4 minute read
Where is open source GIS software going?
Alvaro Anguix Alfaro. General Manager. gvSIG Association
At a technical level, the software applied to geographic information management will follow similar dynamics, regardless of its license. It must be remembered that the “open” concept applies to the conditions of use of a software, the rights that are granted to the user, regardless of their capabilities or technological focus. Therefore, from our perspective, the question, “Where is open source GIS software going?” must have different answers depending on the approach we have to it. We will focus on two main points of view: technology and industry.
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TALKING ABOUT TECHNOLOGY
Reality is evident in the territory and the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are the tools that allow us to manage the territory more efficiently. Therein lies its current importance and transversality, GIS are technologies that improve the management of a huge range of sectors: municipality management, agriculture, environment, security, health, archaeology and a great many others. The geographical component has become a fundamental component when analyzing or working with information.
Beyond the expansion of the use of GIS, it has a clear consequence already in the present and that in the near future it will go further. GIS solutions will increasingly be less isolated and will be integrated with more and more non-geographic applications; in many cases we will see how the geomatic component is not going to be the main one but it is going to be a part of all types of computer systems that currently don’t have software that allows working with the geographic attribute of the information.
In the gvSIG Association it is something that we have been experiencing in recent years, in practice there is almost no project that we carry out where integration of technologies is not included. Integration of the different gvSIG Suite solutions with file managers, document managers, alarm systems, different alphanumeric management applications, smart city platforms, sensors... all connected, all geolocated.
In this situation, the open source software ecosystem plays with advantage in this scenario due to its licensing characteristics. Use, study, improvement and distribution freedoms greatly make the use of libraries and geomatics products in any computer system easy, without the agreement with technological transnational companies and payment of large amounts for licenses.
TALKING ABOUT INDUSTRY
The GIS industry has been dominated by a few transnational corporations known to all. It’s an industry based on speculation with knowledge. The current phase of capitalism, characterized by a series of processes that have favoured a high concentration of capital, has deepened this process of market domination.
It is interesting to remember that the attempts to dominate the market by some multinationals against others favoured the promotion of open source software, both at a general level and in the particular field of geomatics. It should not be overlooked, for example, that initially one of the OSGeo promoters was AutoDesk, which had lost the battle to dominate the GIS market in favour of ESRI. Those gaps that were opened then have been used by many groups to give a boost to the technologies with open source licenses, up to the point that that currently they are an alternative as widespread or more than proprietary software products. In parallel, more and more governments, from local administrations to supranational entities, have adopted a position of preference towards open source software, being materialized in multiple cases in decrees, laws and initiatives recommending its preferential use; underlying the idea of technological sovereignty.
However, if the evolution of open source technologies has been exponential, the industry has not followed a similar process. Open source software communities are mostly groups of individuals whose form of government is technocracy, which results in projects led by technical specialists and whose objectives and decisions are merely technological. Historically, there is even a certain rejection of the idea of generating business through open source software. Small and medium-sized companies rarely organize and present initiatives that can make them competitive against large companies that, in our case, monopolize the GIS market.
The gvSIG Association was born precisely as a proposal for a new business model to break these dynamics. It was, and still is, a “rara avis” in open source geomatics organizations and projects. In order to change the industry, it is necessary to invent productive models that replace the current ones, that allow companies to compete in all kinds of projects with the current transnational companies that speculate with knowledge. The dynamics of the open source GIS must also advance in this sense in the coming years and initiatives such as this one launched by the gvSIG Association must increasingly become leaders in geomatics services providing. Strengthening the collaborative industry, reducing asymmetries between countries and betting on collaboration in the face of rivalry must be a common goal, that we build all together, because “Where is it going” question with which I was asked to title the article is not something that is written, nor that any guru can show in his crystal ball. We will go where the boost and the work of the majority decide that we should go, in geomatics, in software and in life.
