[Geodata] Rebooting this committee

[Andrew Turner]

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 6:40 AM, Seven (aka Arnulf) <seven at arnulf.us> wrote:

> 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/).

I think there is a tremendous opportunity here to understand and
provide guidance around concepts, technology and advocacy of general
open/free Geodata. There are domain specific issues as well as just
different communities to engage with than these existing organizations
may be focusing on.

>
> 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".

I like the general "Geodata" committee - it's already part of OSGeo,
so it's implied that it will be free and/or open etc. The discussion
here has been great and exactly the type of guidance and best practice
this committee can evolve and promote. However I think including it in
the name is repetitive and is subject to just the same confusion we
want to help clarify.

>
> 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.

Indeed, this would be valuable - particularly from the Geodata
specific side and also connect with other relevant guidelines such as
8 Open Government Data Principles
[https://public.resource.org/8_principles.html]

There are a lot of additional White papers that would be useful such
as archiving and preservation, privacy of open geodata, what you need
to know about licensing (imagine some simple explanations and
aggregated insights into CC vs. ODbL vs. PD vs....)

>
> 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".

I think this should be a secondary goal. There have been many
initiatives to create catalogues and catalogues of catalogues and they
always go out of date so quickly. I believe developing longer-lived
principles and guidelines is the most important and then promoting
exemplar sites is great to highlight these principles in practice
without trying to be exhaustive.

The community of open data and open geodata is much different now than
it was even 2 or 4 years ago. What used to be interesting but unproven
ideas are now common place as many local, regional and national
governments provide open data; global projects such as OpenStreetMap
have become generally accepted; and even commercial enterprises
embrace and promote open geodata. We can focus on making it better
instead of just making it happen. I'm excited.

Andrew