Directions Magazine has just published an article about three proposals recommending that the development of a national spatial data infrastructure (NSDI) be part of a US economic stimulus package
. I’ve mentioned two of them in this blog previously, because these proposals are from a group of companies including Google, Microsoft, ORACLE, Autodesk, and Intergraph in one case and a group of individuals in the other. Directions Magazine asked spokespeople for these two proposals, Michael Jones of Google and Jeff Harrison of the the Carbon Project, as well as Jack Dangermond on his company’s proposal, to
respond to three questions about the proposals. You can read these for yourself, but I liked Jeff Harrison’s
open approach
and his group’s suggestion “to establish a collaborative web discussion site for maintenance of the concept paper over time, and welcomes contributions and participation.”
I think Michael Jones really captured what many feel the nation needs right now, “We have focused our broad-based, shared proposal on what we believe meets the stimulus mandate of the administration, further enables geospatial technologies to assist in America’s economic rebound, and avoids using the economic crisis to our own business advantage. We welcome the support – directly to Congress or through any of us – of the entire geospatial community in advocating the importance of these themes and the peril of ignoring them. This is the time for the geospatial community to serve our nation.”
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