1. The Impact of the Open Source Movement on
the Direction of Geospatial Technology
Geoff Zeiss
Director of Technology
Autodesk
1 © 2005 Autodesk

2. Overview
What is geospatial ?
Geospatial inflection point
Open geospatial standards,
commoditization, and open source
Web 2.0, open source geospatial and the
utility industry
Open source geospatial is creating business
opportunities
2 © 2005 Autodesk

3. What is
geospatial ?
3 © 2005 Autodesk

4. What is geospatial ?
4 © 2005 Autodesk

5. What is geospatial?
5 © 2005 Autodesk

6. What is geospatial ?
6 © 2005 Autodesk

7. What is geospatial ?
7 © 2005 Autodesk

8. What is geospatial ?
UNDER
INSIDE OUTSIDE
Full interior, 3D visualization 3D exterior urban visualization 3D subterranean visualization
Including: Including: Including:
- Utility / HVAC systems - Utility structures - Sewer systems
- Furniture - Full city blocks of 3D detail - Utility / Phone systems
- Mechanized lifts / elevators - Precise spatial orientation - Electrical systems
- Walls, doors, windows - Line of Sight calculations - Access routes / portals
- Precision architectural detail - Space – to – Sidewalk view - Precision CAD detail
8 © 2005 Autodesk

9. Examples of Geospatial
Applications
• Desktop GIS
• Geospatially-enabled CAD
• Web Mapping
• Geospatial relational database management systems
• Spatial analysis (suitability, market areas, …)
• Topological analysis
• Digital terrain modeling
• Network infrastructure management for utilities, telcos, and
local governnment
• Routing
• Georeferencing
• Pavement management
• Road/highway/railroad information systems
• 3D visualization of cityscapes
• Etc. 9 © 2005 Autodesk

10. Geospatial
Inflection Point:
Everything is
Changing
10 © 2005 Autodesk

11. Trend:
Geospatially-enabled IT
GIS
General IT
General IT
Geospatial
enabled
2005/2006
11 © 2005 Autodesk

12. Trend: Web 2.0
Google Earth
200 000 000 downloads
10 000 mashups
12 © 2005 Autodesk

13. Trend:
Open Geospatial Standards
Open Geospatial Consortium
Simple Feature Specification (SFS)

 Geographic Markup Language (GML)
 OGC Web Services
 Web Mapping Service (WMS)
 Web Feature Service (WFS)
ISO
SQL/MM SQL with geospatial extensions

13 © 2005 Autodesk

14. Trend:
Open Source Geospatial
Open source geospatial has matured
MapServer, PostGIS, GeoServer, MapGuide, …
Estimate that half of world’s web mapping servers
use MapServer.
14 © 2005 Autodesk

15. Trend:
Open Source Geospatial
15 © 2005 Autodesk

16. BIM/CAD/GIS
Convergence
16 © 2005 Autodesk
Infrastructure Solutions Division
Source: Tim Case, Parsons Brinkerhoff

17. Open Spatial
Standards,
Commoditization,
and Open Source
17 © 2005 Autodesk

18. Standards create fertile
ground for open source
C, C++ -> Gnu C, C++ compiler
POSIX -> GNU/Linux
HTTP -> Apache Web Server
SQL, ODBC -> MySQL, PostGreSQL
SMTP, POP -> Sendmail, etc.
.Net -> Mono
18 © 2005 Autodesk

19. Commoditization Example:
Apache Foundation
NCSA HTTP Server and the Apache
Group
Mid 90’s: Apache Group formed by eight NCSA HTTP Server

programmers
 Objective to coordinate quot;patchesquot;
Challenge: commercializing the web
IBM and others

Trying to decide how to monetize web

Creation of the Apache Foundation
1999 IBM decided to support the Apache Web Server

Members of the Apache Group formed the Apache Foundation,

Legal entity, to provide organizational, legal, and financial support for

the Apache web server.
Result: Apache Web Server
Running on over 70% of the world’s web servers.

19 © 2005 Autodesk

20. IT standards and
geospatial
Geospatial was a latecomer to IT and many of

the standards associated with modern IT
 GIS used to be highly proprietary.
 Geospatial has joined the mainstream.
Generic IT standards are being applied to

geospatial
 SQL -> SQL/MM
 XML -> GML
 Web services -> OGC OWS (WMS, WFS, …)
20 © 2005 Autodesk

21. Open Geospatial Standards
Open Geospatial Consortium
Simple Feature Specification (SFS)

 Geographic Markup Language (GML)
 OGC Web Services
 Web Mapping Service (WMS)
 Web Feature Service (WFS)
ISO
SQL/MM SQL with geospatial extensions

