The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has releases a candidate OGC GeoPackage (GPKG) Standard or public commment. The GPKG Standards Working Group (SWG) will consider all submitted comments for a final draft of the GeoPackage Standard.

Mobile device users who require map/geospatial application services and operate in disconnected or limited network connectivity environments are challenged by not having open, available geospatial data to support these applications. 

An open, standards-based, application-independent, platform-independent, self-describing, GeoPackage (GPKG) data container, API and manifest are needed to overcome these challenges and to effectively support multiple map/geospatial applications such as fixed product distribution, local data collection, and geospatially enabled analytics. This standard is intended to facilitate widespread adoption and use of GeoPackages as standard containers for “MyGeoData” by both COTS and open-source software applications on enterprise production platforms as well as mobile hand-held devices.

The GeoPackage Standard provides an open, non-proprietary, platform-independent SQLite container for distribution and direct use of all kinds of geospatial data, including vector features and tile matrix sets.  GeoPackage is intended to be used on mobile device in disconnected or limited network connectivity environments.  GeoPackage is designed for applications that involve creation of geospatial data in enterprise computing environments with data distribution to other computing environments, mobile workforce data capture and updates, and volunteered geographic information.

You can download the candidate GeoPackage Standard. Comments are due by 5 September 2013.