there].

[[Category:OSGeo Charter Member]]
[[Category:OSGeo Member]]

User:Maximdubinin

2015-12-02T03:16:34Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin:

User:Maximdubinin

2015-12-02T03:13:45Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin:

FOSS4G 2015 BirdsOfAFeather

2015-09-19T03:23:43Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin: /* Lighting Talks */

= Introduction =
Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions are unstructured timeslots where people can self-organise themselves to discuss topics of interest.

== General Information ==
During the [http://2015.foss4g.org/ FOSS4G 2015] conference in Seoul, South Korea, there will be a number of spaces for people to hold Birds of a Feather sessions.

 
For reference, an overview of the FOSS4G schedule is available at [http://2015.foss4g.org/programme/presentations/ http://2015.foss4g.org/programme/presentations/].

 
=== Rooms ===
We have available 5 rooms, that includes the grand ballroom (also used for plenary talks). The rooms will be available during lunch(12:20~13:20) and directly after the end of the talks, for 1 hour, on Day1 (Wednesday) and Day 2 (Thursday).

=== Capacities ===
* Grand Ballroom B: 400
* Room 9: 150
* Room 10: 50
* Room 11: 50
* Room 12: 50
 

==FOSS4G Contact==
* foss4g2015(at)lists.osgeo.org
 

== Wednesday(16th September) ==

=== GrandBallroom B===

{| class="wikitable" border="1"
|-
! Timeslot !! Topic/Group !! Description !! Contact
|-
| 12:20-13:20 || || ||
|-
| 17:40-18:30 || OSGeo Diversity || || JM
|}

=== Room 9 ===

{| class="wikitable" border="1"
|-
! Timeslot !! Topic/Group !! Description !! Contact
|-
| 12:20-13:20 || Censorship in Korean maps || Not everything is what it seems like || [[User:Panoramedia|Max Neupert]]
|-
| 17:40-18:30 || CrowdSourcing || Semantics, formats, interoperability || [[User:Delawen | María Arias de Reyna]]
|}

=== Room 10 ===

{| class="wikitable" border="1"
|-
! Timeslot !! Topic/Group !! Description !! Contact
|-
| 12:20-13:20 || Geo4All || || [[User:Venkat|Venkatesh_Raghavan]]
|-
| 17:40-18:30 || GeoServer / GeoTools || || [[user:Jive|Jody Garnett]]
|}

=== Room 11 ===

{| class="wikitable" border="1"
|-
! Timeslot !! Topic/Group !! Description !! Contact
|-
| 12:20-13:20 || || ||
|-
| 17:40-18:30 || || ||
|}

=== Room 12 ===

{| class="wikitable" border="1"
|-
! Timeslot !! Topic/Group !! Description !! Contact
|-
| 12:20-13:20 || || ||
|-
| 17:40-18:30 || || ||
|}

=== OSGeo Diversity BOF ===

* Description: Discuss how to make sure that everyone in our community is safe and respected, and accepting to cultural differences.
* When/Where: Wednesday 17:40-18:30, GrandBallroom B.

Who is coming:
* [[Jeff McKenna]]
* [[Jachym Cepicky]]

=== Censorship in Korean Maps ===

* Description: A presentation / exchange about an artist's approach to censorship in maps. I will show examples of the inconsistent and strange ways Korean maps and aerial/orbital imagery is censored and compare it to uncensored data. I'll also present my art book with the title: Eighteen Secret Golf Courses. It features illustrations of golf courses you aren't allowed to see. It's based on OSM data.

* When/where: Thursday Lunchtime Room 10

Who is coming:

* [[User:Panoramedia|Max Neupert]]
* add your name here, it is going to be entertaining. :)

=== Crowdsourcing BOF ===

* Description: How to adapt to VGI, crowdsourcing and citizen science data. Quality assurence & process chaining. Data conflation using semantic technologies. App & sensor kits development. Privacy. Interoperability Standards/Formats: OSM/Darwin Core/geojson/geopackage/SOS. Tools for visualising, analysing and managing. Serious gaming. Community mapping.
* When/Where: Wednesday 17:40-18:30, Room 9

Who is coming:
* [[User:Delawen|María Arias de Reyna]]
* [[User:Maria|Maria Brovelli]]
* [[User:panterz|Panos Terzis]]
* Add your name

=== Geo4All BOF ===

* Description: BOF for anyone interested to be a part of [http://www.geoforall.org/ Geo4All] Initiative
* When/Where: Wednesday 12:20-13:20, Room 10

Who is coming:
* [[Venkatesh_Raghavan]]
* [[Jeff McKenna]]
* [[Anthony Robinson]]
* [[User:Nimalika|Nimalika Fernando]]
* [[User:Lucadelu|Luca Delucchi]]
* [[User:Maria|Maria Brovelli]]
* [[User:Till Adams|Till Adams]]
* [[User:vasile|Vasile Crăciunescu]] (Just for the firs half of the meeting. I have a presentation in the next conference session)
* Add your name

 

=== GeoServer / GeoTools BOF ===

* Description: BOF for anyone interested OSGeo projects GeoServer and GeoTools
* When/Where: Wednesday 17:40-18:30, Room 10

Who is coming:
* [[User:Jive|Jody Garnett]]
* [[User:aaime|Andrea Aime]]

 

== Thursday(17th September) ==

=== GrandBallroom B===

{| class="wikitable" border="1"
|-
! Timeslot !! Topic/Group !! Description !! Contact
|-
| 12:20-12:35 || Python Geocoder || Lighting Talk (5 min) about [http://Python-Geocoder.org Python-Geocoder.org] || [https://twitter.com/DenisCarriere/ Denis Carriere]
|-
| 12:35-12:50 || || Lighting Talk (Open) ||
|-
| 12:50-13:05 || || Lighting Talk (Open) ||
|-
| 13:05-13:20 || || Lighting Talk (Open) ||
|-
| 17:10-18:00 || OSGeo AGM || Annual General Meeting for OSGeo foundation || JM
|}

=== Room 9 ===

{| class="wikitable" border="1"
|-
! Timeslot !! Topic/Group !! Description !! Contact
|-
| 12:20-13:20 || GeoNode || GeoNode Users/Developers BoF || [[User:Ortelius|Jeffrey Johnson]]
|-
| 17:10-18:00 || Python Geocoder || In-depth Talk (30 minutes) about [http://Python-Geocoder.org Python-Geocoder.org] || [https://twitter.com/DenisCarriere/ Denis Carriere]
|}

=== Room 10 ===

{| class="wikitable" border="1"
|-
! Timeslot !! Topic/Group !! Description !! Contact
|-
| 12:20-13:20 || FOSS4G Bonn Organising Meeting || Sharing experiences between FOSS4G Seoul team and Bonn team || [[User:endofcap|Sanghee Shin]]
|-
| 17:10-18:00 || || ||
|}

=== Room 11 ===

{| class="wikitable" border="1"
|-
! Timeslot !! Topic/Group !! Description !! Contact
|-
| 12:20-13:20 || || ||
|-
| 17:10-18:00 || || ||
|}

=== Room 12 ===

{| class="wikitable" border="1"
|-
! Timeslot !! Topic/Group !! Description !! Contact
|-
| 12:20-13:20 || || ||
|-
| 17:10-18:00 || || ||
|}

 

=== GeoNode Developers/Users BOF ===

* Description: BOF For all users and developers of GeoNode and related projects
* When/where: Thursday Lunch Room 8

Who is coming:

* [[User:Ortelius|Jeffrey Johnson]]

=== FOSS4G Bonn 2016 Organising Meeting ===

* Description: Sharing experiences between FOSS4G Seoul team and Bonn team
* When/where: Thursday Lunch Room 10

Who is coming:

* [[User:endofcap|Sanghee Shin]]

=== Python Geocoder ===

* Description: Geocoder is a geocoding library, written in python, simple and consistent.
* Website: http://Python-Geocoder.org
* When/where: Thursday Lunch GrandBallroom B & evening Room 9
* Slides: [https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/13sIPnR0ewjozWyy3xZeZFcuEzPxiMxLrH23BGlGXIUQ/edit#slide=id.g2e225f592_031 Lighting Talk] & [https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1168YO_FhsCfq2O2ZLNpVGhlJeyhVlEOIOCt0mzqksRo/edit#slide=id.gbb6c1fd3d_0_0 Full Talk]

Who is coming:

* Add your name here

== Friday (18th September) ==

=== Lighting Talks ===

{| class="wikitable" border="1"
|-
| '''Location''' || GrandBallroom B
|-
| '''Time''' || 12h20 - 13h20
|}

{| class="wikitable" border="1"
|-
! Timeslot !! Description !! Contact
|-
| 12:20-12:25 || Mexico || Vicky Vergara ([https://georepublic.info Georepublic])
|-
| 12:25-12:30 || Train Navi || Hiroki Inoue
|-
| 12:30-12:35 || Local Good Yokohama || Sena Hayakawa
|-
| 12:35-12:40 || Code for Aceh || Nurjanah
|-
| 12:40-12:45 || [https://github.com/vpicavet/docker-pggis PostgreSQL GIS setup for Docker] || [https://twitter.com/vpicavet Vincent Picavet] ([http://oslandia.com/ Oslandia])
|-
| 12:45-12:50 || Free > Open || [https://twitter.com/delawen María Arias de Reyna] ([https://www.geocat.net/ GeoCat])
|-
| 12:50-13:55 || [http://www.ianturton.com/talks/shapefile.html#/ Automation of making nice styles with] [http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/sld SLD]|| [https://twitter.com/ijturton Ian Turton]
|-
| 12:55-13:00 || [https://github.com/Applied-GeoSolutions/lidar2dems Lidar2DEMs Open Source Project] || [https://twitter.com/GeoSkeptic Matthew Hanson]
|-
| 13:00-13:05 || Atlas of Mt. Elgon || [https://twitter.com/ThomasBallatore Tom Ballatore] ([http://www.lakebasin.org/ Lake Basin Action Network])
|-
| 13:05-13:10 || Camera Field of View || Bery Temme
|-
| 13:10-13:15 || QGIS Learning Contents || Hiroyuki Yamauchi
|-
| 13:15-13:20 || [http://ether.gis-lab.info/gisconf Russian OpenGIS'15 Conference pitch] || Maxim Dubinin
|}

----

* See [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_BirdsOfAFeather FOSS4G 2009 Birds of a Feather] for inspiration!

[[Category:FOSS4G2015]]

FOSS4G 2015 Code Sprint

2015-09-13T05:49:22Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin: /* GDAL */

== Code Sprint - what's that? ==

A code sprint is about getting a group together to work on Open Source software, sitting around a table and sharing ideas. It's not just about writing code, as you know a project has many needs including documentation, testing, and providing feedback. What a better way to give feedback and give back to the project that you love than to spend a day with the project's developers. There are roles needed to be filled, no matter what your expertise.

With such a short timeframe (one day) you should probably use this page to set a specific goal for your project. But don't worry, if all you get done is actually sitting at the same table with the project's developers and talking about the next release, that is also great :)

== Who ==
All participants are welcome and you don't need to register or attend FOSS4G to attend the Code Sprint (registering here on the wiki is appreciated for planning purposes like coffee and food). Some projects will prefer attendees who have previously engaged with the project and already have a working development environment on their computer (i.e. not all project will welcome helping you set up your development environment).

== Where & When ==

WHEN: The day after the main conference ('''Saturday, September 19th''' 2015) has been set aside for the Code Sprint, approximately '''09:00 until 18:00'''

WHERE: CNN the Biz Gangnam Education & Training Center #301. [http://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=37.50141&mlon=127.02704#map=17/37.50141/127.02704 OpenStreetMap] [https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/%EC%94%A8%EC%95%A4%EC%95%A4%EB%B9%84%EC%A6%88%EA%B0%95%EB%82%A8%EA%B5%90%EC%9C%A1%EC%97%B0%EC%88%98%EC%84%BC%ED%84%B0/@37.5006246,127.0253256,17z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0xce2936fff5702f90 Google Map]

[[File:CodeSprintMap.png]]

== What to Bring ==

== How to get there ==

* 5 minutes by walk from Exit 11 of Gangnam Station, Subway Line #2
* 5 minutes by walk from Exit 4 of Sinnonhyeon Station, Subway Line #9

== Sponsor ==

== Questions/Comments/Ideas ==

*ask on the foss4g2015 mailing list, foss4g2015(at)lists.osgeo.org ([http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foss4g2015 subscribe])

== Additional Interested People ==

The following people are potentially interested in participating in sprinting activities though have not yet established a Workgroup.

* [[User:Jgrocha | Jorge Gustavo]]
* Mikael Fernandus Simalango
*[[User:Hongdae88 | Daeeui Hong]]

= Workgroups =

== GeoNode ==

'''Attending:'''

* [[User:Ortelius|Jeffrey Johnson]]
* Matt Hanson

'''Goals:'''

* Work on Abstract Map Client Framework

 

== pgRouting ==

'''Attending:'''

*[[User:Cvvergara|Vicky Vergara]]

'''Goals:'''

*Develop prototypes of the kDijkstra family functions for the pgRouting 2.2 version.

 

== Ecere / GNOSIS SDK ==

'''Attending:'''

*[[User:Jerstlouis|Jerome St-Louis]]
*(New contributors are welcome, add your name here and join our team at the code sprint!)

'''Goals:'''

*Kickstart the development of our new open-source graphics engine which will power both the new version of the [http://ecere.org cross-platform UI toolkit] (featuring [http://ecere.org/ideas/gui/#autolayout auto-layout] and [http://ecere.org/ideas/gui/#csgui cascading style sheets]) as well as the new capabilities of our [http://ecere.ca/gnosis GNOSIS geo-spatial SDK], such as [http://ecere.org/ideas/graphics/#curvedtext curved text] labels and smart label placement, and improved vector graphics support. The first back-end implementation for the new engine will likely be based on OpenGL ES 2.0 in order to support both a wide variety of mobile and desktop devices as well as WebGL deployment.

See http://ecere.org/ideas/graphics/ for more info and a detailed development plan.

 

[[Category:FOSS4G2015]] [[Category:FOSS4G]] [[Category:Code_Sprints]]

== GeoTools/GeoServer ==

'''Attending:'''

*[[User:aaime|Andrea Aime]]
*[[User:ianturton|Ian Turton]]
*[[User:jive|Jody Garnett]]
*user

'''Goals:'''

* CITE tests upgrades (actually fix failing tests, or work your way against a new test, or work on the "single data dir for all CITE tests")
* Translation if there are any volunteers :)
* Bug fixing

 

[[Category:FOSS4G2015]] [[Category:FOSS4G]] [[Category:Code_Sprints]]

== GDAL ==

'''Attending:'''

*[[User:Bishop|Dmitry Baryshnikov]] (NextGIS)
*[[User:Maximdubinin|Maxim Dubinin]] (NextGIS)

'''Goals:'''

*Modify latest [https://github.com/nextgis/gdal_svn/tree/cmake4gdal CMake for GDAL] to use CMake [http://www.cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.0/module/ExternalProject.html ExternalProject] feature, some restructure of sources tree, etc.
*Check if CTest can be used for GDAL testing.

