30 October 2013 - The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) seeks final “last-call” public comments on the current draft of the candidate OGC GeoPackage (GPKG) Encoding Standard. The GPKG Standards Working Group (SWG) will consider all submitted comments for minor and editorial changes when they prepare a final draft of the GeoPackage Standard.

The candidate OGC GeoPackage Encoding 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 can be used by mobile device users who require geospatial application services and associated data in disconnected or limited network connectivity environments where open, sharable geospatial data to support their applications is frequently unavailable. GeoPackage supports applications that involve creation of geospatial data products in enterprise computing environments, data product distribution to other computing environments, mobile workforce data capture and updates, and volunteered geographic information.

The GeoPackage and the related GPKG SQLite Configuration and GPKG SQLite Extension API will increase the cross-platform interoperability of geospatial applications and web services in the mobile world.  Standard configuration and APIs for access and management of GeoPackage data will provide consistent query and update results across such applications and services. 

All OGC standards are free and publicly available. The candidate OGC GeoPackage Encoding Standard can be downloaded from http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/115.

OGC will also release the candidate OGC GeoPackage (GPKG) Encoding Standard on GitHub, a web-based hosting service for software development projects, on 1 November 2013.  See http://opengis.github.io/geopackage/.

The GeoPackage SWG will consider change requests for the candidate GeoPackage Standard that have been posted through 8 November 2013.

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 475 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at  http://www.opengeospatial.org/contact.