Abstract:

With the rapid advancement of information technology, the open source paradigm has become popular in multiple domains, including geographic information system (GIS). Developing an open, collaborative, and sustainable open source GIS ecosystem can promote GIS technology innovation, lower implementation costs, and foster development within the field. This study systematically investigates methods for developing an open source GIS ecosystem and its future trends, addressing four main aspects: ① reviewing the development history of open source GIS and the current technological landscape to refine a four-stage evolutionary framework; ② from a GIS perspective and based on the existing open source foundation, proposing a multi-layered ecosystem construction model specifically tailored to GIS; ③ introducing HyperCRX to perform quantitative analysis and visualization of four metrics—OpenRank, Activity, Contributors, and Participants—for eight representative open source GIS projects, thereby revealing differences in their influence, activity levels, and community engagement to reflect the current state of the ecosystem; and ④ summarizing the challenges faced by the open source GIS ecosystem in terms of public perception, talent cultivation, governance mechanisms, data–software coordination, and sustainable business models, as well as outlining future development directions and research hotspots in the era of large-scale models. It is hoped that this study will provide useful references for future research and practical applications.

Key words: open source ecosystem, geographic information system, open source software