 

[[Category:FOSS4G2015]] [[Category:FOSS4G]] [[Category:Code_Sprints]]

To participate, copy a project skeleton and start a section below for your project.

== Project-name ==

'''Attending:'''

*user
*user

'''Goals:'''

*your goals

 

[[Category:FOSS4G2015]] [[Category:FOSS4G]] [[Category:Code_Sprints]]

User:Maximdubinin

2015-09-04T12:03:15Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin: /* Who I am */

[[File:Maximdubinin-photo-cv.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Maxim Dubinin]]

==Who I am==

Hello, my name is Maxim Dubinin, I am currently:

* Founder and CEO of [http://nextgis.org NextGIS] - Opensource geospatial solutions provider
* Founder and current head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab] - Geospatial community for experts and amateurs for Russian-speaking audience, founded in 2001.

==What I've done==

Things I have done personally or initiated or led:

* Wrote over 220 articles majority of which are about opensource GIS tools and data ([http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgis-lab.info%2Fscripts%2Fforum-user-qa.php%3Fuserid%3D2%26username%3D%25D0%259C%25D0%25B0%25D0%25BA%25D1%2581%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BC%2520%25D0%2594%25D1%2583%25D0%25B1%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD en], [http://gis-lab.info/scripts/forum-user-qa.php?userid=2&username=%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BC%20%D0%94%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD ru])
* Participated in 11 communal projects at GIS-Lab and coordinated 5 of them, including translation of GRASS and gvSIG manuals, OSGeo Live docs, creation of the first truly open dataset of administrative division of Russia, etc.
* Wrote and co-authored 20+ QGIS plugins, submitted [http://hub.qgis.org/users/337 100+ bugreports], participated in GDAL and QGIS source tree
* Sponsored OpenLayers and QGIS
* NextGIS is among [https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2014/07/20/welcome-corporate-members/ first 4 corporate sponsors] of OpenStreetMap, Gold-sponsored OSM Baltics Conference in Tartu, 2013 ([http://sotm-baltics.org/ link])
* Threw the first Russian OpenStreetMap mapping party, 2009
* Started daily OSM extracts to OSM/PBF and ESRI Shapefiles for Russia (incl. regional ones) and former USSR, 2010 and ongoing
* Jump started Russian OpenStreetMap Council in 2011
* Organized OpenGIS! conference in Moscow, 2012 (http://gisconf.ru/en): 250+ attendants from 150+ organizations, 2 days, 3 simultaneous sections.

All these accomplishments would not be possible without many co-authors, helpers, fellow enthusiasts to whom I'm eternally grateful.

==More about myself==

You can reach me at: '''sim@gis-lab.info'''

All personal info, list of publications, CV, more contacts etc can be found here: http://m-d.me

My GitHub stuff is [https://github.com/simgislab here].

My OSM [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Sim profile].

NextGIS GitHub is [https://github.com/nextgis there].

User:Maximdubinin

2015-09-04T12:02:42Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin: /* What I've done */

[[File:Maximdubinin-photo-cv.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Maxim Dubinin]]

==Who I am==

Hello, my name is Maxim Dubinin, I am currently:

* Founder and CEO of [http://nextgis.org NextGIS] - Opensource geospatial solutions provider focusing on Russia.
* Founder and current head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab] - Geospatial community for experts and amateurs for Russian-speaking audience, founded in 2001.

==What I've done==

Things I have done personally or initiated or led:

* Wrote over 220 articles majority of which are about opensource GIS tools and data ([http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgis-lab.info%2Fscripts%2Fforum-user-qa.php%3Fuserid%3D2%26username%3D%25D0%259C%25D0%25B0%25D0%25BA%25D1%2581%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BC%2520%25D0%2594%25D1%2583%25D0%25B1%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD en], [http://gis-lab.info/scripts/forum-user-qa.php?userid=2&username=%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BC%20%D0%94%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD ru])
* Participated in 11 communal projects at GIS-Lab and coordinated 5 of them, including translation of GRASS and gvSIG manuals, OSGeo Live docs, creation of the first truly open dataset of administrative division of Russia, etc.
* Wrote and co-authored 20+ QGIS plugins, submitted [http://hub.qgis.org/users/337 100+ bugreports], participated in GDAL and QGIS source tree
* Sponsored OpenLayers and QGIS
* NextGIS is among [https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2014/07/20/welcome-corporate-members/ first 4 corporate sponsors] of OpenStreetMap, Gold-sponsored OSM Baltics Conference in Tartu, 2013 ([http://sotm-baltics.org/ link])
* Threw the first Russian OpenStreetMap mapping party, 2009
* Started daily OSM extracts to OSM/PBF and ESRI Shapefiles for Russia (incl. regional ones) and former USSR, 2010 and ongoing
* Jump started Russian OpenStreetMap Council in 2011
* Organized OpenGIS! conference in Moscow, 2012 (http://gisconf.ru/en): 250+ attendants from 150+ organizations, 2 days, 3 simultaneous sections.

All these accomplishments would not be possible without many co-authors, helpers, fellow enthusiasts to whom I'm eternally grateful.

==More about myself==

You can reach me at: '''sim@gis-lab.info'''

All personal info, list of publications, CV, more contacts etc can be found here: http://m-d.me

My GitHub stuff is [https://github.com/simgislab here].

My OSM [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Sim profile].

NextGIS GitHub is [https://github.com/nextgis there].

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-16T16:19:02Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin: /* Signed */

=Open Letter of the Need for Open Standards in LiDAR=
April 2015.

We, the undersigned, are concerned that the current interoperability between LiDAR applications, through use of the open "LAS" format, is being threatened by ESRI's introduction and promotion of an alternative "Optimized LAS" '''''proprietary format.''''' This is of grave concern given that fragmentation of the LAS format will reduce interoperability between applications and organisations, and introduce vendor lock-in.

We request that:
# The OGC initiate the formalisation of an open standard for storing LiDAR data, and that OGC sponsors help prioritise the development of this open LiDAR standard.
# ESRI support the OGC in their [http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/vision mission] "to advance the development and use of international standards and supporting services that promote geospatial interoperability." In particular, ESRI join the OGC in consolidating an Open Standard for use of LiDAR data. This might include proposing ESRI's "Optimized LAS" as an Open Standard to remove any technical or legal hurdles in use of "Optimized LAS" as an Open Standard. A simple test to determine if "Optimized LAS" can be used as an Open Standard would be if "Optimized LAS" can legally be implemented by Open Source software such as libLAS or LASzip.
# Users and sponsors of LiDAR data, publicly state their preference for the use of an open LiDAR format over proprietary when selecting software and services.
# The custodians of the open LAS format [http://www.asprs.org/LD-Division/LAS-Working-Group.html LAS Working Group (LWG)], who are part of [http://www.asprs.org/ American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS)], request the term "LAS" not to be included in the name of a proprietary format, as it makes such a proprietary format appear to be an approved derivative of LAS.

=Signed=
Name, Affiliation(s), Optional comment on interest in Open LiDAR format

# Suchith Anand, Geo for All, committed to Open Principles in Geo Education and Policy.
# Martin Isenburg, founder of [http://rapidlasso.com rapidlasso GmbH] and creator of [http://rapidlasso.com/LASzip LASzip], [http://rapidlasso.com/LAStools LAStools], and [http://rapidlasso.com/PulseWaves PulseWaves].
# Cameron Shorter, GeoSpatial Director at [http://lisasoft.com LISAsoft], Core contributor and coordinator of [http://live.osgeo.org OSGeo-Live], Contributor to numerous OGC testbeds, technical lead on a range of previous Australian and New Zealand Open Government initiatives.
# Stefan Keller, founder and director of [http://www.hsr.ch/geometalab Geometa Lab]; researcher in GIS, databases, open (government) data and interoperability; maintainer of GeoConverter; contributor to open source software (GDAL/OGR, QGIS).
# Patrick Hogan, NASA World Wind Project Manager, committed to the US National Spatial Data Infrastructure principles, one being "to make geographic data more accessible to the public" [http://www.fgdc.gov/nsdi/nsdi.html NSDI]. Open standards are essential for this.
# Lene Fischer, Associate Professor, Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen. User of Open and free Data from The Danish Geodata Agency - Using LAZ and LAS http://download.kortforsyningen.dk/content/dhmpunktsky.
# [http://www.ege-como.polimi.it/index.php?content=maria_brovelli Maria Antonia Brovelli], Full Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Politecnico di Milano. Geo For All, committed to Open Principles in Geo Education and Policy. Committed to Open Principles in Research.
# Ron Fortunato, President of [http://www.trilliumlearning.com/AmericaBridge/ Trillium Learning] LLC. Committed to open data standards that are necessary for education and all levels of communication.
# [http://www.geodatawiz.com/armin-schmidt Armin Schmidt], Chief Developer at [http://www.GeodataWIZ.com GeodataWIZ Ltd] and Chairman of [http://www.archprospection.org ISAP], committed to better science through Open Data.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/gconti Giuseppe Conti], CTO Trilogis Srl, Italy. Committed to open data standards that maximize opportunity for innovative solutions, unencumbered by artificial obstacles to data exchange.
# Jorge Gustavo Rocha, Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Minho, Portugal, committed to better science through Open Data.
# Jim Miller, University of Kansas, Professor, Computer Science, http://people.eecs.ku.edu/~miller/ Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.
# Alex Paza Makini, National University Solomon Islands, Natural Resources and Applied Science. Committed to open data standards for education and research, and everything beyond.
# Prof. Jorg M. Hacker, Director/Chief Scientist of [http://www.airborneresearchaustralia.com Airborne Research Australia], Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. Open formats have always been a great benefit to airborne LiDAR.
# Didier Richard, Head of IS Training Dept. in Education and Research Directorate of [http://www.ign.fr Institut National de l'Information Géographique et Forestière], France. OGC user, Contributor to OSGeO projects like GDAL.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/adryane-gorayeb/74/517/96a Adryane Gorayeb], [http://www.ufc.br/ Federal University of Ceará Brazil], Geography Department. Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/yuryryabov Yury Ryabov], PhD, Senior researcher at [http://www.istc.ru/istc/db/inst.nsf/wsu/i0001823 Russian Scientific-Research Centre for Ecological Safety], [http://www.interacademies.net/Academies/ByRegion/CentralEasternEurope/13383.aspx Russian Academy of Sciences], Saint Petersburg, Russia. Open data formats are essential for successful and reproducible scientific research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/teresa-lamelas-gracia/40/4a7/20b María Teresa Lamelas], [http://cud.unizar.es/ Centro Universitario de la Defensa Zaragoza], [http://geoforest.unizar.es/es/index.php GeoForest-IUCA]. Committed to open data standards for education and research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidherries David Herries], [http://www.interpine.co.nz/SitePages/Home.aspx Using LiDAR for forest yield modelling at Interpine Innovation], Establishing open data standards provide scope for exponential growth in innovation. This is key to a rapidly developing technology like LiDAR.
# [[User:Ivansanchez|Iván Sánchez Ortega]], [http://www.mazemap.no Mazemap]. OSGeo Charter member and Open Data nerd.
# [[User:AnitaGraser|Anita Graser]], GIS specialist with AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, OSGeo Charter member and QGIS team member. Committed to open data standards for education and research.
# [[User:vehrka|Pedro-Juan Ferrer]], [http://www.geomaticblog.net Geomaticblog]. OSGeo Charter member and member of the Open Knowledge Foundation.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/karl-donert/3/160/571 Professor Karl Donert], President European Association of Geographers (http://www.eurogeo.nl/ EUROGEO)
# Drew Fenton. Please Protect Open Standards for Geospatial data!
# [[User:Bolosig|Wladimir Szczerban]], [http://www.geoinquiets.cat Geoinquiets] Geogeek & OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter Member, Spain
# [http://vmx.cx Volker Mische], OSGeo Charter member and creator of GeoCouch
# [[User:carlos_psig|Carlos López Quintanilla]], [http://www.psig.es PSIG] [http://www.geoinquiets.cat Geoinquiets] GIS consultant, Spain
# [[User:woodbri|Stephen Woodbridge]], [http://imaptools.com iMaptools], OSGeo Charter member.
# [[User:odoepner|Oliver Doepner]], [http://oliver.doepner.net doepner.net], Software Engineer (Java,Linux), Open Standards and Open Source advocate
# [[User:Lucadelu|Luca Delucchi]], [http://gis.cri.fmach.it Fondazione Edmund Mach], OSGeo Charter member, FOSS4G and Open Data developer, advocate, contributor and user.
# Antoine Cottin, CTO of [http://www.carbomap.com Carbomap Ltd.] and creator of [https://github.com/carbomap/Fleurdelas Fleurdelas], Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
# [http://strk.keybit.net Sandro Santilli], [http://strk.keybit.net/services.html NetLab], Free Software Hacker. There are already too many users slave to their tools, let's stop that!
# [http://www.itopen.it Alessandro Pasotti], [http://www.itopen.it ItOpen], GIS Free Software Developer.
# [http://www.roccatello.com Eduard Roccatello], [http://www.3dgis.it 3DGIS], 3DGIS CTO and co-Founder
# [[User:moovida|Andrea Antonello]], [http://www.hydrologis.com HydroloGIS], OSGeo Charter member, Open Source GIS developer, HydroloGIS co-founder.
# [http://www.associazionegfoss.it Stefano Campus], President of [http://www.associazionegfoss.it GFOSS.it] Association (Associazione Italiana per l'Informazione Geografica Libera), Italian Local Chapter of OSGeo Foundation.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Madi Margherita Di Leo], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sacosta Sergio Acosta y Lara], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin], CEO at NextGIS, OSGeo Charter Member. Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.

=Background=
==About LiDAR==

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar LiDAR] (Light Detection And Ranging) is a form of high precision range measurement, much like a radar system, that uses laser light instead of electromagnetic waves. The standard LiDAR product is a 3D point cloud that can be conceptualized as a series of point measurements representing distance between the sensor to a returned emission.

For over a decade (since 2003), there has been a common format for storing LiDAR data, the [http://www.asprs.org/Committee-General/LASer-LAS-File-Format-Exchange-Activities.html “LAS” format], and open source libraries have been developed to read, write and process these LAS files: [http://live.osgeo.org/en/overview/liblas_overview.html libLAS] and [http://github.com/LASlib/LASlib LASlib]. These libraries have been incorporated within many LiDAR applications, allowing read/write access to a common exchange format, and resulting in full interoperability between the applications. There is also an open source compression algorithm for the LAS format called [http://laszip.org LASzip] that many LiDAR data portals use to compress LAS into smaller LAZ files for faster download. Many LiDAR software packages have added [http://laszip.org/#software-with-native-laz-support native support] for these compressed LAZ files.

==LAS Limitations==

Quoting [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars/ Paul Ramsey]:

: LAS format is not without its drawbacks:

:* While it is a binary format and does not waste any space unnecessarily, neither does it apply any compression to the data it stores. That’s not good for archival use.
:* Also, LAS stores points in scan order, so accessing any particular chunk of points involves reading the whole file. That’s not good for random access.
: Clearly there is a little more work to be done. Can LAS be improved? In fact, it already has been:
:* An open source compression library, LASzip can apply 20''':'''1 lossless compression to LAS files, making them great for archival purposes.
:* Other LAS users have experimented with re-ordering points in a LAS or LASzip file to allow random access to internal chunks of the LIDAR point cloud.
: Basically, making LAS smaller and faster is not rocket science, and if the work were incorporated into libLAS then the whole LIDAR community could leverage it together, and the user community would only have one file type to interchange.

