Floss in Cadastre and Land Registration

Expectations from involvement with Open-source initiatives

Samoa, through MNRE, began its interest in open-source initiatives through at-

tendance at the FAO supported Open-Source Cadastral and Registration (OSCAR) 

workshop in Dunedin, New Zealand in May 2008. At that stage they had made the 

transition from paper based land registration and cadastral mapping systems to 

computerised systems based on proprietory commercial software. Although the 

land registration software was custom developed for Samoa and MNRE owned the 

source code, there was an ongoing need for software support and potential future 

costs because the land registration software was written in a Microsoft environment.

For these reasons, MNRE expects the use of open-source software (including 

 OSCAR) and the migration of the current two computerised systems to an open-

source environment will reduce the future cost of proprietory software. Specific-

ally, Mapinfo and potentially Microsoft SQL Server software licences. OSCAR 

would also minimise the MNRE’s current dependency on international experts for 

software and computer mapping support through the OSCAR pilot’s goal of build-

ing up expertise in these areas within Samoa and the MNRE. 

MNRE are committed to several futher cadastral and land registration reforms 

and are aware that these initiatives will require further computerisation develop-

ments to support them. These initiatives include:

•

  New legislation to allow for the issue of titles to apartments including those 

 located on customary land (proposed Unit Title Bill is under consideration by 

Parliament).

•

  Replacement software for the current DOS based cadastral survey calculation 

(SDRMap) software used by both the Quality Assurance Section and cadastral 

surveyors.

•

  Improved assess to Samoa View cadastral mapping and title registration in-

formation (initially within all sections of MNRE but ultimately to other govern-

ment and private sector agencies).

•

  Digital lodgement of both registration transactions and cadastral surveys.

MNRE’s interest in open-source software solutions is not limited to its cadastral 

and registration functions. Through MNRE’s environmental responsibilities it plans 

to be part of the proposed Integrated Climate Change Adaption in Samoa (ICCAS) 

project which will use the same POSTGRES database management system as is 

proposed for OSCAR. Open-source software is also being investigated by the 

 Ministry of Education.

References

AUSAID (2008). Making Land Work. Volume One, Reconciling customary land and development in the Pacific.

CIA (2008). The World Fact Book.

Crocombe, R. (1971). Land Tenure in the Pacific.

Fuatai, P. (2008). Samoa Country Presentation. Workshop on the “Free / Libre Open-Source Cadastre and Land 

Registration Shell“ in Dunedin, New Zealand.

---

82

4.6 Solothurn, 

Switzerland

 Horst 

Düster

The Canton of Solothurn in Switzerland provides services and infrastructure 

to 250,000 citizens. In the year 2001, the cantonal Parliament decided to migrate 

from Windows to Linux. The main motivations were to become independent 

from one particular vendor, to encourage free enterprise, and reduce license costs. 

As a result, the cantonal office for geographic information (SO!GIS) started to 

 deliver the GIS services for more than 3,500 employees according to a FOSSGIS 

strategy.

The first step was the introduction of UMN MapServer and the creation of a 

SO!MAP client that offers an easy to use WebGIS client for all 3,500 employees. 

The second step was the migration of all geospatial data from Shapefiles to the 

PostGIS spatial database engine. The introduction was successful, although an 

easy-to-use desktop GIS was lacking.

In 2006, after the evaluation of different desktop GIS, the decision was taken 

to use QGIS in conjunction with GRASS, replacing ESRI ArcInfo and ArcView3. The 

decision was driven by the following aspects:

  1. Due to the use of desktop GIS in a Linux Terminal Server environment, Java 

was not an option;

 2. OSGeo Project-Organisation;

  3.  GUI translated in German language;

  4.  Documentation written in German language;

  5.  An active developer nearby;

  6. This developer has been mandated to implement missing features such as 

 digitizing and map composing;

  7.  Application and plugin developement with Python;

  8.  Growing user community;

  9.  Active developer community;

10.  Independence from any particular operating system.