More Cost Recovery docs!

[Tracey P. Lauriault-2]

User Charging in the Federal Government - A Background Document
http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pubs_pol/opepubs/tb_h/ucfg_e.asp

you gotta look at the decision tree here -
http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pubs_pol/opepubs/tb_h/ucfg2_e.asp#A
it made me dizzy! Dang! must cost a fortune to implement something like
that!

Government Information in Canada/Information gouvernementale au Canada,
Volume 2, number/numéro 4 (spring/printemps 1996)
Cost Recovery and Statistics Canada 1
Ronald C. McMahon, Saskatchewan Bureau of Statistics 2
http://www.usask.ca/library/gic/v2n4/mcmahon/mcmahon.html

THE DISSEMINATION OF GOVERNMENT
GEOGRAPHIC DATA IN CANADA
GUIDE TO BEST PRACTICES
Tim Werschler - Statistics Canada
Julie Rancourt - Department of Justice
Winter 2005
Version 1.2
http://cgdi-dev.ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca/publications/Best_practices_guide/html/summary_e.html

Submission on "Estimates 1997-1998: Part III: Environment Canada" (I
think andrew sent this earlier!)
December 16, 1997
Submitted to:
The House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable
Development
http://www.cla.ca/issues/enviro.htm

Guide to the Geospatial Data Infrastructure
Appendix 7
The Effect of Policy
http://www.geoconnections.org/publications/Technical_Manual/html_e/appendix_7.html

[Marcel Fortin]

I thought this might be of interest to some of you. Interesting the well
deserved praise in this realm and how little there would be in a similar
article about data.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: http://www.directionsmag.com/article.php?article_id=2194&trv=1

O Canada! Canadians and Open Source
By Kevin Flanders
(Jun 07, 2006)

_It is nearly common knowledge that GIS finds its origins in government
agencies in that great northern territory we know as Canada. I say
"nearly” because there are still those who believe that GIS was created
by proprietary software vendors ... which I’ll bet makes the marketing
guys at these companies more than happy with themselves.

GIS is believed to have originated in Canada. The renowned "Father of
GIS,” Roger Tomlinson, calls Ottawa, Ontario his home and has been a
resident since the 1960s. His early work with computer mapping is
identified as the world’s first steps towards the GIS industry we all
know and love.

This article, however, goes beyond Canada’s role as the birthplace of
GIS. I want to summarize Canada’s role in open source GIS. I do not wish
to downplay the contributions of other countries around the world, but
only to shine a light on a number of contributors throughout Canada who
seem, collectively, to be setting the table.

I have learned through my conversations that Americans are not the only
people who like to talk about their country. Just ask a Canadian about
Canada, pull up a chair, grab a plate of poutine with gravy, and settle
in. Of course, this is all fine because the stories are interesting.

There is, of course, the world of MapServer. While it is true that
MapServer came to us from Steve Lime out of the University of Minnesota
in 1994 (Minnesota is far enough north to require travel south to access
parts of Canada), it is also true that several Canadians have been
instrumental in MapServer’s development. First, there is Frank Warmerdam
out of Eganville, Ontario and his Shapelib library. Lime picked up the
library and supported the first versions of MapServer. Warmerdam went on
to add OGR and GDAL, which bring tremendous vector and raster data
support to MapServer and other open source software. Along with others,
Warmerdam has also been a lead developer of OpenEV, a powerful 2D and 3D
image classification, editing, conversion, analysis, reprojection and
management tool released under the GNU LGPL open source license.

If Lime is considered the "Father of MapServer,” then no discussion of
the origins of MapServer are complete without giving credit to the
"Mother of MapServer”: Daniel Morissette. Formerly of DM Solutions,
Morissette currently heads Mapgears, located in Chicoutimi, Quebec.
Morissette and Lime starting working together on MapServer technology in
2000. They collaborated over the Internet; they would not meet in person
until 2004. Morissette and the rest of DM Solutions helped: port
MapServer to run on the Windows platform; enable Php Mapscript as a
scripting tool; provide support for OGC’s Web Map Service (WMS) and Web
Feature Service (WFS) specifications; add a lot of much needed
documentation.