=="Optimized LAS" A ''' ''Proprietary'' ESRI Format'''==
ESRI has announced the release of an [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214 "Optimized LAS"] format which is claimed to provide faster access and smaller file sizes (similar to the open [http://laszip.org LASzip] format). This announcement created a outburst of vocal protest in the LiDAR community [[http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ 1] [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars/ 2] [http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/2014/01/15/las-laz-lazzip-zlas-and-you/ 3] [http://www.northrivergeographic.com/archives/lidar-software 4] [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars-2/ 5] [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/02/lidar-format-wars-3/ 6]].

The "Optimized LAS" format is neither published, nor available under any open license, which provides both technical as well as legal barriers for other applications reading and/or writing to this proprietary format. This creates a vendor lock-in scenario which is contrary to the principles of the Open Geospatial Consortium, the OSGeo Foundation, and many government IT procurement policies.

One year after releasing the "Optimized LAS" format, ESRI released a free Windows DLL that is claimed to convert between LAS and "Optimized LAS". Note there is a distinct difference between "free" and "open". Unless the Windows DLL is released under an "open" license, libLAS and related products will be legally prevented from incorporating ESRI's reader/writer code into their codebase, or from fixing any underlying bugs or performance limitations which may exist in ESRI's product.

==OGC's Efforts For An ''' ''Open'' LiDAR Standard'''==

The [http://www.opengeospatial.org/ Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)] has indicated their interest in developing a standard LiDAR format.

Carl Reed (formerly on OGC staff) provided the following information on OGC's previous efforts to work toward enabling Open Standards in LiDAR:

: "Over the last 8 or so years, the OGC approached ASPRS at least twice regarding LAS and worked with ASPRS to bring LAS into the OGC for consideration as both a Best Practice and an OGC standard. OGC member Rick Pearsall worked diligently on this. Rick worked for NGA, was active in the OGC, and was also the Standards Committee chair at ASPRS. Rick and Carl tried and failed. These attempts go back to [http://www.asprs.org/a/society/divisions/ppd/ppd_meetings/2007springppdreport.pdf at least 2007]. More recently, Carl Reed had an email dialogue with Lewis Graham to bring LAS into OGC as an OGC Best Practice. Carl thought progress was being made, but then for some reason all communication stopped."

[http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/organization/staff/ssimmons Scott Simmons] (Executive Director, Standards Program) has explained the OGC's continuing interest in pursuing point cloud encoding standards, including a member-initiated mechanism to extend LAS data with OGC-standard XML content.
: The OGC invites interested members who wish to work on this effort to please contact Scott Simmons (Executive Director, Standards Program E-mail : ssimmons@opengeospatial.org) to register their interest and discuss details. OGC will also be holding an ad hoc session at the OGC's next [http://www.opengeospatial.org/event/1506tc Technical Committee meeting in Boulder, CO, USA in early June] to bring together all interested parties from all sectors (government, industry, academia) for this and plan next steps.

==History: LAS and ESRI's "Optimized LAS"==

Martin Isenburg, one of the leading experts in LIDAR formats, and creator of [http://rapidlasso.com/LASzip LASzip], [http://rapidlasso.com/LAStools LAStools] and [http://rapidlasso.com/PulseWaves PulseWaves], explains the history of LAS and "Optimized LAS":

: '''Summary:'''

:* The LAS format has been used successfully for over a decade.
:* Within last couple of years, ESRI has added native LAS support into ESRI products.
:* ESRI discussed embracing the open [http://laszip.org LAZ] format and simultaneously developed a proprietary "Optimized LAS" format.
:* The open geospatial community offered, on numerous occasions, to work with ESRI to avoid format fragmentation.
:* ESRI's proprietary "Optimized LAS" format is very similar in design and performance to the open [http://laszip.org LASzip] format.

: '''1998: Original LAS format definition'''

: The original development of the LAS format started in 1998 according to [http://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/lasroom/zKqchDj1JL4/discussion Lewis Graham]. The effort was at first led by pioneers of the LiDAR industry until the format was donated to the [http://www.asprs.org/Committee-General/LASer-LAS-File-Format-Exchange-Activities.html ASPRS]. Since then ASPRS's [http://www.asprs.org/LD-Division/LAS-Working-Group.html LAS Working Group (LWG)] has been maintaining the LAS format, guiding it from the initial LAS 1.0 version until today's LAS 1.4 version. This effort successfully created an open data exchange format for discrete LiDAR points that is currently supported by practically every LiDAR-related software program.

: '''2011: ESRI joins LAS Working Group'''

: ESRI did not join the LWG of the ASPRS until rather late, the 24th of August in 2011. At that time ESRI was not a significant "player" in the LiDAR market given they did not have much support for LiDAR in any of their products. That was to change soon as they were planning to add LAS as a native data type in ArcGIS 10.1.

: Shortly before that, in June 2011, Martin Isenburg received a personal message from the ESRI development team: "I have a question about LAS compression. I’m evaluating some potential enhancements and support for [LAS and] LAZ is one of them. Compression time and amount is impressive." When inquiring two months later about the status of [http://laszip.org LAZ] integration Martin was told: "We’re in beta and working to finish the current release. I very much doubt LAZ will make it in because it’s too big a change at this time. So, we’ll be considering, for the following release, [for] what we want to do regarding compression and spatial indexing."

: '''June 2012: ArcGIS 10.1 includes [proprietary] LAS Dataset file'''

: In June 2012 ESRI released ArcGIS 10.1 and introduced the proprietary "LAS Dataset file (*.lasd)" that groups collections of files into one logical unit. This format of this useful LAS container file was not shared with others despite several private and eventually [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/jwHpi0efUgA/discussion public] requests.

: '''2012/2013: Collaboration Discussions'''

: There were encouraging follow-ups from the ESRI team about adopting the open LAZ format in January 2012: "I would be interested in having a more in depth meeting with you to better understand the great work you are doing with LAS and how we can possibly better partner on this." and again in December 2012: "If you have time, I'd like to set some time aside Tuesday afternoon to meet with <an important person> at the ESRI booth. Does 2pm sound okay?" The meeting went well and it looked as if ESRI was going to embrace the LAZ format because shortly after the meeting Martin got word that: "I hear from <an important person> that it was a success and that he had a good meeting with you. I wanted to see if we can have a telephone discussion on Wednesday or Thursday this week related to the potential of incorporating LAZ into ArcGIS."

: Then the first signs of hesitation showed. First there were legal issues raised in February 2013: "Currently the legal aspects are being reviewed. They were having some issues separating the LPGL aspects from LASzip from the remainder of LAStools etc." and then in April 2013 concerns about the code were made: "We have started to look into the integration of LAZ, but came across some issues. We don’t want to copy files from the other package, mix and match or hack around. We were hoping for an API to stream points out of a LAZ file as well as write LAZ files. There should be a simple code sample for that?" and - following up on that - in June 2013 Martin was told "I see value in LASzip becoming a de-facto standard that provides compression to the LAS format. If this is to happen then it needs to be bundled together with appropriate reference implementations, examples and documentation as a standard and so ensure that issues as defined earlier in email do not occur."

: '''June 2013: ESRI asked to sponsor clean LASzip DLL'''

: At that time [http://laszip.org LASzip] was an open source project without sponsorship. The original funding from [http://www.erdc.usace.army.mil/Locations/ColdRegionsResearchandEngineeringLaboratory.aspx USACE] that had turned [http://laszip.org LASzip] from an academic prototype into an industry strength compression engine had long run out. So Martin asked ESRI to become a sponsor to create the clean [http://laszip.org LASzip] API that ESRI was after. The answer was: "ESRI often helps in the financing of Open Source projects and I could foresee ESRI possibly helping in LASzip. [...] If you are interested in promoting LASzip as such a standard and doing the required work then I would recommend you put together a proposal and I can look to get ESRI as a sponsor."

: Immediately Martin proposed to ESRI: "I hereby propose to write an easy to use open source DLL wrapper for LASzip that will make it easier to integrate LASzip in a standardized manner into other software products such as ArcGIS, LP 360, or Terrasolid. This will come with example code on how to use the DLL for reading and writing LAZ files and include a few compressed example files. I hereby ask ESRI to provide funding for this effort without imposing any limitations on the produced DLL API."

: '''July 2013: ArcGIS 10.2 includes [proprietary] LAS indexing '''

: With the release of ArcGIS 10.2 in July 2013, ESRI introduced spatial indexing to speed up area-of-interest queries. The new proprietary *.lasx files with seemingly identical functionality to the open *.lax files that had been [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/j0qA8NBMHJs/discussion announced] in May 2011 and were [http://rapidlasso.com/2012/12/03/lasindex-spatial-indexing-of-lidar-data/ presented] at ELMF in November 2012.

: '''July 2013: Open LASzip API released'''

: After more requests for an easier interface to [http://laszip.org LASzip] (in particular for [http://forsys.cfr.washington.edu/fusion/fusionlatest.html USDA's FUSION]), Martin [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/oplsDhhnhDQ/discussion released] a clean, well-documented, and easy-to-use LASzip DLL (without ESRI funding). Martin expected that developers at ESRI would now use it to add read and write support for [http://laszip.org LAZ] to their next release of ArcGIS.

: '''December 2013 : ESRI discovered to be secretly developing proprietary LAS format'''

: In December of 2013, several LAStools users contacted Martin with suspicions that ESRI may be creating a proprietary LAS compression. Martin [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ broke the news] as soon as it became evident that ESRI had used the time it needed to resolve "legal issues" and "code problems" to put together their own proprietary compressed format with near-identical performance and functionality to [http://laszip.org LASzip]. A few days later ESRI released an [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214/ official FAQ] to confirming this was the case.

: From day one, Martin has worked with stakeholders, including ESRI, to avoid format fragmentation. Martin's core argument for resolving this to everybody's benefit was that - coincidentally - a natural break was happening in the LAS format with the introduction of the new LAS 1.4 point types. Martin outlined a detailed plan for how a joint development of [http://laszip.org LASzip] for LAS 1.4 between rapidlasso and ESRI could exploit this natural break in the LAS format to accomplish two things at once:
:# Add the unspecified technical additions that ESRI had hinted at desiring, and
:# Extend the [http://laszip.org LASzip] compression scheme to handle the new point types introduced with the LAS 1.4 specification. As there was no pressing need at the time to handle LAS 1.4 Martin had delayed the extension of [http://laszip.org LASzip] to the new LAS 1.4 point types to make sure a cooperation with ESRI would remain a viable option.

: '''1 April 2014: Positive reception to "Optimized LAS" / LASzip collaboration April Fools announcement'''

: In an attempt to convince ESRI management of the community desire for an open standard, Martin released an April Fools' Day [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ prank press release] pretending that ESRI had already agreed to the envisioned collaboration to develop a joint LiDAR compressor. Community [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ jubilant reactions (see comments)] left no doubt about the sentiment on this issue within the LiDAR community.

: '''October 2014: Announcement of [open] LAS Compatibility mode'''

: [http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/ Digital Coast, NOAA Coastal Services Center] became a Gold Sponsor of [http://laszip.org LASzip] for the development of the [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ LAS 1.4 compatibility mode] that was [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/nUFMkKSz53g/discussion beta-released] in November 2014. This allowed support for the new point types in [http://laszip.org LASzip] without closing the door on a potential cooperation with ESRI for a joint LAS 1.4 compressor.

: '''November 2014: ESRI announces proprietary extension to LAS 1.4'''

: In November 2014 [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated ESRI announced] that they had added their [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated own extension] for the new LAS 1.4 point types to "Optimized LAS", dismissing the opportunity to develop a joint compressor and avoid format fragmentation by exploiting this "natural break" in the LAS format as Martin had suggested.

: Since then, ESRI has been [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ promoting] "Optimized LAS". By including the term "LAS" in "Optimized LAS" and "zLAS", the distinction between the open LAS format and proprietary format is blurred. This is likely to mislead novice and future users, thereby endangering many years of standardization work. To date, [April 2014], the [http://www.asprs.org/a/society/committees/standards/LAS_1_4_r13.pdf custodians of the LAS format], the LAS Working Group (LWG) of the ASPRS has [http://rapidlasso.com/2015/02/22/lidar-las-asprs-esri-and-the-laz-clone/ yet to make an official statement] regarding use of the "LAS" name in promoting a proprietary LiDAR format.

=Value of Standards=

The importance of Open Standards is described in most government IT policies. For instance, the United Kingdom policy states:
: … Government assets should be interoperable and open for re-use in order to maximise return on investment, avoid technological or supplier lock-in, reduce operational risk in ICT projects and provide responsive services for citizens and business. This should also lower barriers to entry for more diverse sources of IT services, including citizens and SMEs. <ref>All about Open Source – An Introduction to Open Source Software for Government IT, Version 2.0, United Kingdom Cabinet Office https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78959/All_About_Open_Source_v2_0.pdf</ref>

The value of Open Standards has been described in numerous national studies on the effects of standards on economic growth.

: ... the national studies demonstrate that standards have a positive influence on economic growth due to the resulting improved diffusion of knowledge. The contribution of standards to the growth rate in each country is equivalent to 0.9% in Germany, 0.8% in 0.3% in the UK and 0.2% in Canada. <ref>Prof. Dr. Knut Blind, Prof. Dr. Andre Jungmittag, Dr. Axel Mangelsdorf [http://www.din.de/sixcms_upload/media/2896/DIN_GNN_2011_engl_akt_neu.pdf "The Economic Benefits of Standardization"], ''DINN, 2000''. Retrieved March 2015.</ref>

=Further Reading=

# Paul Ramsey provides background to LAS vs Optimised LAS, http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars/
# Running commentary by Martin Isenburg, author of LASlib, http://rapidlasso.com/2015/02/22/lidar-las-asprs-esri-and-the-laz-clone/
# Earlier comment from Martin Isenburg, http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/
# First call-to-action by Martin Isenburg, http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/
# ESRI Announces "Optimised LAS", http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression/
# ESRI description of "Optimised LAS", http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214
# Discussion background on this topic at Geo for All list , http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/ica-osgeo-labs/2015-March/001225.html

=References=

<references />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-16T16:18:34Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin: /* Signed */

=Open Letter of the Need for Open Standards in LiDAR=
April 2015.

We, the undersigned, are concerned that the current interoperability between LiDAR applications, through use of the open "LAS" format, is being threatened by ESRI's introduction and promotion of an alternative "Optimized LAS" '''''proprietary format.''''' This is of grave concern given that fragmentation of the LAS format will reduce interoperability between applications and organisations, and introduce vendor lock-in.

