The Democratizing Potential of Geographic Exploration Systems (GES) Through the Example of GRIFINOR

In this paper we have looked at the obvious possibility that GES can change the very fundament of spatial data infrastructures when it comes to democratization of geo-information. From the ideas of “Digital Earth” to the situation of today where several vendors has launched equivalent solutions to support the idea of GES. The second part of the paper presented a new GES called GRIFINOR, where major principles such as distributable network, object-orientation and open source was explained. With the launch of GRIFINOR, a new and exiting platform for geographic exploration is accessible for everyone. Next step in this evolution will be development of specific applications that can run on the platform. We hope this will take place in the near future.