DM Solutions, out of Ottawa, Ontario, continues to this day to make
contributions to MapServer and open source mapping tools by providing us
with Chameleon (an open source software platform that "widgetizes"
mapping components for ease of site development), kaMap (an open source
AJAX mapping platform similar in functionality to Google Maps), and
MapLab (an open source Internet software platform for the construction
of mapping websites). All these tools and more are supported on
www.maptools.org. DM Solutions’s role in the GIS open source industry
has certainly been one of leadership, providing that element of support
that is often lacking in open source environments.

In 2001, Refractions Research entered the open source picture with the
release of PostGIS, a spatial database add-on to the open source
object-relational database PostgreSQL. This package rivals the
functionality and performance of ESRI’s SDE software, providing a
significant advancement in spatial data handling for MapServer and other
open source software titles. Refractions Research, out of Victoria,
British Columbia, currently offers a desktop GIS software product called
uDig. Based on GeoTools (which is based on the JTS Topology Suite, or
JTS), uDig brings Java-based GIS desktop tools to the open source industry.

JTS was created by another Canadian company called Vivid Solutions. Just
four blocks down the street from Refractions Research in Victoria, Vivid
Solutions created JTS en route to production of a Java-based desktop GIS
software called JUMP. JUMP, largely the brainchild of Martin Davis of
Vivid, has been very successful in the open source industry, providing
many of the common functions expected of a desktop GIS and enabling Java
programmers to build plug-ins.

Finally, I need to discuss the Canadian contributors from Autodesk.
While Autodesk is an American company, its MapGuide roots come from a
Calgary-based company (Argus) that Autodesk purchased in 1995. The lead
architect for that software, and today’s MapGuide software, is Bob Bray.
Bray still resides in Calgary. Of course, MapGuide made significant news
when Autodesk released MapGuide Open Source to the Open Source
Geospatial Foundation last year (www.osgeo.org). This event is one of
the most popular points of discussion in the GIS open source industry
and promises to remain so as open source developers watch how Autodesk
operates in this new role. Additionally, Autodesk’s Ottawa office is the
primary source of support for its Feature Data Object (FDO) software, a
now open source package that supports retrieval and update of spatial
and nonspatial GIS feature data.

So, there we have it. The Canadians have certainly earned their seat at
the table with their contributions to open source GIS. You have to ask
yourself. ... Why? Why Canada? Why not the USA? Why not other countries?

Well, certainly other countries have contributed. European countries and
the United States have indeed contributed with products like GeoTools,
GeoServer, MapBender, MapBuilder, OSSIM and others. But Canada seems far
ahead of all the others. My research indicates a possible reason for
this is government funding.

Early forestry GIS work by Tomlinson and others was largely funded by
the Canadian federal government. Warmerdam’s work with Shapelib, OGR,
and GDAL was largely funded by GeoConnections (a national partnership
program to evolve and expand the Canadian Geospatial Data
Infrastructure), Canadian Forestry, Environment Canada and the Atlas of
Canada. DM Solutions’ work with MapServer and other open source titles
has been primarily funded by Parks Canada, Natural Resources Canada, the
Canadian Coast Guard, the Public Health Agency Canada, and Geological
Survey Canada. Vivid Solutions’ work with JTS was largely funded by the
Provincial Government of British Columbia. Refractions Research’s work
with uDig and other open source titles was mostly funded by the Canadian
federal government.

With this level of support over so many years, it is easier to see why
Canada has taken such a leadership role in the GIS open source world. I
have to ask why such support is lacking in the United States. Actually,
once you learn about the large government contracts with proprietary GIS
software vendors that exist in the US, it makes sense. This type of
software contracting is common in the US. As a matter of fact, it was
big news when the State of Massachusetts decided to move to "open
standards," ending the long term contracting opportunity that Microsoft
once had with the state.

There have been government investments in GIS software in the US,
including the USGS and Army Corp of Engineers’ investments in GRASS,
PROJ.4 and GCTP, as well as NASA’s support of MapServer and Worldwind.
But that funding seems to have given way to proprietary software
contracts over the past several years.

Certainly, there are good reasons for a government to pursue contracts
with proprietary software vendors, with support contracts possibly being
the single largest factor. But this may change with the GIS industry
clearly becoming focused on Internet software, where support (including
onsite support) may become less of a factor. And certainly the argument
can be made that such factors are more short-term in nature than long
term ... is it fair to ask a government to think long term?

Apparently, it is in Canada.