We request that:
# The OGC initiate the formalisation of an open standard for storing LiDAR data, and that OGC sponsors help prioritise the development of this open LiDAR standard.
# ESRI support the OGC in their [http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/vision mission] "to advance the development and use of international standards and supporting services that promote geospatial interoperability." In particular, ESRI join the OGC in consolidating an Open Standard for use of LiDAR data. This might include proposing ESRI's "Optimized LAS" as an Open Standard to remove any technical or legal hurdles in use of "Optimized LAS" as an Open Standard. A simple test to determine if "Optimized LAS" can be used as an Open Standard would be if "Optimized LAS" can legally be implemented by Open Source software such as libLAS or LASzip.
# Users and sponsors of LiDAR data, publicly state their preference for the use of an open LiDAR format over proprietary when selecting software and services.
# The custodians of the open LAS format [http://www.asprs.org/LD-Division/LAS-Working-Group.html LAS Working Group (LWG)], who are part of [http://www.asprs.org/ American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS)], request the term "LAS" not to be included in the name of a proprietary format, as it makes such a proprietary format appear to be an approved derivative of LAS.

=Signed=
Name, Affiliation(s), Optional comment on interest in Open LiDAR format

# Suchith Anand, Geo for All, committed to Open Principles in Geo Education and Policy.
# Martin Isenburg, founder of [http://rapidlasso.com rapidlasso GmbH] and creator of [http://rapidlasso.com/LASzip LASzip], [http://rapidlasso.com/LAStools LAStools], and [http://rapidlasso.com/PulseWaves PulseWaves].
# Cameron Shorter, GeoSpatial Director at [http://lisasoft.com LISAsoft], Core contributor and coordinator of [http://live.osgeo.org OSGeo-Live], Contributor to numerous OGC testbeds, technical lead on a range of previous Australian and New Zealand Open Government initiatives.
# Stefan Keller, founder and director of [http://www.hsr.ch/geometalab Geometa Lab]; researcher in GIS, databases, open (government) data and interoperability; maintainer of GeoConverter; contributor to open source software (GDAL/OGR, QGIS).
# Patrick Hogan, NASA World Wind Project Manager, committed to the US National Spatial Data Infrastructure principles, one being "to make geographic data more accessible to the public" [http://www.fgdc.gov/nsdi/nsdi.html NSDI]. Open standards are essential for this.
# Lene Fischer, Associate Professor, Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen. User of Open and free Data from The Danish Geodata Agency - Using LAZ and LAS http://download.kortforsyningen.dk/content/dhmpunktsky.
# [http://www.ege-como.polimi.it/index.php?content=maria_brovelli Maria Antonia Brovelli], Full Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Politecnico di Milano. Geo For All, committed to Open Principles in Geo Education and Policy. Committed to Open Principles in Research.
# Ron Fortunato, President of [http://www.trilliumlearning.com/AmericaBridge/ Trillium Learning] LLC. Committed to open data standards that are necessary for education and all levels of communication.
# [http://www.geodatawiz.com/armin-schmidt Armin Schmidt], Chief Developer at [http://www.GeodataWIZ.com GeodataWIZ Ltd] and Chairman of [http://www.archprospection.org ISAP], committed to better science through Open Data.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/gconti Giuseppe Conti], CTO Trilogis Srl, Italy. Committed to open data standards that maximize opportunity for innovative solutions, unencumbered by artificial obstacles to data exchange.
# Jorge Gustavo Rocha, Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Minho, Portugal, committed to better science through Open Data.
# Jim Miller, University of Kansas, Professor, Computer Science, http://people.eecs.ku.edu/~miller/ Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.
# Alex Paza Makini, National University Solomon Islands, Natural Resources and Applied Science. Committed to open data standards for education and research, and everything beyond.
# Prof. Jorg M. Hacker, Director/Chief Scientist of [http://www.airborneresearchaustralia.com Airborne Research Australia], Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. Open formats have always been a great benefit to airborne LiDAR.
# Didier Richard, Head of IS Training Dept. in Education and Research Directorate of [http://www.ign.fr Institut National de l'Information Géographique et Forestière], France. OGC user, Contributor to OSGeO projects like GDAL.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/adryane-gorayeb/74/517/96a Adryane Gorayeb], [http://www.ufc.br/ Federal University of Ceará Brazil], Geography Department. Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/yuryryabov Yury Ryabov], PhD, Senior researcher at [http://www.istc.ru/istc/db/inst.nsf/wsu/i0001823 Russian Scientific-Research Centre for Ecological Safety], [http://www.interacademies.net/Academies/ByRegion/CentralEasternEurope/13383.aspx Russian Academy of Sciences], Saint Petersburg, Russia. Open data formats are essential for successful and reproducible scientific research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/teresa-lamelas-gracia/40/4a7/20b María Teresa Lamelas], [http://cud.unizar.es/ Centro Universitario de la Defensa Zaragoza], [http://geoforest.unizar.es/es/index.php GeoForest-IUCA]. Committed to open data standards for education and research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidherries David Herries], [http://www.interpine.co.nz/SitePages/Home.aspx Using LiDAR for forest yield modelling at Interpine Innovation], Establishing open data standards provide scope for exponential growth in innovation. This is key to a rapidly developing technology like LiDAR.
# [[User:Ivansanchez|Iván Sánchez Ortega]], [http://www.mazemap.no Mazemap]. OSGeo Charter member and Open Data nerd.
# [[User:AnitaGraser|Anita Graser]], GIS specialist with AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, OSGeo Charter member and QGIS team member. Committed to open data standards for education and research.
# [[User:vehrka|Pedro-Juan Ferrer]], [http://www.geomaticblog.net Geomaticblog]. OSGeo Charter member and member of the Open Knowledge Foundation.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/karl-donert/3/160/571 Professor Karl Donert], President European Association of Geographers (http://www.eurogeo.nl/ EUROGEO)
# Drew Fenton. Please Protect Open Standards for Geospatial data!
# [[User:Bolosig|Wladimir Szczerban]], [http://www.geoinquiets.cat Geoinquiets] Geogeek & OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter Member, Spain
# [http://vmx.cx Volker Mische], OSGeo Charter member and creator of GeoCouch
# [[User:carlos_psig|Carlos López Quintanilla]], [http://www.psig.es PSIG] [http://www.geoinquiets.cat Geoinquiets] GIS consultant, Spain
# [[User:woodbri|Stephen Woodbridge]], [http://imaptools.com iMaptools], OSGeo Charter member.
# [[User:odoepner|Oliver Doepner]], [http://oliver.doepner.net doepner.net], Software Engineer (Java,Linux), Open Standards and Open Source advocate
# [[User:Lucadelu|Luca Delucchi]], [http://gis.cri.fmach.it Fondazione Edmund Mach], OSGeo Charter member, FOSS4G and Open Data developer, advocate, contributor and user.
# Antoine Cottin, CTO of [http://www.carbomap.com Carbomap Ltd.] and creator of [https://github.com/carbomap/Fleurdelas Fleurdelas], Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
# [http://strk.keybit.net Sandro Santilli], [http://strk.keybit.net/services.html NetLab], Free Software Hacker. There are already too many users slave to their tools, let's stop that!
# [http://www.itopen.it Alessandro Pasotti], [http://www.itopen.it ItOpen], GIS Free Software Developer.
# [http://www.roccatello.com Eduard Roccatello], [http://www.3dgis.it 3DGIS], 3DGIS CTO and co-Founder
# [[User:moovida|Andrea Antonello]], [http://www.hydrologis.com HydroloGIS], OSGeo Charter member, Open Source GIS developer, HydroloGIS co-founder.
# [http://www.associazionegfoss.it Stefano Campus], President of [http://www.associazionegfoss.it GFOSS.it] Association (Associazione Italiana per l'Informazione Geografica Libera), Italian Local Chapter of OSGeo Foundation.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Madi Margherita Di Leo], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sacosta Sergio Acosta y Lara], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin], CEO at NextGIS, OSGeo Charter Member. Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.

=Background=
==About LiDAR==

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar LiDAR] (Light Detection And Ranging) is a form of high precision range measurement, much like a radar system, that uses laser light instead of electromagnetic waves. The standard LiDAR product is a 3D point cloud that can be conceptualized as a series of point measurements representing distance between the sensor to a returned emission.

For over a decade (since 2003), there has been a common format for storing LiDAR data, the [http://www.asprs.org/Committee-General/LASer-LAS-File-Format-Exchange-Activities.html “LAS” format], and open source libraries have been developed to read, write and process these LAS files: [http://live.osgeo.org/en/overview/liblas_overview.html libLAS] and [http://github.com/LASlib/LASlib LASlib]. These libraries have been incorporated within many LiDAR applications, allowing read/write access to a common exchange format, and resulting in full interoperability between the applications. There is also an open source compression algorithm for the LAS format called [http://laszip.org LASzip] that many LiDAR data portals use to compress LAS into smaller LAZ files for faster download. Many LiDAR software packages have added [http://laszip.org/#software-with-native-laz-support native support] for these compressed LAZ files.

==LAS Limitations==

Quoting [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars/ Paul Ramsey]:

: LAS format is not without its drawbacks:

:* While it is a binary format and does not waste any space unnecessarily, neither does it apply any compression to the data it stores. That’s not good for archival use.
:* Also, LAS stores points in scan order, so accessing any particular chunk of points involves reading the whole file. That’s not good for random access.
: Clearly there is a little more work to be done. Can LAS be improved? In fact, it already has been:
:* An open source compression library, LASzip can apply 20''':'''1 lossless compression to LAS files, making them great for archival purposes.
:* Other LAS users have experimented with re-ordering points in a LAS or LASzip file to allow random access to internal chunks of the LIDAR point cloud.
: Basically, making LAS smaller and faster is not rocket science, and if the work were incorporated into libLAS then the whole LIDAR community could leverage it together, and the user community would only have one file type to interchange.

=="Optimized LAS" A ''' ''Proprietary'' ESRI Format'''==
ESRI has announced the release of an [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214 "Optimized LAS"] format which is claimed to provide faster access and smaller file sizes (similar to the open [http://laszip.org LASzip] format). This announcement created a outburst of vocal protest in the LiDAR community [[http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ 1] [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars/ 2] [http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/2014/01/15/las-laz-lazzip-zlas-and-you/ 3] [http://www.northrivergeographic.com/archives/lidar-software 4] [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars-2/ 5] [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/02/lidar-format-wars-3/ 6]].

The "Optimized LAS" format is neither published, nor available under any open license, which provides both technical as well as legal barriers for other applications reading and/or writing to this proprietary format. This creates a vendor lock-in scenario which is contrary to the principles of the Open Geospatial Consortium, the OSGeo Foundation, and many government IT procurement policies.

One year after releasing the "Optimized LAS" format, ESRI released a free Windows DLL that is claimed to convert between LAS and "Optimized LAS". Note there is a distinct difference between "free" and "open". Unless the Windows DLL is released under an "open" license, libLAS and related products will be legally prevented from incorporating ESRI's reader/writer code into their codebase, or from fixing any underlying bugs or performance limitations which may exist in ESRI's product.

==OGC's Efforts For An ''' ''Open'' LiDAR Standard'''==

The [http://www.opengeospatial.org/ Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)] has indicated their interest in developing a standard LiDAR format.

Carl Reed (formerly on OGC staff) provided the following information on OGC's previous efforts to work toward enabling Open Standards in LiDAR:

: "Over the last 8 or so years, the OGC approached ASPRS at least twice regarding LAS and worked with ASPRS to bring LAS into the OGC for consideration as both a Best Practice and an OGC standard. OGC member Rick Pearsall worked diligently on this. Rick worked for NGA, was active in the OGC, and was also the Standards Committee chair at ASPRS. Rick and Carl tried and failed. These attempts go back to [http://www.asprs.org/a/society/divisions/ppd/ppd_meetings/2007springppdreport.pdf at least 2007]. More recently, Carl Reed had an email dialogue with Lewis Graham to bring LAS into OGC as an OGC Best Practice. Carl thought progress was being made, but then for some reason all communication stopped."

[http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/organization/staff/ssimmons Scott Simmons] (Executive Director, Standards Program) has explained the OGC's continuing interest in pursuing point cloud encoding standards, including a member-initiated mechanism to extend LAS data with OGC-standard XML content.
: The OGC invites interested members who wish to work on this effort to please contact Scott Simmons (Executive Director, Standards Program E-mail : ssimmons@opengeospatial.org) to register their interest and discuss details. OGC will also be holding an ad hoc session at the OGC's next [http://www.opengeospatial.org/event/1506tc Technical Committee meeting in Boulder, CO, USA in early June] to bring together all interested parties from all sectors (government, industry, academia) for this and plan next steps.

==History: LAS and ESRI's "Optimized LAS"==

Martin Isenburg, one of the leading experts in LIDAR formats, and creator of [http://rapidlasso.com/LASzip LASzip], [http://rapidlasso.com/LAStools LAStools] and [http://rapidlasso.com/PulseWaves PulseWaves], explains the history of LAS and "Optimized LAS":

: '''Summary:'''

:* The LAS format has been used successfully for over a decade.
:* Within last couple of years, ESRI has added native LAS support into ESRI products.
:* ESRI discussed embracing the open [http://laszip.org LAZ] format and simultaneously developed a proprietary "Optimized LAS" format.
:* The open geospatial community offered, on numerous occasions, to work with ESRI to avoid format fragmentation.
:* ESRI's proprietary "Optimized LAS" format is very similar in design and performance to the open [http://laszip.org LASzip] format.

: '''1998: Original LAS format definition'''

: The original development of the LAS format started in 1998 according to [http://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/lasroom/zKqchDj1JL4/discussion Lewis Graham]. The effort was at first led by pioneers of the LiDAR industry until the format was donated to the [http://www.asprs.org/Committee-General/LASer-LAS-File-Format-Exchange-Activities.html ASPRS]. Since then ASPRS's [http://www.asprs.org/LD-Division/LAS-Working-Group.html LAS Working Group (LWG)] has been maintaining the LAS format, guiding it from the initial LAS 1.0 version until today's LAS 1.4 version. This effort successfully created an open data exchange format for discrete LiDAR points that is currently supported by practically every LiDAR-related software program.

: '''2011: ESRI joins LAS Working Group'''

: ESRI did not join the LWG of the ASPRS until rather late, the 24th of August in 2011. At that time ESRI was not a significant "player" in the LiDAR market given they did not have much support for LiDAR in any of their products. That was to change soon as they were planning to add LAS as a native data type in ArcGIS 10.1.

: Shortly before that, in June 2011, Martin Isenburg received a personal message from the ESRI development team: "I have a question about LAS compression. I’m evaluating some potential enhancements and support for [LAS and] LAZ is one of them. Compression time and amount is impressive." When inquiring two months later about the status of [http://laszip.org LAZ] integration Martin was told: "We’re in beta and working to finish the current release. I very much doubt LAZ will make it in because it’s too big a change at this time. So, we’ll be considering, for the following release, [for] what we want to do regarding compression and spatial indexing."

: '''June 2012: ArcGIS 10.1 includes [proprietary] LAS Dataset file'''

: In June 2012 ESRI released ArcGIS 10.1 and introduced the proprietary "LAS Dataset file (*.lasd)" that groups collections of files into one logical unit. This format of this useful LAS container file was not shared with others despite several private and eventually [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/jwHpi0efUgA/discussion public] requests.

