Towards a framework of standard licences for geo-information?!

In the development and diffusion of major technologies, it is well known that standards provide an essential input, establishing compatibility or interoperability between components in the system (DTI, 2005). In addition, standards facilitate coordination and reduce complexity (Brunsson et al., 2000). Only after a standard has been adopted, the technology will thrive. Also in the geo-domain standardisation has an important role to play. Geostandards are developed and approved at a global level by ISO and OGC. The OGC GeoRM working group has researched a technical solution to implement a digital rights management system for geo-information since 2005 (see also Bishr et al., 2007). Until today, geo-DRM has not been successful. This may be explained by the lack of a global framework of standard licences for geo-information. Licences remain difficult to understand for humans, let alone for computers. Integrating geo-information from multiple sources, with similar but different licences into one new application will be a timely effort and not necessarily a successful one. There is a clear need for a global standard for geo-licences. Only recently the development of a standard for geo-information licences is starting to emerge. Examples of promising initiatives aimed at standardising licences are found in the US (Onsrud et al., 2004), at a European level (INSPIRE, 2010a; www.seadatanet.org), Italy (Garretti et al., 2009), the Netherlands (Welle Donker et al., 2010), Australia (Fitzgerald et al. 2010) and at a global level (Onsrud et al., 2010). In this paper, we will explore different initiatives for standardising licences for geo-information and assess their potential to mature towards a global standard. Similar to the diffusion of products licensed with a creative commons licence, we believe that a global framework of standard geo-licences is a prerequisite for spatial data infrastructures (SDIs) to successfully move towards a service oriented SDI in which multiple services can be integrated into new services without delay. Only then the service-oriented SDI will be able to thrive.OTB OnderzoekOTB Research Institute for the Built Environmen