[Board] LAS, standards, consensus, etc

[Cameron Shorter]

Hello Carl,
Thank you so much for sharing your years of wisdom on collaboration. 
With your permission, I'm sharing with the OSGeo community as I feel 
your advise too good not to share. (Including the bit where you slap me 
around a bit.)

For those who haven't met Carl yet, he has been coordinating the OGC 
standards development for as long as I can remember. I've always found 
him insightful, respectful, and effective at bringing strongly 
opinionated people together into consensus.

Thanks Carl.

On 8/05/2015 7:12 am, Carl Reed wrote:
> All -
>
> I am writing as a long time GIS developer, business executive, and 
> more recently standards professional. I am writing as an individual 
> and not as an ex OGC employee. Feel free to share this email if you wish.
>
> I am providing the following as guidance. I have been following the 
> LIDAR standards discussion for some time, including the development 
> and release of the "open letter".
>
> Martin, in a recent email you used the word "demand", to whit: " . . . 
> please read the demands of the Open Letter more carefully". Demands, 
> whether implicit or explicit, do not work in the world of standards 
> development. They create barriers to collaboration, discussion, and 
> consensus. Discussion and consensus are at the core of any standards 
> work. I just finished a book chapter on consensus in the OGC. In that 
> chapter I stated,
>
> /Consensus decision-making is a group decision making process that 
> seeks the consent of all participants. Consensus may be defined 
> professionally as an acceptable resolution, one that can be supported, 
> even if not the "favorite" of each individual./
>
> (Thanks Wikipedia). Another key aspect - true in the OGC, IETF, OASIS, 
> W3C and other SDOs, is that consensus does not need to be unanimous. 
> Also, as you know, reaching consensus is hard and can take time.
>
> When the issue of LAS standards "fragmentation" was raised, the 
> resulting discussion started the consensus process. I know the OGC 
> quickly responded and began contacting interested individuals to 
> participate in an open discussion at the next OGC TC meeting. This was 
> planned well over a month ago and was partly in response to OSGeo 
> community concerns. Awareness was raised and cross community 
> discussions started. The OGC also planned weeks ago to meet with ASPRS 
> management at this week's ASPRS meeting to discuss LAS and joint 
> activities between ASPRS and the OGC. Esri responded very positively 
> to the first posting of the open letter to the OGC tc-discuss list. 
> Yes, Cameron, I read your blog posting refuting the Esri response. Too 
> bad you saw the Esri response as a negative and not a positive. 
> Stirring the pot the wrong way (in my opinion).
>
> So, the "standards pot is boiling". Time to stop stirring! By this I 
> mean if you keep pushing and pressuring and demanding, people will 
> stop listening. Human nature. The ball is rolling. Join the discussion 
> in a positive way. All the key players are engaged! But beware - you 
> may not agree with the end result! That can happen when a global, 
> large community with many stakeholders and constituents is engaged in 
> a dialogue for the development of a standard.
>
> Now one more point: fragmentation. Martin, you have no idea what real 
> fragmentation of format standards is like! Back in the 1980s, there 
> were dozens of format standards, such as DXF, IGES, SAIF, VPF, SDTS, 
> Arc Export, and on and on. I know that the company I operated back 
> then had a single product for format translation that supported 21 
> separate standards! That was fragmentation. Different semantics, 
> models, some topologically structured, some not. A real mess. This was 
> one of the main reasons my company joined the OGC in 1994!
>
> I will be participating in the OGC Point Cloud ad-hoc in Boulder. The 
> agenda will soon be released. Hopefully someone from the OSGeo 
> community familiar with LAS and with requirements and use cases will 
> participate!
>
> Warm regards
>
> Carl
> -- 
> Carl Reed, PhD
> Carl Reed and Associates
>
> Mobile: 970-402-0284
>
> 45 Years as a Geography and GIS professional and still going strong!

-- 
Cameron Shorter,
Software and Data Solutions Manager
LISAsoft
Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009

P +61 2 9009 5000,  W www.lisasoft.com,  F +61 2 9009 5099

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