Asian Surveying & Mapping
Breaking News
China Launches Earth Observation Satellite Gaofen-13 02 for Remote Sensing
China on Friday sent a new Earth observation satellite...
ISRO to conduct young scientist programme in Bengaluru
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is organising a...
Egypt launches second remote-sensing satellite from China
The Egyptian Space Agency’s CEO, Sherif Sedky, announced the...
Israeli-developed DRONE DOME to secure Dubai from aerial attacks
Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. is supplying the system...
China launches 2nd Horus remote-sensing satellite for Egypt (video)
China has launched a second remote-sensing satellite for Egypt,...
China obstructs new subsea cable to Taiwan
Southeast Asia-Japan Cable 2 connecting Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong,...
Scientific collaboration between China and US key to tackling climate change, experts say
Efforts to combat climate change bore the brunt of...
ISRO Receives India-US Jointly Built NISAR Earth Observation Satellite, Begins Preparations For Launch
US space agency NASA has handed over NISAR earth...
ISRO conducts parachute deployment tests on rail tracks for Gaganyaan Mission
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has conducted Rail Track...
OceanX helps Riyadh boost best up-and-comers in GEOINT
The Saudi Space Commission has given OceanX the difficult...
giscad90

Traditionally it has been a simple matter to determine who owns what parts of a particular spatial data application and work flow. This applied to geodata, technologies, people and even extended to maintenance over time and updating.

New approaches in surveying, GNSS, mapping and remote sensing applications are no longer limited to singular portions of the value chain. Instead, they tend to cross boundaries, connecting to other aspects of work flows and are becoming more integrated. This has the net result of increasing the value of the original data source and employs technology to it’s fullest capacity. As collaboration becomes the ‘name-of-the-game’ and crowd sourcing tools become more fully engaged, the underlying models for collaborative applications grow to increasingly high value.

The analogy to this is the building information model (BIM) for architects, and the geographic information system (GIS) model for work of that nature. One can foresee that GNSS models are also valuable as they employ work flows, that may also be running inside Cloud operating environments. One question that might reasonably asked it, “who owns the model, or Cloud portions of the combined application?” If one disembarks from one of these projects, can they export the model for those pieces they have worked upon and are inclusive of their participation?

Or, do they sell these components and associated work back into the model, to whomever does own it? The lines are not always clear. Assuming the modeling aspects are developed through routines and work from the start, it might be reasonable to assume that they are jointly owned.

But even so, if one contracts for a model or Cloud service, what is the extent to which they can extract parts of the model, particularly based upon Open Architectures, and re-use those components into other spaces and places or collaborative units?I don’t have the answer, but it is becoming clearer to me that simply participating in Cloud services is not the sole value of the relationship. Based on open architecture, the logical next question becomes, to what extent can I extract my invested participation for re-use in other work I do? Isn’t that what openness is supposed to be all about?

—————————————–

Jeff Thurston is co-founder and editor for Vector1 Media.