Importance of Open Geospatial Science for our discipline

[Dan Beavers]

FYI
---------------
Opportunities and Impediments for Open GIS,Transactions in GIS
Volume 18, Issue 1, pages 1–24, February 2014
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tgis.12075/abstract

It is only rarely fundamental changes happen in a discipline and OpenGIS
is the fundamental change that has happened in Geospatial Science. The
pace
of change has been much beyond our expectations and i thank all
universities who have already established and those in the process of
establishing Open Source Geospatial Labs and all our colleagues in "Geo
for
All" initiative.

Our aim is to empower staff and students worldwide by using Free and Open
Source GIS for education. What is the point of teaching GIS to students
(in
both developed and developing countries) and taking away the tools from
them after the course and telling them that now you need to buy these
expensive proprietary software licences if you want to continue using them
after their course (which is what the proprietary GIS vendors would like
!)

I am determined to do everything in my abilities to make sure we can
keep the windows of opportunities open for geospatial education for all
students worldwide and for our future generations. I am looking forward to
work with you on this.