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<div class=Section1>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Arial Narrow"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow";color:blue'>One of my
biggest problems with the OGC is the lack of a practical membership avenue for
open source projects and/or programmers. I think it would be great if the OSGeo
or some of its participating projects could serve as a vehicle that would allow
for more participation by the open source community in OGC standard
development.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Arial Narrow"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow";color:blue'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Arial Narrow"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow";color:blue'>The Sunburned
Surveyor<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Arial Narrow"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow";color:blue'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center tabindex=-1>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font size=2
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>
discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org] <b><span
style='font-weight:bold'>On Behalf Of </span></b>Jeroen Ticheler<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> Monday, July 16, 2007 2:12
PM<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> OSGeo Discussions<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGEO
& OGC spec development</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Hi all,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Last week I attended the Open Geospatial Consortium Technical Committee
(OGC-TC) meeting in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Paris</st1:place></st1:City>. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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 <a href="http://www.opengeospatial">http://www.opengeospatial</a>
org for more details.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>1- Discussions related to Google's KML and Web Map Context<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>2- Discussions related to a Tiled Web Map Service specifications<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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 :-)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Greetings from <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Rome</st1:place></st1:City>,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Jeroen<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=1 color=black face=Helvetica><span
style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black'><span
style='border-spacing: 0px 0px;text-align:auto;-khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none;
-apple-text-size-adjust: auto;orphans: 2;widows: 2;word-spacing:0px'>_______________________<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=1 color=black face=Helvetica><span
style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black'>Jeroen Ticheler<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=1 color=black face=Helvetica><span
style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black'>FAO-UN<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=1 color=black face=Helvetica><span
style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black'>Tel: +39 06 57056041<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=1 color=black face=Helvetica><span
style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black'><a
href="http://www.fao.org/geonetwork">http://www.fao.org/geonetwork</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=1 color=black face=Helvetica><span
style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black'>42.07420°N 12.34343°E<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black'><br>
<br>
</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</span></span></span>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
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