Editorial |
The Internet Model
The Internet is a wonderful place for information publishing, storage and exchange. It runs on a set of technical standards only. Countries may apply restrictions but these are limited to those countries only; besides, there are ways of ‘working around’ them. Strangely, while this model, which has worked so well for information including some geospatial information all these years, there are still those who look for ‘centralisation’ of geospatial information. All the centralisation that is needed is a set of technical standards and a legal mandate. Any agency that wishes to publish, store and exchange geospatial information could easily follow these standards and laws and set up their own information node. It needs to be understood that while a set of base data may be needed universally, every institution needs its own unique information and applications. This is perhaps exemplified by the NDMA’s guidelines for disaster management. One wonders how these very specific requirements could be met with a monolithic National GIS. The Malaysian example of making use of geospatial data for decision making a legal necessity may be a better solution. Lay down standards and the law and leave the rest to the executive agencies and end users.
Prof Arup Dasgupta
arup@geospatialmedia.net |
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