OpenGeo, the geospatial division of The Open Planning Project, builds enterprise-quality web-based geospatial software that enables full information transparency and accessibility. The OpenGeo vision is a truly open geospatial web of location-based data that is not only available but truly accessible as a tool to solve problems via analysis and modeling and as a base for future technologies.
Governments have spent huge amounts of money and time attempting to build a top-down infrastructure to share geospatial information, with few instances of success. Meanwhile Google Earth, Google Maps, and Microsoft's Virtual Earth have brought about an explosion of real-world uses of geospatial data simply by providing powerful, easy-to-use services to consume that data.
OpenGeo seeks to be the lever that unites the top-down efforts of government and the grassroots sharing of geospatial data by providing freely available open source tools that implement all the relevant open standards while also offering compelling commercial geospatial platforms for government bodies.
Governments make use of the OpenGeo stack because the software provides concrete advantages over the competition, but it is all built to enable the infrastructure for transparency by default. Less open government agencies can of course turn off the default sharing mechanisms, but our products make it effortless to provide accessible geospatial information to the public.
The software itself stands on its own as a compelling alternative to other web-based geospatial software, even those that cost tens of thousands of dollars. This was completely accomplished by leveraging open source communities to build far more than TOPP ever could alone.
OpenGeo is approaching full financial sustainability by providing consulting services and support contracts for its core offerings. As revenue comes in, it is reinvested in the software and back to TOPP in general, generating ever-increasing returns on investment as it competes in the market.
GeoServer is used by governments around the world to make their geospatial information more accessible. MassGIS, the statewide geospatial data agency of Massachusetts has successfully deployed GeoServer to expose all their geospatial data. MassGIS had originally wanted to make their data available to state agencies. With GeoServer, the agency it all completely available to the public found the software worked so well and they could spend their money on hardware instead of proprietary license fees they made it all completely available to the public. They have also become valuable community members, contributing numerous bug fixes and features to GeoServer. Other prominent government users of GeoServer include Portland's TriMet http://maps.trimet.org, the national French Cadastral Map, Landgate and Rijkwaterstaat.
Having made great progress on making all kinds of geospatial data more
available on a variety of platforms, GeoServer's next focus is on
collaborative mapping – bringing the techniques of open source to the
creation and maintenance of geospatial data. TOPP both supports amateur projects to create maps with others and provides bettter GeoServer-based tools for government data-sharing. In time these two will combine in to workflows all using
the same tool set to incorporate citizen feedback directly in to
government made spatial information, working together in partnership to
make better maps for all, leveraging the expertise and local knowledge
of citizens to make government more effective.
OpenLayers is a fully open source web-based mapping client enabling display of information from open, standards-based geospatial information servers overlaid with proprietary APIs like Google Maps.
As GeoServer became popular many users wanted a full solution: a compelling platform for making custom maps. Instead of starting a new project from scratch TOPP identified the growing OpenLayers community as a good investment opportunity. TOPP now employs two members of the OpenLayers project steering committee and we contribute extensively to its success, sponsoring sprints and giving team members opportunities to work directly on the core code.
TOPP's contributions have focused primarily on the editing of spatial data directly through the web, lowering the barriers to entry for anyone to help improve geospatial information. OpenLayers is also an important strategic investment in helping governments be truly open with their spatial information by providing a platform that is a compelling alternative to Google Maps or Virtual Earth, platforms that do not open their spatial information by default. Combined with GeoWebCache and GeoServer it gives governments complete control over how they open their information.
