1.1.2. Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and OpenGIS

Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is an international consortium of more than 330 companies, government agencies and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available specifications that support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. The specifications empower technology developers to make complex spatial information and services accessible and useful with all kinds of applications. (OGC)

You will learn more about OGC and it's activities in Unit 1.2. Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)

OpenGIS

OpenGIS is a Registered Trademark of the OGC and is the brand name associated with the Specifications and documents produced by the OGC (OGC). OpenGIS specifications are the main "products" of the OGC and have been developed by the membership to address specific interoperability challenges. Ideally, when specifications are implemented by two different software engineers working independently, the resulting components plug and play, that is they work together without further debugging. (OGC)