Open Source DoD, ESRI on Google, Fire Eagle Flies
I watched the BarCamp.mil from afar and from what I’ve heard it sounded like it was a great event. Andrew Turner says that open source got quite a bit of play.
In the open-source world, a government supported promotion of its use would have dramatic effects. Looking at the current state of commercial company support for projects such as Apache, Linux, Gnome, OSGeo and more demonstrate that there is clear benefit to be gained. If the government then pushes open-source there would a huge upsurge in the support of projects and communities.
I don’t think there has to be 100% open source, but utilitzing it where it makes sense benefits the taxpayer.
ESRI today was the guest blogger on the Google Geo Developers blog.
Yahoo!’s Fire Eagle has left beta and is available to everyone. I don’t think there has been a killer app yet built using Fire Eagle, but the service has the potential to link LBS applications together. I think Yahoo! some really good spatial services (can’t forget about GeoPlanet) and I’d love to see them become more serious about them than their past would reflect.
I love the GeoMonkey!
http://twitpic.com/7l9u
I’m the GeoMonkey and I approve this message.
Well, how about this FireEagle implementation? Satellite tracker (SPOT) + FireEagle + Twitter. Make for really annoying tweets but would be cool to use.
I think you might see similar moves in Europe, where even ESRI reckons the INSPIRE directive will prompt more use of OS software and open standards in government GIS:
http://www.esri.com/news/arcwatch/0508/inspire.html
Although naturally ESRI is keen to get a piece of the action too, with their “GIS Portal Toolkit”.
My own impression is that there is a growing readiness in European public sector IT (and non-profits) to look at OS alternatives to big suppliers, mainly driven by costs as well as a desire to promote the European IT industry by producing software instead of just consuming it.
For example:
http://www.gisdevelopment.net/magazine/global/2007/august/41_1.htm
I dare say external factors play some part in all this too – after all, if I were a French government software purchaser, I might still be a little peeved over those “freedom fries” and “surrender monkeys” comments a few years back! And the ongoing battles between the EU and Microsoft also encourage people to think about alternatives to relying on big expensive vendors.
Anyway, the French are already using PostGIS for their own domestic mapping data, and for some maritime projects, I believe.
GeoMonkey see, GeoMonkey do…
The French National Geographic Institute also developed their own virtual globe with Federal money:
http://www.geoportail.fr/
On another note Barcamp.mil was a good meeting – nice to see progressive thinking inside the beltway. Also saw lots of cool geo projects and geodata. Hopefully we’ll get some of the data posted up soon.
no 9.3? You gotta pay that maintenance!
JW: It isn’t that simple. I don’t have a licensed copy of 9.3 due to starting at a new company. Signing the agreement is taking longer than I would have expected, but it appears we are close.
I’m not sure if you’re familiar with FalconView, but Georgia Tech is working to release an open source version of the popular mission planning tool. I’ll be posting details on my blog as they come available. The long and short of it is that, hopefully, FalconView will gain popularity beyond its traditional DoD users and will be available as a piece of GIS software for the public-at-large.
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