This set of guidelines courtesy of the Open Geospatial Consortium (
OGC):
- Open Standards - a common adopted/adjudicated formalization of how to do something
- Open API - a documented interface (perhaps not a standard) that is readily and freely available for use
- Open Patterns - the REST pattern being an example - follow it and a form of API becomes readily available
- Open License - the rights to use the data without unreasonable obligations or ambiguity of rights and responsibilities
- Open Distribution - often associated with API - the right to distribute the runtime implementation of a capability or set of interfaces without unreasonable obligations or ambiguity of rights and responsibilities
- Open Source - the distribution of the underlying source code for an API or any other capability or implementation. To be useful, it must be distributed under a license (such as creative commons) without undo obligations or ambiguity of rights and responsibilities.
And let's add a few other "open" definitions
- Open Data: the idea that some data should be freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control. (Wikipedia)
- OpenStreetMap: a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world.
- Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo): a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to foster global adoption of open geospatial technology by being an inclusive software foundation devoted to an open philosophy and participatory community driven development.
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Joe Francica
PITNEY BOWES SOFTWARE
Boulder CO
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