: '''2012/2013: Collaboration Discussions'''

: There were encouraging follow-ups from the ESRI team about adopting the open LAZ format in January 2012: "I would be interested in having a more in depth meeting with you to better understand the great work you are doing with LAS and how we can possibly better partner on this." and again in December 2012: "If you have time, I'd like to set some time aside Tuesday afternoon to meet with <an important person> at the ESRI booth. Does 2pm sound okay?" The meeting went well and it looked as if ESRI was going to embrace the LAZ format because shortly after the meeting Martin got word that: "I hear from <an important person> that it was a success and that he had a good meeting with you. I wanted to see if we can have a telephone discussion on Wednesday or Thursday this week related to the potential of incorporating LAZ into ArcGIS."

: Then the first signs of hesitation showed. First there were legal issues raised in February 2013: "Currently the legal aspects are being reviewed. They were having some issues separating the LPGL aspects from LASzip from the remainder of LAStools etc." and then in April 2013 concerns about the code were made: "We have started to look into the integration of LAZ, but came across some issues. We don’t want to copy files from the other package, mix and match or hack around. We were hoping for an API to stream points out of a LAZ file as well as write LAZ files. There should be a simple code sample for that?" and - following up on that - in June 2013 Martin was told "I see value in LASzip becoming a de-facto standard that provides compression to the LAS format. If this is to happen then it needs to be bundled together with appropriate reference implementations, examples and documentation as a standard and so ensure that issues as defined earlier in email do not occur."

: '''June 2013: ESRI asked to sponsor clean LASzip DLL'''

: At that time [http://laszip.org LASzip] was an open source project without sponsorship. The original funding from [http://www.erdc.usace.army.mil/Locations/ColdRegionsResearchandEngineeringLaboratory.aspx USACE] that had turned [http://laszip.org LASzip] from an academic prototype into an industry strength compression engine had long run out. So Martin asked ESRI to become a sponsor to create the clean [http://laszip.org LASzip] API that ESRI was after. The answer was: "ESRI often helps in the financing of Open Source projects and I could foresee ESRI possibly helping in LASzip. [...] If you are interested in promoting LASzip as such a standard and doing the required work then I would recommend you put together a proposal and I can look to get ESRI as a sponsor."

: Immediately Martin proposed to ESRI: "I hereby propose to write an easy to use open source DLL wrapper for LASzip that will make it easier to integrate LASzip in a standardized manner into other software products such as ArcGIS, LP 360, or Terrasolid. This will come with example code on how to use the DLL for reading and writing LAZ files and include a few compressed example files. I hereby ask ESRI to provide funding for this effort without imposing any limitations on the produced DLL API."

: '''July 2013: ArcGIS 10.2 includes [proprietary] LAS indexing '''

: With the release of ArcGIS 10.2 in July 2013, ESRI introduced spatial indexing to speed up area-of-interest queries. The new proprietary *.lasx files with seemingly identical functionality to the open *.lax files that had been [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/j0qA8NBMHJs/discussion announced] in May 2011 and were [http://rapidlasso.com/2012/12/03/lasindex-spatial-indexing-of-lidar-data/ presented] at ELMF in November 2012.

: '''July 2013: Open LASzip API released'''

: After more requests for an easier interface to [http://laszip.org LASzip] (in particular for [http://forsys.cfr.washington.edu/fusion/fusionlatest.html USDA's FUSION]), Martin [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/oplsDhhnhDQ/discussion released] a clean, well-documented, and easy-to-use LASzip DLL (without ESRI funding). Martin expected that developers at ESRI would now use it to add read and write support for [http://laszip.org LAZ] to their next release of ArcGIS.

: '''December 2013 : ESRI discovered to be secretly developing proprietary LAS format'''

: In December of 2013, several LAStools users contacted Martin with suspicions that ESRI may be creating a proprietary LAS compression. Martin [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ broke the news] as soon as it became evident that ESRI had used the time it needed to resolve "legal issues" and "code problems" to put together their own proprietary compressed format with near-identical performance and functionality to [http://laszip.org LASzip]. A few days later ESRI released an [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214/ official FAQ] to confirming this was the case.

: From day one, Martin has worked with stakeholders, including ESRI, to avoid format fragmentation. Martin's core argument for resolving this to everybody's benefit was that - coincidentally - a natural break was happening in the LAS format with the introduction of the new LAS 1.4 point types. Martin outlined a detailed plan for how a joint development of [http://laszip.org LASzip] for LAS 1.4 between rapidlasso and ESRI could exploit this natural break in the LAS format to accomplish two things at once:
:# Add the unspecified technical additions that ESRI had hinted at desiring, and
:# Extend the [http://laszip.org LASzip] compression scheme to handle the new point types introduced with the LAS 1.4 specification. As there was no pressing need at the time to handle LAS 1.4 Martin had delayed the extension of [http://laszip.org LASzip] to the new LAS 1.4 point types to make sure a cooperation with ESRI would remain a viable option.

: '''1 April 2014: Positive reception to "Optimized LAS" / LASzip collaboration April Fools announcement'''

: In an attempt to convince ESRI management of the community desire for an open standard, Martin released an April Fools' Day [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ prank press release] pretending that ESRI had already agreed to the envisioned collaboration to develop a joint LiDAR compressor. Community [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ jubilant reactions (see comments)] left no doubt about the sentiment on this issue within the LiDAR community.

: '''October 2014: Announcement of [open] LAS Compatibility mode'''

: [http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/ Digital Coast, NOAA Coastal Services Center] became a Gold Sponsor of [http://laszip.org LASzip] for the development of the [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ LAS 1.4 compatibility mode] that was [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/nUFMkKSz53g/discussion beta-released] in November 2014. This allowed support for the new point types in [http://laszip.org LASzip] without closing the door on a potential cooperation with ESRI for a joint LAS 1.4 compressor.

: '''November 2014: ESRI announces proprietary extension to LAS 1.4'''

: In November 2014 [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated ESRI announced] that they had added their [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated own extension] for the new LAS 1.4 point types to "Optimized LAS", dismissing the opportunity to develop a joint compressor and avoid format fragmentation by exploiting this "natural break" in the LAS format as Martin had suggested.

: Since then, ESRI has been [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ promoting] "Optimized LAS". By including the term "LAS" in "Optimized LAS" and "zLAS", the distinction between the open LAS format and proprietary format is blurred. This is likely to mislead novice and future users, thereby endangering many years of standardization work. To date, [April 2014], the [http://www.asprs.org/a/society/committees/standards/LAS_1_4_r13.pdf custodians of the LAS format], the LAS Working Group (LWG) of the ASPRS has [http://rapidlasso.com/2015/02/22/lidar-las-asprs-esri-and-the-laz-clone/ yet to make an official statement] regarding use of the "LAS" name in promoting a proprietary LiDAR format.

=Value of Standards=

The importance of Open Standards is described in most government IT policies. For instance, the United Kingdom policy states:
: … Government assets should be interoperable and open for re-use in order to maximise return on investment, avoid technological or supplier lock-in, reduce operational risk in ICT projects and provide responsive services for citizens and business. This should also lower barriers to entry for more diverse sources of IT services, including citizens and SMEs. <ref>All about Open Source – An Introduction to Open Source Software for Government IT, Version 2.0, United Kingdom Cabinet Office https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78959/All_About_Open_Source_v2_0.pdf</ref>

The value of Open Standards has been described in numerous national studies on the effects of standards on economic growth.

: ... the national studies demonstrate that standards have a positive influence on economic growth due to the resulting improved diffusion of knowledge. The contribution of standards to the growth rate in each country is equivalent to 0.9% in Germany, 0.8% in 0.3% in the UK and 0.2% in Canada. <ref>Prof. Dr. Knut Blind, Prof. Dr. Andre Jungmittag, Dr. Axel Mangelsdorf [http://www.din.de/sixcms_upload/media/2896/DIN_GNN_2011_engl_akt_neu.pdf "The Economic Benefits of Standardization"], ''DINN, 2000''. Retrieved March 2015.</ref>

=Further Reading=

# Paul Ramsey provides background to LAS vs Optimised LAS, http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars/
# Running commentary by Martin Isenburg, author of LASlib, http://rapidlasso.com/2015/02/22/lidar-las-asprs-esri-and-the-laz-clone/
# Earlier comment from Martin Isenburg, http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/
# First call-to-action by Martin Isenburg, http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/
# ESRI Announces "Optimised LAS", http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression/
# ESRI description of "Optimised LAS", http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214
# Discussion background on this topic at Geo for All list , http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/ica-osgeo-labs/2015-March/001225.html

=References=

<references />

User:Maximdubinin

2013-07-25T14:35:33Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin: /* What I've done */

[[File:Maximdubinin-photo-cv.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Maxim Dubinin]]

==Who I am==

Hello, my name is Maxim Dubinin, I am currently:

* Founder and CEO of [http://nextgis.org NextGIS] - Opensource geospatial solutions provider focusing on Russia.
* Founder and current head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab] - Geospatial community for experts and amateurs for Russian-speaking audience, founded in 2001.

==What I've done==

Things I have done personally or initiated or led:

* Wrote over 220 articles majority of which are about opensource GIS tools and data ([http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgis-lab.info%2Fscripts%2Fforum-user-qa.php%3Fuserid%3D2%26username%3D%25D0%259C%25D0%25B0%25D0%25BA%25D1%2581%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BC%2520%25D0%2594%25D1%2583%25D0%25B1%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD en], [http://gis-lab.info/scripts/forum-user-qa.php?userid=2&username=%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BC%20%D0%94%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD ru])
* Participated in 11 communal projects at GIS-Lab and coordinated 5 of them, including translation of GRASS and gvSIG manuals, OSGeo Live docs, creation of the first truly open dataset of administrative division of Russia, etc.
* Wrote and co-authored 20+ QGIS plugins, submitted [http://hub.qgis.org/users/337 100+ bugreports], participated in GDAL and QGIS source tree
* Sponsored OpenLayers and QGIS
* Threw the first Russian OpenStreetMap mapping party, 2009
* Started daily OSM extracts to OSM/PBF and ESRI Shapefiles for Russia (incl. regional ones) and former USSR, 2010 and ongoing
* Jump started Russian OpenStreetMap Council in 2011
* Organized OpenGIS! conference in Moscow, 2012 (http://gisconf.ru/en): 250+ attendants from 150+ organizations, 2 days, 3 simultaneous sections.
* Gold-sponsored OSM Baltics Conference in Tartu, 2013 ([http://sotm-baltics.org/ link])

All these accomplishments would not be possible without many co-authors, helpers, fellow enthusiasts to whom I'm eternally grateful.

==More about myself==

You can reach me at: '''sim@gis-lab.info'''

All personal info, list of publications, CV, more contacts etc can be found here: http://m-d.me

My GitHub stuff is [https://github.com/simgislab here].

My OSM [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Sim profile].

NextGIS GitHub is [https://github.com/nextgis there].

User:Maximdubinin

2013-07-10T17:08:49Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin: /* More about myself */

[[File:Maximdubinin-photo-cv.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Maxim Dubinin]]

==Who I am==

Hello, my name is Maxim Dubinin, I am currently:

* Founder and CEO of [http://nextgis.org NextGIS] - Opensource geospatial solutions provider focusing on Russia.
* Founder and current head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab] - Geospatial community for experts and amateurs for Russian-speaking audience, founded in 2001.

==What I've done==

Things I have done personally or initiated or led:

* Wrote over 220 articles majority of which are about opensource GIS tools and data ([http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgis-lab.info%2Fscripts%2Fforum-user-qa.php%3Fuserid%3D2%26username%3D%25D0%259C%25D0%25B0%25D0%25BA%25D1%2581%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BC%2520%25D0%2594%25D1%2583%25D0%25B1%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD en], [http://gis-lab.info/scripts/forum-user-qa.php?userid=2&username=%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BC%20%D0%94%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD ru])
* Participated in 11 communal projects at GIS-Lab and coordinated 5 of them, including translation of GRASS and gvSIG manuals, OSGeo Live docs, creation of the first truly open dataset of administrative division of Russia, etc.
* Wrote and co-authored 20+ QGIS plugins, submitted [http://hub.qgis.org/users/337 100+ bugreports], participated in GDAL and QGIS source tree
* Sponsored OpenLayers and QGIS
* Threw the first Russian OpenStreetMap mapping party, 2009
* Started daily OSM extracts to OSM/PBF and ESRI Shapefiles for Russia (incl. regional ones) and former USSR, 2010 and ongoing
* Jump started Russian OpenStreetMap Council in 2011
* Organized OpenGIS! conference in Moscow, 2012 (http://gisconf.ru/en): 250+ attendants from 150+ organizations, 2 days, 3 simultaneous sections.
* Sponsored OSM Baltics Conference in Tartu, 2013 (upcoming)

All these accomplishments would not be possible without many co-authors, helpers, fellow enthusiasts to whom I'm eternally grateful.

==More about myself==

You can reach me at: '''sim@gis-lab.info'''

All personal info, list of publications, CV, more contacts etc can be found here: http://m-d.me

My GitHub stuff is [https://github.com/simgislab here].

My OSM [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Sim profile].

NextGIS GitHub is [https://github.com/nextgis there].

User:Maximdubinin

2013-07-10T17:07:47Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin: /* Current */

[[File:Maximdubinin-photo-cv.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Maxim Dubinin]]

==Who I am==

Hello, my name is Maxim Dubinin, I am currently:

* Founder and CEO of [http://nextgis.org NextGIS] - Opensource geospatial solutions provider focusing on Russia.
* Founder and current head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab] - Geospatial community for experts and amateurs for Russian-speaking audience, founded in 2001.

==What I've done==

Things I have done personally or initiated or led:

* Wrote over 220 articles majority of which are about opensource GIS tools and data ([http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgis-lab.info%2Fscripts%2Fforum-user-qa.php%3Fuserid%3D2%26username%3D%25D0%259C%25D0%25B0%25D0%25BA%25D1%2581%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BC%2520%25D0%2594%25D1%2583%25D0%25B1%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD en], [http://gis-lab.info/scripts/forum-user-qa.php?userid=2&username=%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BC%20%D0%94%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD ru])
* Participated in 11 communal projects at GIS-Lab and coordinated 5 of them, including translation of GRASS and gvSIG manuals, OSGeo Live docs, creation of the first truly open dataset of administrative division of Russia, etc.
* Wrote and co-authored 20+ QGIS plugins, submitted [http://hub.qgis.org/users/337 100+ bugreports], participated in GDAL and QGIS source tree
* Sponsored OpenLayers and QGIS
* Threw the first Russian OpenStreetMap mapping party, 2009
* Started daily OSM extracts to OSM/PBF and ESRI Shapefiles for Russia (incl. regional ones) and former USSR, 2010 and ongoing
* Jump started Russian OpenStreetMap Council in 2011
* Organized OpenGIS! conference in Moscow, 2012 (http://gisconf.ru/en): 250+ attendants from 150+ organizations, 2 days, 3 simultaneous sections.
* Sponsored OSM Baltics Conference in Tartu, 2013 (upcoming)

All these accomplishments would not be possible without many co-authors, helpers, fellow enthusiasts to whom I'm eternally grateful.

