School of ComputingFaculty of Engineering

Software, licences and other usage issues

Anthony (Ant) Beck

Twitter: AntArch

Potential of satellite images and hyper/multi-spectral recording in archaeology

Poznan – 31st June 2012

Software - Proprietary

Examples

• Erdas Imagine

• ENVI

• ArcGIS

Software - Proprietary

Pros

• Well supported in universities

• Expected by employers

• Tight integration with sensors (ENVI in particular)

• Generic

• Robust?

Software - Proprietary

Cons

• Requires dedicated machines (normally a lab)

• Expensive

• Black-box

Software - FOSS

Examples

• GRASS – The daddy of them all

• Opticks

• Q-GIS

• U-DIG

• Whitebox

• SAGA

• ILWIS

• MapWindow

• Etc.

Software - FOSS

Pros

• Well supported by the community

• Allows development on any machine• You can develop a portfolio of work that stays with you

• Generally cross platform

• Transparent processing• White box (VERY important)

• Open processes are more in-line with CLOUD processing• Workflow orchestration

• Robust

• Extendable by individuals

Software - Proprietary

Cons

• Some interface issues

• There is a perception that FOSS is not as good as proprietary

• Bleeding edge 3d does not always compete with the commercial

Software – Open Source Geospatial foundation

OSGeo: http://www.osgeo.org/• To provide resources for foundation projects -

• To promote freely available geodata

• To promote the use of open source software in the geospatial industry (not just foundation software) - eg. PR, training, outreach.

• To encourage the implementation of open standards and standards-based interoperability in foundation projects.

• To provide support for the use of OSGeo software in education via curriculum development, outreach, and support.

• To support use and contribution to foundation projects from the worldwide community through internationalization of software and community outreach.

• To operate an annual OSGeo Conference,

Software – Open Source Geospatial foundation

OSGeo: http://www.osgeo.org/• Live DVD: http://live.osgeo.org/

• A pre-configured XUBUNTU O/S with a range of applications installed and pre-configured (this is excellent )

• OSGeo4W: https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/

• A pre-compiled binary install of different OSGeo approved packages for windows.

• Both the above deal with some of the more complex bindings between applications.

The Future – collaborative computing

Licences - Why are they an issue?

Data is rarely in the ‘public domain’• It is normally available under a licence.

Licences dictate:• Who owns the data

• How you can use data

• How you reference the data

• How you can share/redistribute the data (and any derivatives)

LICENCES ARE REALLY IMPORTANT

Licences – examples: Commercial high resolution satellite

Under a strict license that dictates:• Who can use the data (normally a single organisation)

• Sometimes for how long

• What happens with the derivatives

The license protects their data which protects their income stream

A user does not ‘own’ this data• They use it under licence

Licences – examples: Government\Research satellite data

The licences vary:• Military

• Research grade

• Archive

Much of this data is released to the academic community• Community science (?) initiatives

• The collecting body does not have the resources to analyse the data

• The collecting body captures data on behalf of a broad community

• The data is no longer sensitive or relevant

Examples: Landsat, ASTER, Corona

Licences – examples Landsat 8

Australia will publish images captured by soon-to-launch satellite Landsat 8 online, in close to real time, for free under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence.

“We want to make as much data freely available as possible,” says Jeff Kingwell, the Section Leader of GA’s National Earth Observation Group. “We will move towards a system where we are taking Landsat data in, in near real time.” Data will be corrected to make it usable, then published, all in as close to real time as is practical.

How COOL is that

Licences – examples: Data you OWN

It’s yours! What do you want to do with it?

Licences – Take Home Points

Prior to using data find out the licensing constraints• Licence holders ARE litigious – they have every right to sue you if you

infringe their licence

If you buy data – ensure you licence this for as broad a re-use base as possible (NEVER licence to an individual)

If you own data – always provide it to others with a CLEAR re-use licence • If you want credit include an attribution clause

DO NOT derive maps etc. from Google Earth data – it is illegal

Licences – DART (www.dartproject.info)

DART does the following:• For data under licences:

• Ensures broad access

• Opens data where possible (NERC ARSF)

• Encourages re-use

• For data it owns: gives it away

• Data: Open Data Commons By Attribution licences (http://opendefinition.org/licenses/odc-by/)

• Everything else: Creative Commons By Attribution licences (CC-By: http://opendefinition.org/licenses/cc-by/)

• Why

• Open Science

Open Data: Server (in the near future)

The full project archive will be available from the server

Raw Data

Processed Data

Web Services

Will also include

TDR data

Weather data

Subsurface temperature data

Soil analyses

spectro-radiometry transects

Crop analyses

Excavation data

In-situ photos ETC.

Why are we doing this – spreading the love

Why are we doing this – it’s the right thing to do

DART is a publically funded project

Publically funded data should provide benefit to the public

Why are we doing this – IMPACT/unlocking potential

More people use the data then there is improved impact

Better financial and intellectual return for the investors

Why are we doing this – innovation

Reducing barriers to data and knowledge can improve innovation

Why are we doing this – education

To provide baseline exemplar data for teaching and learning

Why are we doing this – building our network

Find new ways to exploit our data

Develop contacts

Write more grant applications

The case for Open Science from Cameron Neylon