Avoid LiDAR format fragmentation - Open Letter via OSGeo

[Martin Isenburg]

Hello,

We have been collaboratively developing an Open Letter asking key stakeholders to avoid fragmentation in LiDAR storage formats:

http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/LIDAR_Format_Letter

It starts as follows: We, the undersigned, are concerned that the current interoperability between LiDAR applications, through use of the open "LAS" format, is being threatened by ESRI's introduction and promotion of an alternative "Optimized LAS" proprietary format. [...]

If you agree with the letter, please add your name to the "Signed" section.

Regards,

Martin @LAStools

[Martin Isenburg]

Hello,

several people have complained that "signing" the letter

http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/LIDAR_Format_Letter

requires creating an OSGeo account. True. And it's easy. But if you want to sign without creating an account, simply email your details to 'open_...@rapidlasso.com' and we will add your signature on your behalf.

Regards,

Martin @rapidlasso

[Martin Isenburg]

Hello,

The letter is gaining popularity, so please keep on signing here or tell us to sign for you.

http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/LIDAR_Format_Letter

The story has now been picked up by the German-languange main-stream media IT mogul (heise group):

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/LIDAR-offenes-Dateiformat-LAS-in-Bedraengnis-2609710.html

But our own geospatial media outlets are still quiet about this. The only explaination I can come up with why an editor would choose not to report on one of the most controversial LiDAR stories of 2014 and 2015 must be the fear to alienate their largest sponsor. This seems especially evident for LiDARnews who blogged about every tiny little advance [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] of "Optimized LAS" or "zLAS" (aka the "LAZ clone") but did not run a single headline reporting on the screaming controversy.

[1] http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-the-las-optimizer

[2] http://blog.lidarnews.com/faq-on-esri-las-optimizer

[3] http://blog.lidarnews.com/early-positive-reviews-for-esri-las-optimizer

[4] http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated-to-include-parallel-decompression

[5] http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated

[6] http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-beta-program-for-optimized-las

[7] http://blog.lidarnews.com/esris-zlas-io-library-now-available

[Lewis Graham]

When the LAZ source is contributed to OSGeo under a BSD (or equivalent) license, it will garner a lot of non-academic support.  For commercial companies (even those who do only services and do not make/sell software) who are careful about intellectual property, GPL is totally unusable and LGPL is to be avoided in all but the most controlled of circumstances.

[Lewis Graham]

When the LAZ stuff is contributed to OSGeo under a BSD licensing scheme, it will gain traction. 

Most commercially software companies (and service providers with savvy IP departments) will not embrace LGPL software.

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[Jan Depner]

Lewis,

    I disagree.  Commercial companies will gladly use LGPL libraries.  They will not use GPL code.  SAIC for example makes use of LGPL libraries.  As long as you don't modify the libraries without redistributing them there is no problem using LGPL libraries in commercial code.  Please read the LGPL and the GPL to see the difference between the two licenses.  In fact, Richard Stallman has declared that he doesn't like the LGPL because it doesn't tie commercial companies in knots ;-)

V/r
Jan Depner

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[Martin Isenburg]

Lewis,

did you just use our forum to publically call the IP departments (including Fugro, RIEGL, Leica, Bentley, Excelis, Safe Software, Trimble, Gexcel, Blue Marble Geo, Euclideon,  3D Laser Mapping, Applied Imagery, and soon also Optech) of over 40 LiDAR companies ... well ... stupid?

(-;

http://www.laszip.org/#software-with-native-laz-support

No, seriously, ESRI not once mentioned the LGPL license being a problem. In fact we would have considered relicensing if they had asked. The fear that ESRI (or another big player) may release a slightly modified clone of our LASzip code and push the open format out of the market was the reason that we decided on LGPL in the first place. ESRI embracing LASzip and the fact that LAZ has already become a de-facto standard would pretty much eliminate the need for LGPL.