==More about myself==

All personal info, CV can be found here: http://m-d.me

You can reach me at: '''sim@gis-lab.info'''

My GitHub stuff is [https://github.com/simgislab here].

My OSM [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Sim profile].

NextGIS GitHub is [https://github.com/nextgis there].

User:Maximdubinin

2013-07-10T17:07:19Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin: /* Done */

[[File:Maximdubinin-photo-cv.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Maxim Dubinin]]

==Current==

Hello, my name is Maxim Dubinin, I am:

* Founder and CEO of [http://nextgis.org NextGIS] - Opensource geospatial solutions provider focusing on Russia.
* Founder and current head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab] - Geospatial community for experts and amateurs for Russian-speaking audience, founded in 2001.

==What I've done==

Things I have done personally or initiated or led:

* Wrote over 220 articles majority of which are about opensource GIS tools and data ([http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgis-lab.info%2Fscripts%2Fforum-user-qa.php%3Fuserid%3D2%26username%3D%25D0%259C%25D0%25B0%25D0%25BA%25D1%2581%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BC%2520%25D0%2594%25D1%2583%25D0%25B1%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD en], [http://gis-lab.info/scripts/forum-user-qa.php?userid=2&username=%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BC%20%D0%94%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD ru])
* Participated in 11 communal projects at GIS-Lab and coordinated 5 of them, including translation of GRASS and gvSIG manuals, OSGeo Live docs, creation of the first truly open dataset of administrative division of Russia, etc.
* Wrote and co-authored 20+ QGIS plugins, submitted [http://hub.qgis.org/users/337 100+ bugreports], participated in GDAL and QGIS source tree
* Sponsored OpenLayers and QGIS
* Threw the first Russian OpenStreetMap mapping party, 2009
* Started daily OSM extracts to OSM/PBF and ESRI Shapefiles for Russia (incl. regional ones) and former USSR, 2010 and ongoing
* Jump started Russian OpenStreetMap Council in 2011
* Organized OpenGIS! conference in Moscow, 2012 (http://gisconf.ru/en): 250+ attendants from 150+ organizations, 2 days, 3 simultaneous sections.
* Sponsored OSM Baltics Conference in Tartu, 2013 (upcoming)

All these accomplishments would not be possible without many co-authors, helpers, fellow enthusiasts to whom I'm eternally grateful.

==More about myself==

All personal info, CV can be found here: http://m-d.me

You can reach me at: '''sim@gis-lab.info'''

My GitHub stuff is [https://github.com/simgislab here].

My OSM [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Sim profile].

NextGIS GitHub is [https://github.com/nextgis there].

User:Maximdubinin

2013-07-10T17:03:49Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin:

[[File:Maximdubinin-photo-cv.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Maxim Dubinin]]

==Current==

Hello, my name is Maxim Dubinin, I am:

* Founder and CEO of [http://nextgis.org NextGIS] - Opensource geospatial solutions provider focusing on Russia.
* Founder and current head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab] - Geospatial community for experts and amateurs for Russian-speaking audience, founded in 2001.

==Done==

Things I have done personally, initiated or led:

* Wrote over 220 articles majority of which are about opensource GIS tools and data ([http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgis-lab.info%2Fscripts%2Fforum-user-qa.php%3Fuserid%3D2%26username%3D%25D0%259C%25D0%25B0%25D0%25BA%25D1%2581%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BC%2520%25D0%2594%25D1%2583%25D0%25B1%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD en], [http://gis-lab.info/scripts/forum-user-qa.php?userid=2&username=%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BC%20%D0%94%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD ru])
* Participated in 11 communal projects at GIS-Lab and coordinated 5 of them, including translation of GRASS and gvSIG manuals, OSGeo Live docs, creation of the first truly open dataset of administrative division of Russia, etc.
* Wrote and co-authored 20+ QGIS plugins, submitted [http://hub.qgis.org/users/337 100+ bugreports], participated in GDAL and QGIS source tree
* Sponsored OpenLayers and QGIS
* Threw the first Russian OpenStreetMap mapping party, 2009
* Started daily OSM extracts to OSM/PBF and ESRI Shapefiles for Russia (incl. regional ones) and former USSR, 2010 and ongoing
* Jump started Russian OpenStreetMap Council in 2011
* Organized OpenGIS! conference in Moscow, 2012 (http://gisconf.ru/en): 250+ attendants from 150+ organizations, 2 days, 3 simultaneous sections.
* Sponsored OSM Baltics Conference in Tartu, 2013 (upcoming)

Naturally all this activities would not be possible without many co-authors, helpers, fellow enthusiasts.

==More about myself==

All personal info, CV can be found here: http://m-d.me

You can reach me at: '''sim@gis-lab.info'''

My GitHub stuff is [https://github.com/simgislab here].

My OSM [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Sim profile].

NextGIS GitHub is [https://github.com/nextgis there].

User:Maximdubinin

2013-07-10T17:02:45Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin:

[[File:Maximdubinin-photo-cv.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Maxim Dubinin]]

Hello, my name is Maxim Dubinin, I am:

* Founder and CEO of [http://nextgis.org NextGIS] - Opensource geospatial solutions provider focusing on Russia.
* Founder and current head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab] - Geospatial community for experts and amateurs for Russian-speaking audience, founded in 2001.

Things I have done personally, initiated or led:

* Wrote over 220 articles majority of which are about opensource GIS tools and data ([http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgis-lab.info%2Fscripts%2Fforum-user-qa.php%3Fuserid%3D2%26username%3D%25D0%259C%25D0%25B0%25D0%25BA%25D1%2581%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BC%2520%25D0%2594%25D1%2583%25D0%25B1%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD en], [http://gis-lab.info/scripts/forum-user-qa.php?userid=2&username=%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BC%20%D0%94%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD ru])
* Participated in 11 communal projects at GIS-Lab and coordinated 5 of them, including translation of GRASS and gvSIG manuals, OSGeo Live docs, creation of the first truly open dataset of administrative division of Russia, etc.
* Wrote and co-authored 20+ QGIS plugins, submitted [http://hub.qgis.org/users/337 100+ bugreports], participated in GDAL and QGIS source tree
* Sponsored OpenLayers and QGIS
* Threw the first Russian OpenStreetMap mapping party, 2009
* Started daily OSM extracts to OSM/PBF and ESRI Shapefiles for Russia (incl. regional ones) and former USSR, 2010 and ongoing
* Jump started Russian OpenStreetMap Council in 2011
* Organized OpenGIS! conference in Moscow, 2012 (http://gisconf.ru/en): 250+ attendants from 150+ organizations, 2 days, 3 simultaneous sections.
* Sponsored OSM Baltics Conference in Tartu, 2013 (upcoming)

Naturally all this activities would not be possible without many co-authors, helpers, fellow enthusiasts.

All personal info, CV can be found here: http://m-d.me

You can reach me at: '''sim@gis-lab.info'''

My GitHub stuff is [https://github.com/simgislab here].

My OSM [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Sim profile].

NextGIS GitHub is [https://github.com/nextgis there].

File:Maximdubinin-photo-cv.jpg

2013-07-10T17:02:23Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin:

User:Maximdubinin

2013-07-10T09:18:48Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin:

Hello, my name is Maxim Dubinin, I am:

* Founder and CEO of [http://nextgis.org NextGIS] - Opensource geospatial solutions provider focusing on Russia.
* Founder and current head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab] - Geospatial community for experts and amateurs for Russian-speaking audience, founded in 2001.

Things I have done personally, initiated or led:

* Wrote over 220 articles majority of which are about opensource GIS tools and data ([http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgis-lab.info%2Fscripts%2Fforum-user-qa.php%3Fuserid%3D2%26username%3D%25D0%259C%25D0%25B0%25D0%25BA%25D1%2581%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BC%2520%25D0%2594%25D1%2583%25D0%25B1%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD en], [http://gis-lab.info/scripts/forum-user-qa.php?userid=2&username=%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BC%20%D0%94%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD ru])
* Participated in 11 communal projects at GIS-Lab and coordinated 5 of them, including translation of GRASS and gvSIG manuals, OSGeo Live docs, creation of the first truly open dataset of administrative division of Russia, etc.
* Wrote and co-authored 20+ QGIS plugins, submitted [http://hub.qgis.org/users/337 100+ bugreports], participated in GDAL and QGIS source tree
* Sponsored OpenLayers and QGIS
* Threw the first Russian OpenStreetMap mapping party, 2009
* Started daily OSM extracts to OSM/PBF and ESRI Shapefiles for Russia (incl. regional ones) and former USSR, 2010 and ongoing
* Jump started Russian OpenStreetMap Council in 2011
* Organized OpenGIS! conference in Moscow, 2012 (http://gisconf.ru/en): 250+ attendants from 150+ organizations, 2 days, 3 simultaneous sections.
* Sponsored OSM Baltics Conference in Tartu, 2013 (upcoming)

Naturally all this activities would not be possible without many co-authors, helpers, fellow enthusiasts.

All personal info, CV can be found here: http://m-d.me

You can reach me at: '''sim@gis-lab.info'''

My GitHub stuff is [https://github.com/simgislab here].

My OSM [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Sim profile].

NextGIS GitHub is [https://github.com/nextgis there].

User:Maximdubinin

2013-07-10T09:17:11Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin:

Hello, my name is Maxim Dubinin, I am:

* Founder and CEO of [http://nextgis.org NextGIS] - Opensource geospatial solutions provider focusing on Russia.
* Founder and current head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab] - Geospatial community for experts and amateurs for Russian-speaking audience, founded in 2001.

Things I have done personally, initiated or led:

* Wrote over 220 articles majority of which are about opensource GIS tools and data ([http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgis-lab.info%2Fscripts%2Fforum-user-qa.php%3Fuserid%3D2%26username%3D%25D0%259C%25D0%25B0%25D0%25BA%25D1%2581%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BC%2520%25D0%2594%25D1%2583%25D0%25B1%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD en], [http://gis-lab.info/scripts/forum-user-qa.php?userid=2&username=%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BC%20%D0%94%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD ru])
* Participated in 11 communal projects at GIS-Lab and coordinated 5 of them, including translation of GRASS and gvSIG manuals, OSGeo Live docs, creation of the first truly open dataset of administrative division of Russia, etc.
* Wrote 20+ QGIS plugins, participated in GDAL and QGIS source tree
* Sponsored OpenLayers and QGIS
* Threw the first Russian OpenStreetMap mapping party, 2009
* Started daily OSM extracts to OSM/PBF and ESRI Shapefiles for Russia (incl. regional ones) and former USSR, 2010 and ongoing
* Jump started Russian OpenStreetMap Council in 2011
* Organized OpenGIS! conference in Moscow, 2012 (http://gisconf.ru/en): 250+ attendants from 150+ organizations, 2 days, 3 simultaneous sections.
* Sponsored OSM Baltics Conference in Tartu, 2013 (upcoming)

Naturally all this activities would not be possible without many co-authors, helpers, fellow enthusiasts.

All personal info, CV can be found here: http://m-d.me

You can reach me at: '''sim@gis-lab.info'''

My GitHub stuff is [https://github.com/simgislab here].

My OSM [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Sim profile].

NextGIS GitHub is [https://github.com/nextgis there].

User:Maximdubinin

2013-07-09T19:18:16Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin:

Hello, my name is Maxim Dubinin, I am:

* Founder and CEO of [http://nextgis.org NextGIS] - Opensource geospatial solutions provider focusing on Russia.
* Founder and current head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab] - Geospatial community for experts and amateurs for Russian-speaking audience, founded in 2001.

Things I have done personally, initiated or led:

* Wrote over 220 articles majority of which are about opensource GIS tools and data ([http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgis-lab.info%2Fscripts%2Fforum-user-qa.php%3Fuserid%3D2%26username%3D%25D0%259C%25D0%25B0%25D0%25BA%25D1%2581%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BC%2520%25D0%2594%25D1%2583%25D0%25B1%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD en], [http://gis-lab.info/scripts/forum-user-qa.php?userid=2&username=%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BC%20%D0%94%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD ru])
* Participated in 11 communal projects at GIS-Lab and coordinated 5 of them, including translation of GRASS and gvSIG manuals, OSGeo Live docs, creation of the first truly open dataset of administrative division of Russia, etc.
* Wrote 20+ QGIS plugins, participated in GDAL and QGIS source tree
* Sponsored OpenLayers and QGIS
* Threw the first Russian OpenStreetMap mapping party in 2009
* Jump started Russian OpenStreetMap Council in 2011
* Organized OpenGIS! conference in 2012 (http://gisconf.ru/en): 250+ attendants from 150+ organizations, 2 days, 3 simultaneous sections.
* Sponsored OSM Baltics Conference in 2013 (upcoming)

Naturally all this activities would not be possible without many co-authors, helpers, fellow enthusiasts.

All personal info, CV can be found here: http://m-d.me

You can reach me at: '''sim@gis-lab.info'''

My GitHub stuff is [https://github.com/simgislab here].

NextGIS GitHub is [https://github.com/nextgis there].

User:Maximdubinin

2013-07-09T19:17:57Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin:

Hello, my name is Maxim Dubinin, I am:

* Founder and CEO of [http://nextgis.org NextGIS] - Opensource geospatial solutions provider focusing on Russia.
* Founder and current head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab] - Geospatial community for experts and amateurs for Russian-speaking audience, founded in 2001.

Things I have done personally, initiated or led:

* Wrote over 220 articles majority of which are about opensource GIS tools and data ([http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgis-lab.info%2Fscripts%2Fforum-user-qa.php%3Fuserid%3D2%26username%3D%25D0%259C%25D0%25B0%25D0%25BA%25D1%2581%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BC%2520%25D0%2594%25D1%2583%25D0%25B1%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B8%25D0%25BD en], [http://gis-lab.info/scripts/forum-user-qa.php?userid=2&username=%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BC%20%D0%94%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD ru])
* Participated in 11 communal projects at GIS-Lab and coordinated 5 of them, including translation of GRASS and gvSIG manuals, OSGeo Live docs, creation of the first truly open dataset of administrative division of Russia, etc.
* Wrote 20+ QGIS plugins, participated in GDAL and QGIS source tree
* Sponsored OpenLayers and QGIS
* Threw the first Russian OpenStreetMap party in 2009
* Jump started Russian OpenStreetMap Council in 2011
* Organized OpenGIS! conference in 2012 (http://gisconf.ru/en): 250+ attendants from 150+ organizations, 2 days, 3 simultaneous sections.
* Sponsored OSM Baltics Conference in 2013 (upcoming)

Naturally all this activities would not be possible without many co-authors, helpers, fellow enthusiasts.

All personal info, CV can be found here: http://m-d.me

You can reach me at: '''sim@gis-lab.info'''

My GitHub stuff is [https://github.com/simgislab here].

NextGIS GitHub is [https://github.com/nextgis there].

User:Maximdubinin

2013-05-13T07:52:44Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin:

Hi, my name is Maxim Dubinin, I am:

* CEO of [http://nextgis.org NextGIS] - Opensource geospatial solutions provider focusing on Russia.
* Creator and current head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab] - Geospatial community for experts and amateurs for Russian-speaking audience, founded in 2001.

