Bruce,
For your information, I expect to be talking to Chris, from the National
Archives Australia this coming week.
Apparently they store their data sets in Open formats, but don't know
how to store GIS datasets in open formats. I'm hoping that we can help.
Bruce Bannerman wrote:
IMO:
Just another thought on this issue (though we do seem to be recycling arguments
over the years...):
Assuming that I have a very large archive of spatial data, be it imagery or any
other spatial format and that I store my data in a variety of proprietary
formats:
In ten years from now, can I be sure that:
- the company that created, understands, and holds the IP in the
data format will still be around?
- there will still be software that runs on the then current
operating environment, that can read and 'fully exploit' the data
in the proprietary standard?
- that this future software will work seamlessly with my then current
spatial environment?
- if all of the above risks prove to eventuate, can I be sure that I'll
be able to salvage my data into another format, retaining its complete
semantic context?
IMO, it is a high risk proposition to lock public (or private) archives away in
proprietary data formats. It makes more sense to use open standards and formats
that are publically available.
Bruce Bannerman
-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael
P. Gerlek
Sent: Friday, 21 August 2009 6:55 AM
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and
Proprietary Algorithms
Some clarifications:
- MrSID has both lossy and lossless modes
- MrSID is not fractal based; it uses wavelets (and
arithmetic encoding)
- you can't copyright algorithms; the MrSID source code
certainly is, however
- MrSID relies on a number of patents, not all of which are
owned by LizardTech
- reading MrSID does not require any fees; we have libraries
you can download, although they are not open source
That said, some editorial comments (although I'm now wishing
I hadn't been so quick to rise to Landon's bait :-)
- Some of you know the history of trying to open source
MrSID; I won't go into that here, except to say that
LizardTech doesn't own all of the required IP needed to make
that happen.
- If we are speaking of the NAIP data, then no, it is not
exclusively available in MrSID format; it is also shipped as GeoTIFFs.
- JPEG 2000 is a very robust open standard alternative to
MrSID, and a number of players already support it (including
LizardTech), but not enough to make it viable for certain
domains like NAIP.
- some of you also know the history on open JP2 support:
there is today no open source implementation of JP2 that is
suitable for geo work. Alas.
-mpg
From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Eric Wolf
Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 2:15 PM
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and
Proprietary Algorithms
The MRSID format is a very special case - and perhaps an
opportunity for a new FOSS file format. MRSID is a lossless,
fractal-based, multi-scale raster compression format.
LizardTech has the algorithms to encode and decode MRSID
locked up in copyrights, and I believe, patents. Even
companies like ESRI shell out big bucks to LizardTech to be
able to read and write the MRSID format.
I guess I missed the context of the discussion. Is the
government releasing certain data exclusively in this format?
If so, I think the argument can be made against this
practice. The different in compression between MRSID and
gziped TIFFs isn't really that great in this day of cheap
disks and fat pipes.
-Eric
-=--=---=----=----=---=--=-=--=---=----=---=--=-=-
Eric B. Wolf New! 720-334-7734
USGS Geographer
Center of Excellence in GIScience
PhD Student
CU-Boulder - Geography
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