[OSGeo-Discuss] OSGEO & OGC spec development

[Michael P. Gerlek]

Sean has a good point: some of the OGC specs have been developed with relatively few members in the working group, which I think can tend to lead to inclusion of some obscure feature just because there's not a wide enough group to object.

-mpg

 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org 
> [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Sean Gillies
> Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2007 10:24 AM
> To: OSGeo Discussions
> Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGEO & OGC spec development
> 
> Michael,
> 
> Standards bodies are a good thing if they produce good standards.
> 
> OGC standards tend toward fussy intricacy (compare WFS-T to the Atom 
> Publishing Protocol) and pointless abstraction (all the so-called 
> distributed computing platforms that no one uses). I don't 
> know why, but 
> I suspect that it's cultural (no, I don't mean Canadian 
> culture). Going 
> public has the potential to reform the culture of the OGC.
> 
> Regards,
> Sean
> 
> Michael P. Gerlek wrote:
> > FYI, later this week at the GeoWeb conference in Vancouver 
> we're having a discussion on this hot topic:
> >  
> >> Ever wonder why we need standards bodies?  Can we just do 
> it with a Wiki?
> >> We have open source, why not open source open standards? 
> What about intellectual
> >> property protection?  Can I afford to belong to a 
> standards body?  Can I afford
> >> not to? Do standards bodies impede or drive innovation?  
> How should neo-geo and
> >> OGC work together?  What are the pitfalls of "going public"?  
> > 
> > I'll be on the panel, as will Carl Reed from OGC.
> > 
> > (Feel free to send me any comments/positions you'd like me 
> to put forward.)
> > 
> > -mpg 
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > 
> > ________________________________
> > 
> > 	From: discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org 
> [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Jeroen Ticheler
> > 	Sent: Monday, July 16, 2007 2:12 PM
> > 	To: OSGeo Discussions
> > 	Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGEO & OGC spec development
> > 	
> > 	
> > 	Hi all, 
> > 	Last week I attended the Open Geospatial Consortium 
> Technical Committee (OGC-TC) meeting in Paris. 
> > 
> > 	For those not to familiar with this meeting, it 
> consists of a series of Working Group (WG) meetings that 
> mostly run around the development of specifications (or 
> standards if you wish) dealing with geo-informatics. The most 
> prominent specifications coming from OGC are Web Map Service 
> (WMS), Web Feature Service (WFS) and Geographic Markup 
> Language (GML). There's a whole list of other specs available 
> or under development. OSGEO projects work with a substantial 
> number of them. See http://www.opengeospatial org for more details.
> > 
> > 	With this email I would like to touch upon two issues 
> that I think are relevant to OSGEO. I hope bringing this up 
> can trigger some discussion on how OSGEO would best benefit 
> from the OGC spec development process:
> > 
> > 	1- Discussions related to Google's KML and Web Map Context
> > 	2- Discussions related to a Tiled Web Map Service specifications
> > 
> > 	There was discussion on the possibility that KML 
> becomes an OGC specification and, more importantly, that it 
> could be used to replace the wining Web Map Context (WMC) 
> specification. A number of OSGEO projects use the Styled 
> Layer Descriptors (SLD (symbology)) specification and the 
> WMC. There's a great deal of overlap between these and KML. 
> It is likely in the interest of these projects to share their 
> experience with OGC and see some of that reflected in future 
> OGC specs.
> > 
> > 	There was also discussion about a new Tiled WMS 
> specification. Such spec can have different forms, and could 
> be conceived as a new spec or as an extension (or application 
> profile) of a Web Map Service. Two approaches were presented 
> and two other approaches were mentioned, among which the 
> approach taken within the OSGEO community.
> > 
> > 	Observing these discussions, my impression is that 
> OSGEO has an important role to play in the further 
> development of these OGC specs. We can obviously take the 
> easy route and let OGC go its way. We could than come up with 
> in-house, open specifications that will compete with OGC 
> specs still under development. The development of the specs 
> is likely to be quicker than going through OGC. However, I 
> feel that with limited effort by the community we can have a 
> very positive influence on the OGC spec development. We can 
> make sure experiences in OSGEO are reflected in the OGC 
> specs. The WMS-T is an obvious example of this. It was kind 
> of frustrating to not see that experience properly 
> represented at the WMS-WG. 
> > 
> > 	OSGEO is very young still, so frustration is not an 
> expression of dissatisfaction in this case :-) rather, I 
> think it might be time to establish a way to formally 
> represent OSGEO in OGC. This could be through those OSGEO 
> members that already hold a TC level membership to OGC (the 
> logical first step I would think) and later possibly through 
> a direct OSGEO TC Membership to OGC. Also, we could consider 
> a focal point in OSGEO where specification development is 
> discussed and coordinated. This may have the form of a 
> Committee for instance. I'm hesitant to propose new 
> Committees, but if there's enough interest to have a central 
> coordination point dealing with standards and specs, it may 
> make sense :-)
> > 
> > 	Greetings from Rome,
> > 	Jeroen
> > 
> > 		_______________________
> > 	Jeroen Ticheler
> > 	FAO-UN
> > 	Tel: +39 06 57056041
> > 	http://www.fao.org/geonetwork
> > 	42.07420°N 12.34343°E
> > 
> > 	
> > 
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