All personal info and contacts can be found here: http://m-d.me

User:Maximdubinin

2013-05-13T07:51:42Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin:

Hi, my name is Maxim Dubinin, I am:

* CEO of [http://nextgis.org NextGIS] - Opensource geospatial solutions provider focusing on Russia.
* Creator and current head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab] - Geospatial community of specialists and amateurs for russian-speaking audience.

All personal info and contacts can be found here: http://m-d.me

User:Maximdubinin

2013-05-13T07:51:01Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin: init

Maxim Dubinin

CEO of [http://nextgis.org NextGIS] - Opensource geospatial solutions provider focusing on Russia.

Creator and current head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab] - Geospatial community of specialists and amateurs for russian-speaking audience.

All personal info and contacts can be found here: http://m-d.me

Geoservices REST API

2013-05-13T07:48:07Z

Wiki-Maximdubinin: /* Signed */

This wiki page aims to collate community concerns related to the adoption of the "Geoservices REST API" document as a standard of the [http://www.opengeospatial.org/ Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)]. The page is being collaboratively edited, targeting completion by Wednesday 15 May 2013, after which it will be delivered by the board of the [http://osgeo.org OSGeo Foundation (OSGeo)] to the OGC and OGC voting members.

= Cover Letter from the OSGeo Board =
''Please don't edit this "Cover Letter" statement, which has been approved by the OSGeo Board.''

The board of the [http://osgeo.org Open Source Geospatial Foundation] (OSGeo) is presenting this letter to the OGC. It highlights concerns about the "GeoServices REST API" from many people within the OSGeo community. As always, if there is anything the OSGeo board can do to help, then please let us know.

Signed: Jeff McKenna (OSGeo president),
Peter Batty,
Jáchym Čepický,
Michael Gerlek,
Anne Ghisla,
Mark Lucas,
Daniel Morissette,
Cameron Shorter,
Frank Warmerdam

= Open Letter to OGC and voting members =

''Please don't edit this "Open Letter" statement, comments and discussion should go in the "Further Concerns" section below.''

May 2013

We, the undersigned, have concerns that approving the "Geoservices REST API" as an OGC standard, would have detrimental impacts on interoperability within the spatial industry.

We strongly urge that the proposed "Geoservices REST API", as it stands in May 2013, be rejected as an OGC standard.

People have listed different reasons for concern. They are described below.

== Signed ==
''Please add your name here if you agree with the above statement. Include name, work title (if appropriate), very brief title/involvement in OSGeo if appropriate. (Link to OSGeo profile if appropriate). You may sign as a group, such as the Project Steering Committee of XXX project if you wish, or as Your Name on behalf of YYY company.''

# [[User:camerons|Cameron Shorter]], Geospatial Solutions Director at [http://lisasoft.com LISAsoft], core contributor & coordinator of [http://live.osgeo.org OSGeo-Live], OSGeo Board member
# [[Mark Lucas]], Founding member and board of directors for OSGeo foundation, Principal Scientist for RadiantBlue Technologies Inc.
# [[User:Woodbri|Stephen Woodbridge]], Director of [http://imaptools.com iMaptools.com], Contributor and/or PSC of [http://mapserver.org Mapserver], [http://pgrouting.org/ pgRouting], [http://www.pagcgeo.org/ PAGC], and [http://www.postgis.org/ PostGIS]
# [[User:rouault|Even Rouault]], Geospatial developer, OSGeo Charter Member, core contributor and PSC member of [http://gdal.org GDAL/OGR], contributor of [http://mapserver.org Mapserver], [http://trac.osgeo.org/proj/ PROJ.4], [http://trac.osgeo.org/geotiff/ libgeotiff], [http://shapelib.maptools.org/ shapelib], [http://www.remotesensing.org/libtiff/ libtiff]
# Gerhard Triebnig, Managing Director at [http://eox.at EOX IT Services GmbH]
# [[User:pcreso|Brent Wood]], Environmental Information Delivery Programme Leader, NIWA, New Zealand. OGC member, Aust/NZ OSGEO chapter member, NZOSS Council member
# [[User:Schpidi|Stephan Meissl]], CTO at [http://eox.at EOX IT Services GmbH], contributor to [http://mapserver.org Mapserver], PSC chair of [http://eoxserver.org EOxServer]
# [[User:ticheler|Jeroen Ticheler]], Director of [http://geocat.net GeoCat], project founder and PSC chair of [http://geonetwork-opensource.org GeoNetwork opensource]
# [[User:Just|Just van den Broecke]], Director at [http://www.justobjects.nl Just Objects], contributor to [http://heron-mc.org Heron Mapping Client], secretary of [http://osgeo.nl OSGeo Dutch Local Chapter], member at [http://www.opengeogroep.nl OpenGeoGroep]
# [[User:milovanderlinden|Milo van der Linden]], member at [http://www.opengeogroep.nl OpenGeoGroep]
# [[User:surveyor|Landon Blake]], GIS Department Manager/Land Surveyor at [http://www.ksninc.com KSN], OSGeo California Chapter Board Representative.
# [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]], President at [http://mapgears.com/ Mapgears], core contributor and PSC member of [http://mapserver.org Mapserver] and [http://gdal.org GDAL/OGR]. Former OGC TC member and involved in the implementation of several OGC WxS services specs in MapServer.
# [[User:blammo|Bob Basques]], GIS Systems Developer at the City of Saint Paul, MN. [http://gis.ci.stpaul.mn.us Public Works GIS (GISmo)], Technical Director at [http://www.sharedgeo.org SharedGeo], OSGeo Charter Member, OSGeo TCMUG local chapter member, Co-founder and PSC member of [http://www.geomoose.org GeoMoose] project.
# [[User:vehrka|Pedro-Juan Ferrer Matoses]], PM at Omnium Strategic Intelligence, Spain, OSGeo Charter Member, OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter Liaison officer.
# Bevan Rudge, Director Lucion Limited, IT Advisor at Conservation Strategy Fund, Esri client
# [[User:Delawen|María Arias de Reyna]], software engineer at [http://geocat.net GeoCat], Spain, member of OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter.
# [[User:Aghisla|Anne Ghisla]], OSGeo Board Member, Italy, member of OSGeo Italian Local Chapter.
# [[User:Michogar|Micho Garcia]], Freelance and member of [http://geomati.co geomati.co], Spain, member of Spanish Local Chapter
# [[User:Madi|Margherita Di Leo]], OSGeo Charter Member, Post-doctoral researcher at the European Commission, JRC, Italy
# [[Jorge Sanz]], GIS Consultant at [http://www.prodevelop.es Prodevelop], OSGeo Charter Member, OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter Member, Spain
# [[Pablo Sanxiao]], CTO and co-founder at [http://www.icarto.es iCarto], OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter Member, Spain
# [[User:Fsteggink|Frank Steggink]], GIS software developer at [http://www.vicrea.nl Vicrea], The Netherlands, member of the Dutch Local Chapter
# [[User:Olivier.courtin|Olivier Courtin]], [http://www.oslandia.com Oslandia] co-founder, core contributor or/and PSC member of [http://mapserver.org Mapserver] and [http://www.postgis.org/ PostGIS]. OGC TC member.
# [[User:Bolosig|Wladimir Szczerban]], OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter Member, Spain
# [[User:AnitaGraser|Anita Graser]], GIS specialist with AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, OSGeo Charter member and QGIS team member.
# [[User:Vmische|Volker Mische]], geospatial software engineer, creator of GeoCouch
# [[User:Ivansanchez|Iván Sánchez]], OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter Member, head of [http://www.openstreetmap.es OpenStreetMap Spain], [http://osmfoundation.org OpenStreetMap Foundation] member, [http://hot.openstreetmap.org/ Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team] member, [http://www.idee.es/ Spanish SDI working group] member
# [[User:Gabi|Gabriel Carrión]], Strategy Manager at [http://www.gvsig.com gvSIG association]
# [http://strk.keybit.net Sandro Santilli], OSGeo Charter Member, [http://postgis.net PostGIS] and [http://trac.osgeo.org/geos GEOS] PSC member and core hacker.
# [[User:Javiarch|Javier Diaz]], member of Geoinquietos Bs As [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Category:Geoinquietos_Buenos_Aires], member of the Organizing Committee FOSS4G Bs As 2013 [http://www.foss4g-ba.org/]
# [[User: JoCook|Jo Cook]], Consultant at [http://isharemaps.com| Astun Technology], former Director of OSGeo, Charter Member, founder of UK Local Chapter, Deputy Chair of [http://2013.foss4g.org| FOSS4G 2013]
# [[User: Fpenarru | Francisco José Peñarrubia]], CTO and co-founder at [http://www.scolab.es SCOLAB]. Members of [http://www.gvsig.com gvSIG Association]
# [[User: Ganesh|Shanmugam Ganeshkumar]], Director of [http://www.geoicon.com GeoICON], member OSGeo Malaysia Chapter
# [[User:Barryrowlingson|Barry Rowlingson]], Senior Researcher, Lancaster University and Software Sustainability Institute Fellow
# [[User: Sfkeller|Stefan Keller]], University of Applied Sciences, Rapperswil (Switzerland), Member of Swiss OSM (SOSM) and QGIS association and of organizing committees of pgConf.DE and FOSSGIS 2013, and member of eCH (e-government standards of Switzerland)
# [[User: AndyBMapMan|Andrew Bailey]], OSGeo member, Astun Technology
# [[User: Sanand|Suchith Anand]], OSGeo Charter member, OSGeo Education member, FOSS4G 2013 LOC member
# [[User: krefftc|Carlos Krefft]], GIS software developer at [http://www.cstars.miami.edu CSTARS - University of Miami], OGC and OSGeo Member.
# [[User:Steko|Stefano Costa]], OSGeo member, GFOSS.it member and former board member, Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali (Italy)
# [[User:pebau|Peter Baumann]], [http://www.jacobs-university.de/lsis Jacobs University], OGC member, WCS.SWG chair, editor of 10+ specs (disclaimer: this is an expression of my personal opinion and not in any way endorsed by OGC)
# [[User:pmbatty|Peter Batty]], CTO of Geospatial Division at [http://www.ubisense.net Ubisense], OSGeo board member, former CTO of [http://intergraph.com Intergraph] and [http://www.gedigitalenergy.com/gis.htm GE Smallworld], Technical Committee member of OGC in its formative years c 1995-97
# [[User: BarendKobben | Barend Köbben]], OSGEO Chartered Member, OSGeo.nl Dutch chapter treasurer, Senior Lecturer at [http://www.itc.nl ITC-University of Twente]
# [[User: pcav | Paolo Cavallini]], [http://www.faunalia.it Faunalia], OSGeo member, GFOSS.it member and former president, QGIS-PSC
# [[User: fthamura| FRans Thamura]], [http://www.osgeo.or.id Indonesia], OSGeo Indonesia, organizer]
# [[User: Endofcap| Sanghee Shin]], Founder and CEO of [http://www.gaia3d.com Gaia3D], OSGeo Charter Member, Representative of [http://www.osgeo.kr OSGeo Korean Chapter], Chairman of Open Source GIS Alliance Korea
# [[User: rentairo| Benni Purwonegoro]],Indonesia, IT-Spatial Engineer @ Geospatial Information Agency .
# [[User: jachym| Jachym Cepicky]], Czech Republic, member of OSGeo Board of Directors
# [[User: cappelaere| Pat Cappelaere]], Vightel Corporation
# [[User: JuergenFischer|Jürgen Fischer]], norBIT GmbH, QGIS core developer
# [[User: Maria|Maria Antonia Brovelli]], OSGeo Charter member, OSGeo Education member, GIS Professor and Vice Rector for the Como Campus at [http://www.polimi.it/en Politecnico di Milano], Italy
# [[User:Nachouve |Nacho Varela]], GIS Consultant, OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter Member, Spain
# [[User:vasile |Vasile Craciunescu]], OSGeo Charter member, OSGeo Romania Local Chapter Leader, Researcher at Romanian National Meteorological Administration, Romania
# [[User:badaveil |Abbas Abdul Wahab]], Asst. Director, Federal Department of Town & Country Planning, Peninsular Malaysia
# [[User:rbraam | Roy Braam]], Software Engineer @ [http://www.b3partners.nl | B3Partners]
# [[User:peteris | Peteris Bruns]], Latvia, GIS Consultant & Software Engineer @ [http://www.sungis.lv | SunGIS]
# [[User:Lutra | Giovanni Manghi]], Portugal, [http://www.faunalia.pt Faunalia], OSGeo member, OSGeo-Portugal
# [[User:Hfpmartins | Hugo Martins]], UK, [http://www.lutraconsulting.co.uk Lutra Consulting], WebGIS Developer, OSGeo-Portugal Member
# [[User:Sabb | Saber Razmjooei]], UK, [http://www.lutraconsulting.co.uk Lutra Consulting], Co-Founder
# [[User:Wellsp | Peter Wells]], UK, [http://www.lutraconsulting.co.uk Lutra Consulting], Co-Founder
# [[User:SGijzen | Sidney Gijzen]], The Netherlands, Researcher GIS @ [http://www.wageningenur.nl/en/Expertise-Services/Research-Institutes/alterra.htm Alterra, Wageningen UR]
# [[User:mfidelman | Miles Fidelman]], US, Principal, Protocol Technologies Group, LLC
# [[User:punkish | Puneet Kishor]], OSGeo Charter Member; [http://www.geology.wisc.edu Geology, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison]; [http://creativecommons.org/staff#puneetkishor Creative Commons]
# [[User:Toze | António José Silva]], Portugal, GIS Consultant, OSGeo-Portugal Member
# [[User:AndreMano | AndreMano]], Portugal, Natural History Society - GIS Department, OSGeo-Portugal Member
# [[User:maurimiranda|Mauricio Miranda]], Argentina, OSGeo Charter Member, OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter Board Member
# [[User:pmachado|Paulo Machado]], Portugal, Software Engineer @ PT Inovação
# [[User:alvaro|Alvaro Anguix]], Spain, General Manager at [http://www.gvsig.com gvSIG Association]
# [[Santiago Higuera]], CEO at [http://Mercatorlab.com Mercatorlab], OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter Board Member, Spain
# [[Alan Boudreault]], Developer at [http://mapgears.com/ Mapgears], contributor to [http://mapserver.org Mapserver] and [httpo://gdal.org GDAL/OGR].
# [[User:mikesaunt|Mike Saunt]], UK, Owner at [http://astuntechnology.com Astun Technology Ltd], OSGeo sponsor
# [[User:msmitherdc|Michael Smith]], OSGeo Charter Member, Physical Scientist US Army Corps of Engineers Remote Sensing GIS Center
# [[User:Kalxas|Angelos Tzotsos]], OSGeo Charter Member, Researcher at National Technical University of Athens
# [[User:Kimaidou|Michaël Douchin]], France, GIS consultant & software engineer at [http://3liz.com/ 3liz]
# [[User:PedroVenancio | Pedro Venâncio]], Portugal, GIS Analyst @ Municipality of Pinhel
# [[User:Jgrocha|Jorge Gustavo Rocha]], Portugal, GIS Professor at Universidade do Minho
# [[User:Danielkastl| Daniel Kastl]], Japan, [http://georepublic.info Georepublic], Founder
# [[Diodata|John Callahan]], US, Research Scientist and GIS/Remote Sensing Specialist, University of Delaware
# [[User:kjkalyan|Kalyan Janakiraman]], Senior Systems Analyst, Business Development Services, NSW Land and Property Information, Sydney, Australia
# [[User:goliadranger|Phillip Davis]], Director, National Geospatial Technology Center of Excellence, Texas, USA
# [[User:simonp|Simon Pigot]], contributor to and PSC member of [http://geonetwork-opensource.org GeoNetwork opensource] (speaking for myself, not an official view of my employer)
# [[User:jbryant|John Bryant]], Consultant, Mammoth Mapping, Dawson City, Canada and GIS/DB Admin, Jupiter Mines, Perth, Australia
# [[ChIossif|Christos Iossifides]], Remote Sensing Instructor, Laboratory Teaching Staff, Remote Sensing Instructor and Researcher, National Technical University of Athens
# [[User:tbowden|Tim Bowden]], Spatial Consultant, Perth, Australia
# [[User:Lucadelu|Luca Delucchi]], GIS Technician, Trento, Italy
# [[User:bartvde|Bart van den Eijnden]], GIS software developer, Utrecht, Netherlands
# [[User:eyedol|Henry Addo]], Software Developer at Ushahidi [http://ushahidi.com], contributor of [http://live.osgeo.org OSGeo-Live]
# [[User:iacovellas|Stefano Iacovella]], GIS consultant & software engineer, Rome, Italy
# [[User:Mtoonen| Meine Toonen]], Software Engineer @ [http://www.b3partners.nl B3Partners], The Netherlands
# [[User:arneke| Arne Kepp]], Software Engineer, Oslo, Norway
# [[User:Pirmin_Kalberer| Pirmin Kalberer]], Managing director [http://sourcepole.com/ Sourcepole], [http://fossgis.de FOSSGIS] member, Contributor of [http://gdal.org GDAL/OGR], [http://qgis.org QGIS], [http://mapfish.org/ Mapfish], [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGIS UbuntuGIS], [http://live.osgeo.org OSGeo-Live], Switzerland
# [[User:hdus| Dr. Horst Düster]], Managing director [http://sourcepole.com/ Sourcepole], [http://fossgis.de FOSSGIS] member, Treasurer QGIS Project [http://qgis.org QGIS], Zürich, Switzerland
# [[User:rduivenvoorde| Richard Duivenvoorde]], Managing director & software developer [http://www.webmapper.net/ Webmapper], QGIS community member
# [[User:stevenfeldman|Steven Feldman]], Principal at [http://knowwhereconslting.co.uk KnowWhere Consulting] and Chair of the LOC for [http://2013.foss4g.org/ FOSS4G 2013]
# [[User:Edward_Mac_Gillavry| Edward Mac Gillavry]], Managing director & software developer [http://www.webmapper.net/ Webmapper]
# [[User:maximdubinin| Maxim Dubinin]], CEO at [http://www.nextgis.org/ NextGIS], head of [http://gis-lab.info GIS-Lab.info]

