[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: [OSGeo-Standards] TMS and WMTS

[Michael P. Gerlek]

Please -- let's keep in mind that OGC != OSGeo, and reflexively, OSGeo != OGC.  They are different kinds of organizations with different goals and different communities.  (Indeed, OSGeo+OGC < EntireGISWorld.)  We're not here to discuss whether OGC itself has merit.

There are many different types of ways to produce new protocols (and I deliberately do not use the work standard here) in the world.  Some are best developed from the ground up, in advance of any existing practice.  Some are canonicalizations of existing practice.  Some are evolved slowly and deliberately with a number of participants and high ceremony.  Some are developed rapidly and informally with one or few participants and little or no ceremony.  Our industry has been well served at times by all of these types of methodologies and we will continue to do so.

A key issue that we can profitably discuss here is: what factors should go into deciding how a new protocol should be developed?  When is the high ceremony approach better than the low ceremony approach, and vice versa?  I think that discussion would do much to underlie the question of how OGC and OSGeo can work better together.

-mpg, who has one foot in the evil proprietary world,
      one foot in the OGC world,
      and a third foot in the open source world