What can users and buyers of GIS and other geoprocessing software do to get more “openness”?
Standards setting ultimately depends on users buying products that are based on standards. Vendors in OGC who have committed significant resources to developing the OpenGIS Specifications, with input from users, do so as an act of faith. They have implemented many of these specifications in products, but they depend on their customers and potential customers to understand the standards and ask for them. Public and private sector organizations owe it to themselves, their customers, shareholders, stakeholders, data sharing partners and constituencies to use the OpenGIS Reference Architecture (ORM) and the OpenGIS Portal Reference Architecture as models for their next purchases. These reference architectures make it easy to discern which OpenGIS Specifications are relevant to their needs. At a minimum, they need their local governments to ask for OpenGIS Geography Markup Language (GML), Web Map Server (WMS) and Web Feature Server (WFS) Specifications in software procurements. Vendors and
Standards setting ultimately depends on users buying products that are based on standards. Vendors in OGC who have committed significant resources to developing the OpenGIS Specifications, with input from users, do so as an act of faith. They have implemented many of these specifications in products, but they depend on their customers and potential customers to understand the standards and ask for them. Public and private sector organizations owe it to themselves, their customers, shareholders, stakeholders, data sharing partners and constituencies to use the OpenGIS Reference Architecture (ORM) and the OpenGIS Portal Reference Architecture as models for their next purchases. These reference architectures make it easy to discern which OpenGIS Specifications are relevant to their needs. At a minimum, they need their local governments to ask for OpenGIS Geography Markup Language (GML), Web Map Server (WMS) and Web Feature Server (WFS) Specifications in software procurements.
