Update: Does a Vancouver proposal related to open source mean a new GIS?

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Friday, May 29. 2009

Update: Does a Vancouver proposal related to open source mean a new GIS?

Update: Passed.

---- original post 5/15/09 ----

I'm not making that connection, Ralph Grabowski is on his blog WorldCADAccess. The proposal "Open Data, Open Standards and Open Source" (pdf) aims to put open source and proprietary software (it says commercial, actually) on the same footing when "when replacing existing software or considering new applications" (among other open things). It's got the mayor's support.

One of the things in the text of the motion notes that Vancouver is not part of a non-profit spatial data sharing organization called the Integrated Cadastral Information Society (ICIS). [Corrected per Paul's comment] Per the proposal Vancouver would join.

That leads Grabowski to ask: "I wonder: does this desired change in mapping supplier indicate some kind of backlash against Digital City?" Vancouver is the third city to be involved in Autodesk's pilot program Digital Cities.

Three geoblogs cover the topic, with a different perspective: Fuzzy Tolerance, Between the Poles, and Paul Ramsey.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Open Source, Autodesk at 06:54 | Comments (8) | Trackbacks (0)

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In a word, "no", it does not mean anything about software or Digital Cities. ICIS is just a province-level data sharing arrangement where municipalities and regional districts pool their cadastre and exchange data with the province and local utility companies. Vancouver never joined because they didn't think they got enough out of it to warrant giving away their cadastre for "free" to the other partners.

#1 Paul Ramsey (Link) on 2009-05-15 15:02 (Reply)

ICIS = www.icisociety.ca

#1.1 Paul Ramsey (Link) on 2009-05-15 15:04 (Reply)

James Fee is responding "no" via Twitter.

#2 Adena Schutzberg (Link) on 2009-05-15 18:33 (Reply)

A few comments:

I look forward to progress in the direction proposed by the motion being discussed. I would like to see our data shared more broadly and more easily and the motion is consistent with that.

As Paul says, the City never joined ICIS because the benefits were not there and at one point in time, there were potential negative impacts to joining. Those may have gone away and we will certainly be looking at them again. But the City has given its data to ICIS twice in support of their concept and ould do so again regardless of whether we join if ICIS asks for it. The issue is not as much joining as it is sharing and utilizing data. By the way, the motion as I read it does not say we should join ICIS, it says we should share data with ICIS and encourage ICIS to share more broadly.

Digital Cities is a research project and there is no direct relationship with the motion.

Vancouver is a significant user of MapGuide software and if and when the motion passes, we may begin to consider the use of some componensts of MapGuide Open Source.

I'm very excited about the proposals.

Jonathan Mark
GIS Manager
City of Vancouver

#3 Jonathan Mark on 2009-05-18 15:08 (Reply)

Thanks Jonathan for taking the time to set the record straight.

#3.1 Adena Schutzberg (Link) on 2009-05-18 16:10 (Reply)

Thanks for the heads up on your Open Source initiative. I look forward to hearing more!

Mark
http://www.laudontech.com

#3.2 MapsRus (Link) on 2009-06-02 14:18 (Reply)

It's amazing how long it can take to get organizations sharing common digital base mapping and related information. But it's good to know progress has continued since 1976, when the Burnaby Joint Utility Mapping Project pioneered sharing of digital mapping data between the District of Burnaby, BC Hydro (Electric and Gas), BC Tel, and the BC Assessment Authority. That was 33 years ago - how the time does fly!

Today we've got a few things we didn't have then, such as (relatively) low cost hardware and software, standard mapping data interchange formats, standards bodies like OGC, PCs, GPS, mobile devices, ubiquitous high-speed data comms, web services, and of course the Internet itself. But even with all this technological progress, there continue to be plenty of organizational, political and business barriers.

ICIS seems like a good way to keep the concept of data sharing alive.

#4 Steve Garth on 2009-05-18 18:53 (Reply)

Computerworld calls Vancouver a role model.
http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=D070E217-1A64-6A71-CEDD726274823209

#5 Adena Schutzberg (Link) on 2009-06-11 18:14 (Reply)

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