Question: What are the pros and cons of different data formats (performance, file size, etc.) when considering open data distribution?

Our organisation wants to publish data as open data. However, there is no clear idea on which data formats to use. Ofcourse, the more 'open' a data format is, the easier it is to use.

Which data formats are the most 'open' and therefore most usable for the distribution of Open Data when taking the following types in consideration?:

* raster data (I'm thinking: GeoTIFF, Erdas Imagine IMG?)
* vector data (I'm thinking: GML, CSV, ESRI Shapefile, DXF?)
* tabular data (I'm thinking: CSV?)
* 3D data (I'm thinking: CityGML?)
* 3D point coulds / LIDAR (I'm thinking: LAS?)
* am I forgetting something here?

Also, if there is documentation about open data formats I'm very interested if you would like to share.

Answer: 
The city of Vienna's open data initiative (<http://data.wien.gv.at>) uses Geoserver to provide access to raster and vector geodata via Geoserver **WMS and WFS** services. This has many advantages: Users can download data in different formats for offline use (e.g. geojson, KML, or zipped Shapefiles) or use the services live by embedding them in online maps or GIS projects.
Virtually this exact same question came up at opendata.SE: [What are the most useful formats in which to release geospatial data?](https://opendata.stackexchange.com/questions/313/what-are-the-most-useful-formats-in-which-to-release-geospatial-data/4932#4932)

So, hopefully I'm not violating any policies in quoting my own answer there:

My experience, making maps from quite a few government datasets:

For point data, CSV is the best, with "lat" and "lon" columns. Very easy to work with in a wide range of tools, including text editors, spreadsheets, etc. There are two downsides:

1. GDAL requires a `.vrt` companion file.
2. The naming of the `lat` and `lon` columns is not totally standard. Many tools are pretty liberal in what they accept.

For lines and polygons, in decreasing order of preference:

1. GeoJSON. Easy to work with, and the ability to edit in a text editor or with [geojson.io](http://geojson.io) is a real bonus, if you need to do search/replace, remove a couple of weird objects or copy and paste from one file to another. Another benefit is that non-GIS developers can make sense of it. Only issues I've run into is when someone provides data as say MultiPoint instead of Point.
2. Shapefile. Very widely supported, but with two inconvenient points. First, it's a collection of files, so you have to pass around a .zip and extract it. Second, field names are limited to 10 characters. They're hard to edit for your average non-GIS person.
3. KML/KMZ. These often have a lot of irrelevant cruft (styling, icons, etc), and attributes are sometimes encoded as mini HTML tables, which are really hard to work with. At least you can edit them easily with Google tools.

Honestly, though, the best answer is probably "all of them". Do everyone a favour and release the data in CSV (if point), GeoJSON, zipped Shapefile and KMZ.