21 © 2005 Autodesk

22. Commoditization
of Web Mapping
Open spatial standards create
fertile ground for open source
geospatial
SFS -> PostGIS, MySQL
OWS -> MapServer, GeoServer
22 © 2005 Autodesk

23. Commoditization
of Web Mapping
Web mapping should be open source

Less complex than desktop applications

Becoming commoditized

Successful open source community around MapServer

Analogy with Apache Web Server

User benefits

More frequent software releases

Faster innovation, support for standards

Lower cost of ownership

Creates commercial opportunities

Market creation, broadens use of web mapping

Increase demand for supporting products

Low barrier to entry for developers (ISV’s)

23 © 2005 Autodesk

24. Formation of the OSGEO
Autodesk joined forces with the leading
members of the open source web mapping
community
DM Solutions Group, U-Minnesota MapServer, GDAL,

GRASS, GeoTools, MapBender, OSSIM, …
Supported establishment of a foundation
To support the ongoing development of open web

mapping technologies
Contributed MapGuide Open Source and FDO
Next generation Web 2.0 web mapping

Many person years of development effort

24 © 2005 Autodesk

25. Open Source
Geospatial
Foundation
Desktop Applications
Web Mapping
GRASS
MapServer
OSSIM
MapGuide Open Source
Quantum GIS
OpenLayers
MapBender Metadata Catalog
MapBuilder GeoNetwork opensource
Geospatial Libraries
GDAL/OGR
GeoTools
Feature Data Object (FDO)
25 © 2005 Autodesk

26. OSGEO Statistics
Web Mapping
Lines of Person Contributors Contributors
Code Years Last Year Project Life Start Date
Mapbender 208,193 53 9 18 2001
Community
MapBuilder 253,552 65 14 23 2001
MapGuide Open
Source 301,788 79 21 28 2005
MapServer 107,624 27 14 31 2000*
OpenLayers 30,165 7 5 6 2006
26 © 2005 Autodesk

27. OSGEO Statistics
Geospatial Libraries
Lines of Person Contributors Contributors
Code Years Last Year Project Life Start Date
FDO 648,510 177 14 14 12 mos*
GDAL/OGR 558,020 152 17 17 1998
GeoTools 1,237,689 341 31 64 2002*
27 © 2005 Autodesk

28. OSGEO Statistics
Desktop
Applications
Lines of Person Contributors Contributors
Code Years Last Year Project Life Start Date
GRASS 536,307 145 24 33 2000*
OSSIM 557,149 151 7 20 1997
Quantum GIS 104,583 26 12 20 2002
28 © 2005 Autodesk

29. OSGEO Statistics
OSGEO Total
Lines of Person Contributors Contributors
Code Years Last Year Project Life
Total 4,728,068 1,269 174 280
29 © 2005 Autodesk

30. GDAL/OGR
• GDAL is a translator library for raster
geospatial data formats.
• OGR library (which lives within the GDAL
source tree) provides a similar capability
for simple features vector data.
• GDAL and OGR were developed and
supported by Frank Warmerdam.
30 © 2005 Autodesk

31. GDAL/OGR Statistics
• 1500 source downloads of GDAL per month.
• Selected Software Using GDAL
Google Earth: A 3D world viewer.

ESRI ArcGIS 9.2+: A popular GIS platform.

Feature Data Objects (FDO): Open source access libraries.

FME: A GIS translator package includes a GDAL plugin.

GeoFusion: 3D visualization.

GRASS: A raster/vector open source GIS.

MapGuide: Open source web mapping server.

MapServer: A popular web mapping application.

OSSIM: A geospatial viewing and analysis environment.

Quantum GIS (QGIS): A cross platform desktop GIS.

Etc.

31 © 2005 Autodesk

32. Geotools
• Java GIS
 Geotools is an open source, Java GIS toolkit
• Extensible
 Modular architecture allows extra functionality
to be easily incorporated.
• Standards
 Geotools supports OpenGIS and other
relevant standards.
32 © 2005 Autodesk

33. Geotools Statistics
• 4,599 downloads per month - June 2007
 3-5 times that if you include projects that include it
• Project lifetime - 10 years
• Active contributors (in last year) – 31
64 contributors over lifetime of project

• Projects incorporating GeoTools
GeoServer

 uDig.
 OrbisGIS (new project)
 gvSig
• Corporate contributors - IBM, Nokia, Google (Summer of
Code), NOAA...
33 © 2005 Autodesk

34. MapGuide OS and FDO
Statistics
March 2006 to June 2007
MapGuide OS
 Community includes over 600 members
34,000 source code downloads

