Can you address the lack of tools for importing GeoRSS/KML/GML to spatiaLite? GML specifically GML.

…. /geoserver/wfs?REQUEST=GetFeature&T ….

Thanks,
Joe

My point is that Shapefiles definitely served a necessary purpose, but they have clear shortcomings and so we need to move onto better formats. And these better formats cannot be proprietary.

These issues are entirely removed from the security and integrity issue. And not even about homogenized databases. It’s about usability and interoperability.

You do have a valid point on data and information size. There are definite use cases for people needing to share and utilize large, topologically or relationally connected, features. (something that Shapefiles don’t support either).

I agree that GeoRSS/KML/GML don’t address that. However, Spatialite does (will be talking more about that in a future post).

show some respect man.

if you can give me a usable 300000 parcels dataset, fully attributed in georss/gml/kml ill drop the shapefile.

oh and it has to be on the local machine.

thought so.

theres a reason business doesnt use gmail. same goes for geodata. security and protection man. if the geodata is not already available publicly in some form (tabular, in a report etc) then most likely it never will be.

good luck man theres a lot to map out there. having centralized homogenized databases are always nice. but the good stuff will always be behind closed doors.

And I don’t mean “open” necessarily in how they are developed – but how they can be used. Commercially developed formats that *require* the use of that single commercial application or suite prohibits access to the data and therefore severely limits the benefit or impact the data can have.

Now that doesn’t always matter. if you’re sharing data within a single organization, or selling the data- then that is ok. But data that is meant to be open and broadly accessible should never be shared only in a way that requires buying a single vendor tool to access.

1. Shapefiles were around long before many of the other standards that you cite and the reason that there are so many of them is the GIS community has found them a very practical way to share data in a form that supports further analysis.

2. If memory serves, ESRI published the shapefile format before many other companies made their formats known. In my view, just because a format is not published by an “open” standards body does not necessarily make it less desirable or less practical. In fact, in my experience often commercially developed formats are often more useful than open formats particularly within a specific community of interest.

Could you provide basic examples of when each might be appropriate to implement?

Thanks!

Britta