[Geodata] Rebooting this committee

[Seven (aka Arnulf)]

Hi,
this mailing list pertains to the Public Geospatial Data Committee [1].
I want to propose a few things which we might want to have a
conversation about. Maybe later this becomes a motion to create a work
group in this committee - if need be. Once we have figured out who is
interested in this work group and is prepared to collaborate we can step
up and have regular meetings and so on. But lets not overcommit right away.

0. Whatever already works in this committee should not be interrupted by
these new ideas. There has been considerable work on creating vector and
data repositories and services. I am widely ignorant of what the status
of these activities is.

1. My suggestion is to also use this committee as a hub to build
knowledge around licenses, maintain a repository of initiatives and link
everything together. Not so much like hard metadata in a catalog but a
lot looser, more like a big bucket with goodies to find.

1.a Reach out: Maybe there is no reason to do this here at all. There
are many others who care for open geospatial data in many different
facets, be it more from the methodological side like  in OKFN
(http://okfn.org/) hands-on like in OpenStreetMap
(http://openstreetmap.org) or metadata-focused as in CKAN
(http://thedatahub.org/).

You will all have contacts and insights into these and other
communities. Share your thoughts. If we then still believe that we
should do something "separate" here, then my first proposal would be to:

2. Rename "Public Geospatial Data Committee" to "Geodata". It is the
shortest and broadest we can get at the same time. And we will make sure
that we do not lose "public" and "open".

3. I would like to start work on a White paper explaining the different
aspects of Openness when it comes to geospatial data - er - geodata.

4. Maintain a collection of Open Data initiatives around the world,
public, private and community driven. Just list them, compare them, make
them a searchable resource for those still looking for ways to do it
"right".

There are obviously many more exciting things to do and I don't want to
seize any ideas or exclude others, so let's just get a round of
introductions (again) and ideas how to continue.


Best regards,
Arnulf.


[1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Public_Geospatial_Data_Committee
[2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Open_Source_and_Open_Standards

-- 
Exploring Space, Time and Mind
http://arnulf.us