Why the emphasis on Open
Source Geospatial Technologies?
Reason #1: As a higher educational institution, we have
an obligation to expose our students the entire
geospatial technology ecosystem, rather than a focus on
a subset of this ecosystem.
Generally in the software sector, over the last roughly
twenty years a spectrum of “software types” have emerged.
On one end of this spectrum is proprietary software where
the source code is unreadable, and the copyright licenses
for use have specific requirements on how many computers
can have it installed. On the other end of the spectrum is
“Free/Libre” software, where in general, the copyright
license gives the user permission to freely distribute the
“runtime” software on as many computers as they wish and
gives the user access to the readable software logic (the
source code). Often, Free/Libre licensed software comes
with the requirement that if the user with programming
skills makes a change to the software code, that change
automatically falls under the same licensing rules as its
“parent” software, and they also follow the belief that
software should be a public good. In between, are open
source software technologies, that follow some of the
“openness principles” but are sometimes more receptive to
commercial uses of that software.
UMass Amherst has an obligation to expose students
to the entire ecosystem of geospatial technologies
available (proprietary, free/libre and open source) so
that our students themselves can decide for themselves
what is the right technology to use for analysis or
management problems they might face in the future.
In short, the future of the technology sector will be a
hybrid world involving combinations of all of these kinds
of software, and it is important that our students are
exposed to all of them rather than a subset. Students
should have the skills to pick and deploy the right tools
for the job at hand.
Reason #2: In this era of high costs of higher
education for our students, we have an obligation to try
and reduce the costs of their programs. The use of open
source software and accompanying open-access educational
materials is one way we can reduce some of the costs our
students incur.
Reason #3: Geospatial technologies are critical tools
to help manage the natural environment as well as many
urgent humanitarian crises or situations. UMass Amherst
seeks to contribute to a body of shared, collaborative
set of open access educational material related to
geospatial data management and analysis that can be
accessed by personnel across the world who need it to
address environmental management or humanitarian
problems.
Reason #4: A shared, collaborative effort in geospatial
research and education is critical for helping the world
address some of its most challenging problems.
Simply put, we hold a belief that closed systems create
frictions toward innovation whereas open systems provide
opportunities for the sharing of innovations and hold the
potential for solving “wicked problems” faster. This
UMass node, part of a much larger network of open source
geospatial research and education nodes around the world,
seeks to contribute, in a small way toward this greater
good through collaborative efforts in geospatial research
and education.