= Summary =

''Please don't edit this section - it is now locked to ensure editorial review. You may send comments to Cameron Shorter AT gmail .com''

The document titled "GeoServices REST API" is currently, in May 2013, being considered to be included as one of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards. The vote to accept the document as a standard is unusually contentious; the controversy is the cause of this page.

The document was previously released for public comment and can be found [http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/89 on the request for public comment page] (though public comment has been closed for now).

The document attempts to standardize a suite of web services such as a service which provides map images, a service which provides geospatial feature data, and a service which performs geospatial processing. The standard focuses on interactions via a defined hierarchy of URLs and using predominantly a particular set of JSON schemas for the exchange of geospatial data.

== Criticism and Response ==

The adoption of the document as an OGC Standard is contentious for a wide variety of reasons including:

* the process through which the document was developed which is thought to lack sufficient flexibility to respond to input from various stakeholders,
* the focus of the document on 'REST' and 'API' which is seen as not matching the ideas others have for these concepts,
* the names of the standard and of the services which are seen as potentially confusing,
* the functionality of the new services which are considered to duplicate that of existing services already standardized by the OGC such as WMS, WFS, WCS, and WPS,
* the addition of a new set of services based on new URL patterns and new JSON exchange formats which is seen as duplicating the efforts of other working groups bringing similar ideas to the updates of existing OGC services,
* the re-introduction in the new services of previously resolved interoperability issues which is seen as failing to build on the existing knowledge and experience,
* the use of the particular JSON schemas which are seen as having little industry acceptance and are incompatible with other widely used schemas, and
* the lack of implementation diversity which is thought to give the vendor of the one complete implementation an unusual commercial advantage on top of the vendor's already dominant position in the domain.

These issues have potential impacts on the use of 'Open Standards' by governments and companies, on the interoperability of software interacting with standards compliant OGC services, on the costs to developers and users of standards compliant software, on the understanding of 'Open Standards' by the public at large, and, possibly, on the reputation of the OGC as a champion of interoperability.

In particular there are concerns by some that adoption of the standard will likely result in a combination of the following:
# The cost to application developers, systems integrators, testers and sponsors to support all relevant OGC standards will be substantially increased.
# Consequently, organisations and/or applications may choose to only support one standard, or only support one standard fully.
# Sponsors (such as governments) who require compliance with OGC standards will discover that applications don't communicate together, due to applications supporting different OGC standards that essentially do the same thing.
# This will result in a diminished importance of OGC, as the "OGC standards" stamp of approval will not equate interoperability.
# After a while, in order to solve interoperability issues, a respected international organisation or program will likely take the initiative to mandate one standard as the preferred standard for all agencies to follow. To date, the OGC has provided this leadership.
# One standard taking prominance over the other will likely lead to the other being neglected or deprecated, resulting in many OGC compliant systems becoming legacy systems in the process. This should be considered an undesirable outcome for a standards organisation.

In response to these issues, the authors of the Geoservices REST API document have stated that:

* the process of the OGC has been followed completely,
* the specification actually is RESTful and does define an API,
* the name, due to the controversy, may be open for modification
* the OGC does not forbid duplication of service functionality, already has duplication between the W*S and the S*S (sensor) family of standards, should not block progress in the name of 'one true way', and harmonization between the services can be considered in the future,
* the JSON format exists and functions, and
* there are alternative implementations for some of these services.

The authors also stress that the existence of a large user base shows the service is useful, and that the standardization of the services at the OGC may encourage new implementations.

= Positions on the vote =
''Please don't edit this section - it is now locked to ensure editorial review. You may send comments to Cameron Shorter AT gmail .com''

The discussion raises a number of issues, many based upon complex technical concepts and implications. This makes it difficult for voting OGC members considering whether to support "Geoservices REST API" as a standard. The following provides one analysis of the positions on the vote, aimed to simplify and summarize key points. However, it does not necessarily represent the opinions held by all signatories above.

; The pros for accepting the "Geoservices REST API" document as an OGC standard:

:* The OGC should be in the business of developing good standards, not in choosing which standards should be implemented.
:* The proposers of the document want to make a standard and have followed all the rules of the OGC. The work of any such group of members deserves serious, good faith consideration.
:* The need for an integrated suite of services using simple data, which is addressed (partially) by the document, is real. The proposed document is pushing the OGC on this issue.
:* The proposed document could be useful to a number of people.
:* The proposed document is not significantly more broken than the existing standards of the OGC. As one author of standards [http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2013-May/011667.html notes]:
:''"I know how totally impossible it is to write a good standard, so the weaknesses in the existing document seem more acceptable."''

; The cons:

:* The OGC actually is, whether it should be or not, in the position of recommending interoperable standards for geospatial services. The proposed document is not good enough, not widely enough implemented, and not publicly supported enough, to be considered at the same level as existing standards.
:* Adopting a standard implies a desire to maintain the standard, but OGC's desire to support this approach has been questioned by some. In particular, the lack of collaboration and willingness to accept recommendations from the community on this version of the "Geoservices REST API" document bodes ill for the future.
:* The overlap in functionality between the proposed services and the existing services, notably with the ongoing work to modularize the existing services, is almost 100 percent. However, compatibility is low.
:* There is already a published document: http://www.esri.com/library/whitepapers/pdfs/geoservices-rest-spec.pdf so there is no need for the document to be adopted as an OGC Standard merely for interoperability with the ESRI implementation.
:* The document, as a new, separate effort, repeats mistakes which were made and since solved by the other services.
:* The document focuses on the past (notably with backwards compatibility and use of only GET/POST) not on the future.
:* The document needs a comprehensive editorial review and substantial rewriting for clarity.

; A conclusion:

Both simple answers are bad.

A simple acceptance of the standard would introduce a new set of 'OGC approved' open services. The OGC approval might enable governments to buy a XXXX-new-name-here-XXXX solution instead of a W*S or a S*S solution. The path forwards towards harmonizing the services is unclear. Fixing this document in addition to fixing the W*S services will be a pain.

Simply rejecting the solution would be bad for the OGC. It would place the OGC in the position of picking winners and losers in the standards business. It would mean that the OGC is stuck on the project of fixing the W*S standards to meet some nebulous future functionality without having any path to get there. It would discourage innovation and progress.

Is there any third way?

Well, actually, there is a different way of thinking of the issue. Overall, there appears to be a shared desire for an integrated suite of geospatial services, originally focused on a simple data model, built on the exchange of well defined resources in simple formats including JSON, accessible and usable using the core HTTP verbs, and discoverable through following HTML links and patterns of URL paths. The hope is that such a suite can be designed based on the best expertise of the OGC, can be widely supported by the community, and can be implemented and tested by multiple groups. Neither the proposed document, nor the current services meet this vision. So the work, ultimately, is on improving all the services at the OGC, first to modularize them, then to enable simple implementations, and finally to link those implementations into a functional suite. Since this is the work that is already happening, perhaps the vote is an unfortunate distraction and the productive way forward is merely to redouble the efforts to create the next versions of the standards.

= Issues with the document =

''Please don't edit this section - it is now locked to ensure editorial review. You may send comments to Cameron Shorter AT gmail .com''

Beyond the controversy described above, there are issues with the Geoservices REST API document itself. Even if the standard deserves support, these issues could be considered blockers to the adoption of the current, May 2013, document.

The critique is incomplete because it quickly falls into a full editorial review of the text, something which takes a lot of time and effort and is beyond the scope and intent of this Open Letter.

The critique can be found at: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Geoservices_REST_API_critique.

Note that some of these critiques hold the document to OGC's current, standards writing guidelines. The OGC has been striving to develop better standards so new standards must meet higher requirements than past standards. The lack of clarity in the proposed document is not substantially worse than many published standards but ought to be resolved in new standards.

= Further Concerns =
--- DRAFT ____

''Please add concerns not addressed above as bullet points below. Where appropriate, link to external web pages (such as email achieves). Try to be concise, and try not to repeat concepts which have been covered above, (less words get read by more people). Points you have previously added, which are now covered above should be removed. Words that have been struck out will be removed by Tuesday 14 May.''

== Political Concerns ==

* <strike>Adopting the standard will expose the OGC to a strong suspicion of acting as a rubber stamp organization under ESRI weight, and will be detrimental to its recognized position as a reference organization for geospatial standards.</strike>
* <strike>It is a dubious practice that a standardization organisation promotes competing standards, without explicitely obsoleting (or at least recommending) some of them. How is a newcomer to the industry supposed to select the appropriate standard if several ones share the same scope : WFS or GeoServices REST API Feature Service, WMS or GeoServices REST API Map Service, etc. ?</strike>

== Commercial Concerns ==

* <strike>Promoting standards from an existing implementation made by a single vendor leads to an obvious bias in competition.</strike>
* <strike>Supporting multiple overlapping standards greatly reduces usability while it increases complexity and cost of development and maintenance.</strike>
* <strike>Many SME's have invested in supporting existing OGC standards in their products. They will be forced to choose the standards they support (and can explain), resulting in decreased interoperability, confusion and frustration for clients.</strike>
* <strike>Confusing customers with new, overlapping OGC standards will lower the credibility of companies and of OGC, reducing business opportunities.</strike>

== Technical Concerns ==

* <strike>The Geoservices REST API overlaps in large proportion with existing OGC standards such as WMS, WCS, WFS, WMTS, CSW, with no effort made to reconcile with those standards.</strike>
* The standardization of WKT for Spatial reference systems is unfortunately currently quite weak in OGC standards. Geoservices REST API is tied with ESRI's version of WKT, which is not properly specified in the Geoservices REST API documents, and is known to be incompatible with other OGC documents, which will lead to a larger confusion. See the following [http://lists.opengeospatial.org/pipermail/requests/2012-July/000166.html comment] for more details on this issue.
* <strike>The Geoservices REST API is not particularly RESTful - it's a thinly disguised service call, not an address space for RESTful objects that can be operated on.</strike>
* see [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Geoservices_REST_API_critique#The_Technical_Approach this discussion] for detailed arguments why OGC WCS is superior to the "GeoServices REST API" Part 6. It concludes: ''In summary, the ESRI "Geoservice REST API" Imaging part is at a technological level where WCS departed from some 5 years ago. Inconciseness of the specification at large will make it difficult for third parties to come up with interoperable implementations. The components making up the ESRI "Geoservice REST API" provide natural blocks assignable to the matching SWGs. As for Part 6 of the ESRI "Geoservice REST API", if to become a standard it needs to be discussed in the WCS.SWG for harmonization, clarification, and improvement.''

== Methodological Concerns ==

# Ten months after submitting, no public response (nor private to the authors of the comments) has been made to the various comments sent on the OGC Requests mailing list in [[http://lists.opengeospatial.org/pipermail/requests/2012-July/date.html July 2012]] and [[http://lists.opengeospatial.org/pipermail/requests/2012-August/date.html August 2012]] during the 30 day public comments period.
# The Geoservices REST API can not be amended (other than editorial changes in the specification document), because of a requirement of backward compatibility with ESRI implementation. Consequently, the standard is unlikely to improve, or its evolution will be only lead by ESRI.
# OGC standards normally require interoperability experiments and a richer process to ratify a standard such as this one. No explanation has been forthcoming as to why a simplified process is appropriate in this case.

A response (from Adrian Custer):

# The OGC is working to release those documents to the public as of 9 May 2013.
# Work on the next version of the document can take any perspective acceptable to those working on the document. (The OGC has no method in place in case two groups want to evolve the document in two different directions.)
# That is not true, the OGC does not require interoperability experiments or some "richer process" for the adoption of a standard; that may be desirable but is not required.

= Further Reading =
''Please add links to referenced documents, related news stories or blog posts here.''
* Call for comments on GeoServices REST API: http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/89
* Email archive of OSGeo discussions about GeoServices REST API: http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2013-May/thread.html
* Adrian Custer's summary of technical issues (and original source of some content in this letter): http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2013-May/011667.html
* "Is OGC Loosing its way?", letter to OGC Voters, from OGC Interoperability Movement Team Leaders, http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2013-May/011632.html

[[Category: OGC]]
[[Category: Standards]]