Regards,

Martin

 

--

[Howard Butler]

Disregarding who’s calling whom what, I gave some background into why LASzip was released as LGPL in a post about the zLAS controversy to the OSGeo board list [1]. In short, the licensing approach has been very successful at preventing the format from being disrupted by incompatible softwares who are using the LASzip codebase. The licensing approach allows commercial uptake and use. There are two open codebases that implement LAZ, and it has made it to non-C platforms using our (Hobu’s) fork and Emscripten for Javascript in http://plas.io

I could be convinced LASzip’s LGPL use is preventing it from being a) embedded as a compression technology more generally in commercial softwares and b) stopping a commercial vendor from making closed variants of the format using the software. The point of releasing it under the LGPL license was to indeed to prevent both of those scenarios.

Howard

[1] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2015-March/012597.html

[Lewis Graham]

On the "Open" issue - the focus is wrong.  If the interest is to extend the scope of LAS to include a single standard for compression, it is the algorithm and compressed file format that need to be under some sort of control, not a particular realization of the algorithm. 

On Tuesday, April 14, 2015 at 7:05:32 AM UTC-5, Martin Isenburg wrote:

[Terje Mathisen]

Lewis Graham wrote:
> On the "Open" issue - the focus is wrong. If the interest is to
> extend the scope of LAS to include a single standard for compression,
> it is the algorithm and compressed file format that need to be under
> some sort of control, not a particular realization of the algorithm.

Lewis, this is obviously correct, but I don't think BSD vs LGPL is
critical to anyone working with LAS data:

Anyone can use the LGPL implementation as their blueprint for a private
version of the algorithm, and this would indeed be a good thing.

As long as Martin's code was the only
available/portable/efficient/lossless compressor for LAS data, the
standard was in effect defined by that particular code, but it would be
nice to have an official protocol description, controlled in such a way
that nobody (I'm looking at a four-letter institution starting with 'E'
here) can do a classic Microsoft style Embrace & Extend in order to make
it proprietary/incompatible with the rest of the world.

Terje

>
> On Tuesday, April 14, 2015 at 7:05:32 AM UTC-5, Martin Isenburg wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> We have been collaboratively developing an Open Letter asking key
> stakeholders to avoid fragmentation in LiDAR storage formats:
>
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/LIDAR_Format_Letter
> <http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/LIDAR_Format_Letter>
>
> It starts as follows: We, the undersigned, are concerned that the
> current interoperability between LiDAR applications, through use
> of the open "LAS" format, is being threatened by ESRI's
> introduction and promotion of an alternative "Optimized LAS"
> proprietary format. [...]
>
> If you agree with the letter, please add your name to the "Signed"
> section.
>
> Regards,
>
> Martin @LAStools
>

> --
> --
> You are subscribed to "The LAS room - a friendly place to discuss the
> the LAS or LAZ formats" for those who want to see LAS or LAZ succeed
> as open standards. Go on record with bug reports, suggestions, and
> concerns about current and proposed specifications.
>
> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lasroom
> Post to this group with an email to las...@googlegroups.com
> Unsubscribe by email to lasroom+u...@googlegroups.com
> ---
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
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> formats" group.
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> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.


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- <Terje.M...@tmsw.no>
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[Murray Webster]

Hi Martin,

 

I created an account, but do not know how to sign the letter.  Is it through the edit page perhaps?  I was expecting a “sign letter here” link somewhere.

 

Regards

Murray

 

ForeSense

Natural Resource Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry

Murray Webster – DIRECTOR

B.Sc. (For) Hons, MIFA

|T: +61 2 4340 4899 | M: 0417 025 946 |

ACN: 156 448 350

 

 

 

 

From: last...@googlegroups.com [mailto:last...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Martin Isenburg

Sent: Saturday, 18 April 2015 5:58 AM
To: LAStools - efficient command line tools for LIDAR processing; The LAS room - a friendly place to discuss specifications of the LAS format; PulseWaves - no pulse left behind

--

[Martin Isenburg]

Hello,

A lot is happening (and will continue to happen). The story has is being picked up by more and more news outlets like the prominent Australian IT News:

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/402914,open-source-devs-in-uproar-over-esri-lidar-lock-in-plans.aspx

and several bloggers are sharing their take on this with their audiences

http://odoepner.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/osgeo-open-letter-lidar-laszip-vs-esri/

http://blog.abs-cg.com/2015/04/lidar-format-wars-creep-into-geospatial.html http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/esris-claim-at-being-good-standards.html

Regards,

Martin @rapidlasso

PS: Yes, after signing up simply use the "edit" functionality of the Wiki to add your name to the list of signees.

