Public Administration and other entities in the Netherlands are required to exchange information with the Dutch Land Registry Office (Kadaster) for authorisation to carry out excavation works, or to build or maintain underground cable and pipe networks. This communication can now be performed electronically. The three above mentioned provinces have recently started using the OpenWion web services after getting familiar with Flamingo, a set of open source tools enabling organisations to share their geo-information through interactive maps.
"Each province has its own technical requirements, but by using open source tools, what has been developed for one of them, can also be used by the others", explains Matthijs Laan, lead developer of OpenWion. According to Mr. Laan, the platform, released using the GNU Affero General Public License version 3, disposes of everything required to fulfill the administrative procedures, and the decision to release it as an open source tool will encourage its usage. "This is also a way to build a stable platform” - continues Mr. Laan - “The company can assist with implementation and hosting services, or help out in creating tools to convert specialised data."
The developer estimates that there are about a thousand potential users and at least four hundred public organizations in the Netherlands, and that the platform could be also a useful tool for farmers, horticulturists and contractors who are responsible for the maintenance of underground infrastructures.
Marc Vloemans, CEO of the Dutch software developing firm said that: "This solution could also arouse the interest of those organisations that have been using so far proprietary applications, although I can imagine they would not be keen to discover they can write-off their initial investments."
Further Information:
- Original news article – OSOR.EU
- Flamingo website
- OpenWion website (in Dutch)
- GNU Affero Public License version 3 website
- Dutch Land Registry Office website (in Dutch)
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Quelle/Source: epractice, 06.05.2010
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