[OSGeo-Board] Re: [OSGeo-info] press question

[Chris Holmes]

Jo Walsh wrote:
> dear head cheese, and fellow more subsidiary cheeses, 
> 
> On Mon, Oct 30, 2006 at 01:00:06PM -0500, Frank Warmerdam wrote:
>> Actually, I'd rather you didn't quote that.  I used the word "we" several
>> times for stuff that isn't decided at all.  For instance, I wrote "we
>> don't want to take on a "standards process" as a part of our mission."
>> but that isn't really firmly established.  You may quote me on the 
>> following:
> 
> Hm yes, this does sound like shoe-shuffling to me. It depends what you
> define as a "standards process" and what the outcome of it is. OSGeo
> projects are reference implementations for OGC standards and arguably
> inform what works and doesn't, influencing the standards process a lot
> through activities like OWS-N. There is a lot of weight of open
> standards wonks in the OSGeo membership and there have been a couple
> of yet-to-be-really fruitful, but active and participatory efforts at
> collective lightweight "standards" for data exchange where heavier
> standards are not addressing the problem space, or not addressing it
> in an implementor- and user- friendly way. 
> 
> While part of the mission is encouraging the adoption of open
> standards that should include encouraging their implementation both
> inside and outside OSGeo projects and that includes encouraging the
> implementation of "homegrown" standards like, as you say, GeoRSS. I
> think OSGeo could continue to have an increasingly valuable role to
> play as a testbed and safe space for standards prototype development
> and i definitely would not like to rule this out in public! :)

I definitely agree with this, but I'd still be hesitant to say we 'take 
on a "standards process"' in public.  Saying we're a testbed and safe 
space for standards prototype is much different, indeed if you say 
you're doing standards processes then people will see it as competing 
with OGC, W3C, ect.  I like the model of incubating with us and passing 
off to one of the 'official' standards bodies.

I like that phrase a lot actually, perhaps that should be the 'official 
position' - 'OSGeo serves as a testbed and safe space for standards 
prototype development', perhaps followed by something like 'in the hope 
that these community driven standards may grow in to full fledged OGC or 
W3C specifications'...

Chris

> 
> cheers,
> 
> 
> jo
>> """
>> This is not well understood internally yet.  On the one hand, I don't want
>> to take on a "standards process" as a part of our mission.  I am generally
>> pleased to have OGC, ISO, IETF, etc take on that role which is a hard one.
>> On the other hand, we have lots of folks on different projects interested in
>> establishing some defacto common approaches, which in some cases might later
>> be taken to a formal standards organization.
>>
>> Whether we formalize this in any way is still open to debate.  There are
>> those that would like to see OSGeo as a home for lightweight standards like
>> GeoRSS and tile spec standards.
>> """
> 
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-- 
Chris Holmes
The Open Planning Project
http://topp.openplans.org
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