FDO
 9,000 source code downloads
Data providers developed by open source

contributors
34 © 2005 Autodesk

35. Web 2.0,
Open Source
Geospatial
and the Utility
Industry
35 © 2005 Autodesk

36. CAD is a primary data
source
Architects,
Engineers, Planners, CAD,
Designers,
BIM
Drafters
EO Satellites, Photogrammetry
Aerial overflights Radar
Terrestrial scanning `
Laser Scanning
LIDAR
Data
Paper,
Scanning,
Data conversion,
CAD
Digitization `
Field data capture,
Theodolite
Surveyors,
GPS GPS
36 © 2005 Autodesk

37. Utility Information Flow
Engineering
Construction
Design Construction
Drawings
(CAD)
Paper
As-builts
Paper
Paper
Markups
Field Force
(Linesmen,
Records
Troublemen,
(GIS)
Records
Install and
Repair)
37 © 2005 Autodesk

38. Challenge:
Aging Workforce
US Utility industry Survey 2004
• 50% of the utility workforce is
aged 45 or more.
• The potential loss of knowledge
base is a critical issue.
 Security
 Safety
 Productivity
38 © 2005 Autodesk

39. Infrastructure Management
Challenges
XInformation silos
XRedundant data and processes
XField force disenfranchisement
XPoor data quality
XExpensive
XExacerbates challenge of aging
workforce
39 © 2005 Autodesk

40. What is Web 2.0 ?
Web 1.0 Web 2.0
DoubleClick --> Google AdSense
Ofoto --> Flickr
Akamai --> BitTorrent
mp3.com --> Napster
Britannica Online --> Wikipedia
personal websites --> blogging
Evite --> upcoming.org and EVDB
Domain name speculation --> search engine optimization
Page views --> cost per click
Screen scraping --> web services
Publishing --> Participation
Content management systems --> wikis
Directories (taxonomy) --> tagging (quot;folksonomyquot;)
Stickiness --> syndication
Source: Tim O’Reilly “What is Web 2.0?”
40 © 2005 Autodesk

41. What does Web 2.0 mean
for a utility ?
• Web 1.0 is about publishing
• Web 2.0 is about participation.
• For a utility or telco, Web 2.0 enables
harnessing the collective intelligence
Data is accessible to everyone who can use a browser

• Web 2.0 enfranchises the field force
Enables field force to participate in data maintenance

41 © 2005 Autodesk

42. Web 2.0 Streamlines
Information Flow
Paper
Engineering
Design Construction
Construction Drawings
(CAD)
W
or k
pri
n t
Spatial Paper
As-builts
RDBMS
Up
s
rd da
o
ec t e
R
Field Force
Field Force
(Linesmen,
Records
Participation
Troublemen,
(GIS)
Install and
Repair)
42 © 2005 Autodesk

43. Web 2.0 Enables Field
Force Participation
Users Appln Relative
number of
users
Create Drafters CAD 100’s
Edit Web 2.0
Mapping
View Field staff Paper or viewer 1000’s
43 © 2005 Autodesk

44. Web 2.0 Democratizes,
Reduces TCO
44
Geospatial Inflection Point
44 © 2005 Autodesk

45. Web 2.0 Enables Knowledge
Sharing
Experienced Inexperienced
Workers Workers
Web Web
Browser Infrastructure Browser
Database
45 © 2005 Autodesk

46. Web 2.0 Web Mapping
Solutions
• Web 2.0 enables support for web-based
spatial edit
Supports editing and manipulating both

attributes and geometry on the Web
Open Source enables bringing this innovation

to market rapidly
46 © 2005 Autodesk

47. Web 2.0 Open Source Web
Mapping Platform
Web
Desktop
Applications
Applications
Spatially-
Fusion
enabled
CAD
MapGuide
Desktop
Open Source
Feature Data Object API
Oracle
SDF Shape ArcSDE MySQL
Spatial
47 © 2005 Autodesk

48. Web 2.0 Open Source Web
Mapping Platform
• Fusion
 Open source Web 2.0 application development
environment
 Technology preview http://mapguide.osgeo.org/
• Feature Data Object (FDO) API
 Open source library supporting full spatial edit
• MapGuide Open Source (MGOS)
 Open Source web mapping server
48 © 2005 Autodesk

49. MapGuide Open Source
Develop with…
Deploy on…
Microsoft Linux
Windows
Serve with… Browse with…
Apache
Mozilla
Internet
Microsoft Web
Firefox
Explorer
IIS Server
49 © 2005 Autodesk

50. FDO Data Access Technology
Autodesk, Third-Party and Open Source FDO Providers
Databases
– ESRI Personal GeoDatabase
– Oracle® – MySQL®
– GRASS
– Oracle Spatial – Microsoft® SQL Server™
– PostGIS/PostgreSQL
– ArcSDE®
– ODBC Compliant DB
Vector Data Formats
– MapInfo .TAB – GML – SDTS
SDF