--

[Martin Isenburg]

Hello,

finally the first geospatial news source is on the story:

http://www.spatialsource.com.au/2015/04/21/os-developers-concerned-over-new-esri-lidar-format/

and it lock like it will be featured on slashdot soon:

http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/04/21/1624219/osgeo-foundation-up-in-arms-over-esri-las-lock-in-plans

ESRI's first official answer

"The company told iTnews that the LAS specification does not address areas of compression, indexing, random access, nor the storage of statistics, which are required for direct use in applications.
“Existing open source LAS based formats also do not address all these concerns,” ESRI product manager Peter Becker said."

is easily refuted:

It took about three hours during the Vienna OSGeo code-sprint in March 2014 to add these exact same features via open source LASindex and a simple spatial sort to LASzip. We left adding the storage of LAS point statistics via a LAS VLR (that could then have become an addendum to the spec) as an easy take-home exercise for any computer science graduate ...

Regards,

Martin @rapidlasso

[Martin Isenburg]

Hello,

in the meantime the OSGeo board has officially ratified the "open letter" and over 130 (and counting) GIS users and remote sensing scientists have signed the letter. We are now waiting for an official response from ESRI, the OGC, and the ASPRS (or rather the LAS Working Group). Please read it and add your name if you agree:

http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/LIDAR_Format_Letter

Until then, some fun reading for you courtesy of GeoHipster - the only geospatial media outlet that is "hip" enough to take on a controversy involving ESRI - who have recently interviewed me about the on-going LiDAR format war.

http://geohipster.com/2015/05/04/martin-isenburg-may-the-foss-be-with-laz/

A little preview is attached ... (-;

Regards,

Martin @rapidlasso

[Martin Isenburg]

Hello,

in the meantime all initial responses are in.

ESRI:

Jack Dangermond himself has answered in a personal email to Suchith Anand (GeoForAll) who delivered the letter on behalf of OSGeo. He assured Suchith of ESRI's committment for interoperability and open standards.

Also Keith Ryden from ESRI Software Development has responded they will send someone to the upcoming OGC ad-hoc Point Cloud meeting in Boulder and will participate in any follow-up work on standards that may emerge from these initial gatherings. He says that so far ESRI has not received any request by the ASPRS to change the miss-leading name "Optimized LAS" but will work with the ASPRS once such concerns are made official.

ASPRS:

Stuart Walker, the president of the ASPRS, has answered that the ASPRS has already held a meeting about it during their annual conference last week.

Also Lewis Graham, the chair of the LAS Working Group, has responded - albeit "as a private individual". He suggested this entire discussion to be a waste of everybody's time. He explained that this is all an "exceedingly clever business strategy" of mine. He claims that I have misled the OSGeo folks into helping me "protect" the "commercial business model" behind the open source LASzip. Lewis - who is a (Triple?) Esri Gold Partner through his companies Airgon, QCoherent, and GeoCue  - finds "front and center that this is an anti-ESRI campaign rather than some noble cause for the geospatial industry."

OCG:

An OGC Point Cloud ad-hoc meeting has been scheduled for the next Techical Committee meeting on June 1st in Boulder.

http://www.opengeospatial.org/events/1506tcagenda

Stay tuned ...

Martin

Note: There is no "animosity" against ESRI at all. In fact I had a great time hanging out with both Lawrie Jordan and Steve Snow during the double RIEGL user conferences in Hong Kong and Guangzhou last week. Out of respect for the host both camps decided not to abuse the event to make gains in the controversy. Steve refrained from presenting the "LAZ clone" in his LiDAR technology talk and I did not try to recruit "lazer jedis" for the "clone wars" during my presentation ... (-;

[Martin Isenburg]

Hello,

for those curious to read up on the initial responses

(1) ESRI's official response (from Jack Dangermond, founder and president):

http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2015-May/014222.html

(2) OGC's official response (from Mark E. Reichardt, president and CEO)
http://www.opengeospatial.org/blog/2224

(3) ASPRS's confirmation of receipt (from Dr. A. Stewart Walker, president)
http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2015-May/014211.html

Regards,

Martin

[luha...@gmail.com]

Hmm...ESRI's official response is quite diplomatic ;-)

May the foss be with laz... :-)

------

Hao