Open Geospatial Software and Data: A Review of the Current State and A Perspective into the Future
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Department of Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0083, South Africa
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Spatial Sciences, School of Earth and Planetary Science, Curtin University, Bentley, Perth 6102, Australia
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Center for Geospatial Analytics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
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Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, P.zza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133 Milan, Italy
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2020, 9(2), 90; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi9020090
Received: 23 October 2019 / Revised: 22 January 2020 / Accepted: 27 January 2020 / Published: 1 February 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue State-of-the-Art in Spatial Information Science)
All over the world, organizations are increasingly considering the adoption of open source software and open data. In the geospatial domain, this is no different, and the last few decades have seen significant advances in this regard. We review the current state of open source geospatial software, focusing on the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) software ecosystem and its communities, as well as three kinds of open geospatial data (collaboratively contributed, authoritative and scientific). The current state confirms that openness has changed the way in which geospatial data are collected, processed, analyzed, and visualized. A perspective on future developments, informed by responses from professionals in key organizations in the global geospatial community, suggests that open source geospatial software and open geospatial data are likely to have an even more profound impact in the future.
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Keywords:
geospatial data; geospatial software; open data; open source software
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MDPI and ACS Style
Coetzee, S.; Ivánová, I.; Mitasova, H.; Brovelli, M.A. Open Geospatial Software and Data: A Review of the Current State and A Perspective into the Future. ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2020, 9, 90.
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