– U.K. .NTF
ESRI SHP – U.S. Census

– KML
TIGER/Line
WFS
 – INTERLIS
– Arc/Info
DXF
 – S-57 (ENC)
Coverage
Raster Data Formats
– JPG2K – HDF4/HDF5
– DTED
– NITF
– MrSID® – HFA
– WMS
– TIFF/GeoTIFF – PCRaster
– NLAPS Data
– ECW – RMF
Format
– DEM – SGI
– GRASS
– GMT
– ESRI Grid – WCS
50 © 2005 Autodesk

51. FUSION
Flexibility for design and control
• Customizable library of web mapping tools and controls
• Created through open source
MapGuide Open Source layout… … and with Fusion
51 © 2005 Autodesk

52. Web2.0
Open Source Web Mapping
No. of sites
ArcIMS MapServer
Web1.0
MapGuide
GeoMedia Web
MapExtreme
Utility and Telecom Government
52 © 2005 Autodesk

53. Open Source
Creates
Opportunities
for Software
Developers
53 © 2005 Autodesk

54. OSS Creates
Business Opportunities
Opportunities for entrepreneurs
Gain recognition
Participate in a community
Create a market
Low cost of entry
Alternative business models
Services
Support
Accelerators
Highspeed internet acces
Low cost geospatial data
54 © 2005 Autodesk

55. Dave McIlhagga,
DMSolutions Group, Canada
Formed in 1998 as sole contractor
In 2007 18 employees
Skills
Skillset very unique

Web development, software design, GIS and core C++ programming

All revenue from services
Took on core programming for Mapserver.

90% of core development of Mapserver was funded by MapServer users who

needed additional functionality.
 Currently provides support and services for Mapserver and MapGuide
Key Success Challenge
Avoid the technology trap, identify areas for repeatable solutions where you can

pick up recurring revenue streams. 55 © 2005 Autodesk

56. Haris Kurtagic,
SL-KIng, Slovenia
Unique offering
Experienced Oracle developer

Developed Open Source FDO Oracle Spatial Data Provider

Received 100 emails of interest the day he announced the availability

of his provider on the OSGEO web site.
Developed Open Source FDO SQL Server Data Provider

Developed FDO2FDO

Currently on the steering committee of the
MapGuide/FDO project.
International reputation as “Mr. Oracle Spatial”
56 © 2005 Autodesk

57. Frank Warmerdam,
Sole Contractor, Canada
Started in 1998
Sole contractor

Started with enough money in the bank to live for a few months but no real capital.

Unique offering
At first offered own expertise

Wrote file format translators for various clients

The quot;growthquot; proposition was always to define an architecture GDAL and to buildup a large

pool of geospatial data translation code in GDAL
GDAL gained international reputation. GDAL is what attracts customers.

Biggest challenge
Finding a balance between unpaid work (software maintenance, community building), and paid

work for clients.
Advice
Expect to contribute pro-bono initially

Serve your customers

Enjoy what you are doing

57 © 2005 Autodesk

58. OpenGeo
Cooperative, Brazil
Started in Jun 2004
Initial capital R$ 12.000,00 (~ US$ 6.000,00)

OSS Opportunity in Brazil
OpenGeo is unique in Brazil in offering a low cost solution for managing spatial information.

Local government (more than 5 000 cities) require a low cost way of managing spatial

information.
Challenge
Educating about GIS and the advantages of open standards and open source.

Educating teachers in universities about the philosophy of free and open software.

Creating open source solutions with little support from government and research institutions.

Advice
Creativity is the key to creating new opportunities

Open source does not limit your creativity.

58 © 2005 Autodesk

59. Mori Toru,
Orkney, Japan
Launched in Feb 2002 as sole contractor
Initial capital 3,000,000JPY (25,000USD)

OSS Opportunity
No competitors. No businesses providing OSS support and services in

Japanese
 Extremely competitive in cost
 Opportunity to offer unique technical skills as services.
Unique Challenge
Open source tools did not support not double byte character set.

Invested in double byte enabling GRASS and Mapserver.

Supported by government grant and Osaka City University.

Advice
Do not follow others

Love your customers

Never give up

59 © 2005 Autodesk

60. Summary
Open source is good at commodity software
Open standards create a fertile ground for commoditization

 http, html -> Apache Web Server
Web mapping is being commoditized
Open source web mapping widely used

Successful businesses based on open source web mapping

Web 2.0 solves critical business problems
Open source web mapping creates business
opportunities
60 © 2005 Autodesk

61. Harness The Collective
Intelligence
61 © 2005 Autodesk

62. www.osgeo.org
geoff.zeiss@autodesk.com
www.geospatial.blogs.com
62 © 2005 Autodesk