[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Sign the Hague declaration

[Chris Puttick]

----- "P Kishor" <punk.kish at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/15/08, Chris Puttick <chris.puttick at thehumanjourney.net> wrote:
> >
> >  ----- "P Kishor" <punk.kish at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  > >

> >
> > Standards for everything that matters.
> 
> Chris,
> 
> You are conflating a whole boatload of things here, and "everything
> that matters" is about the biggest boatload there can be.
> 
> >
> >  A physical example: in the UK we have a standard for electrical
> plugs and sockets and for the supply. This means that I can buy a lamp
> or a fridge I can be sure it will be able to plug in to my electrical
> socket and just work and I don't risk death by using it.
> 
> And, when I travel from the US to the UK, I am sol unless I carry a
> "driver" or a "translator" that allows me to connect my appliance to
> the UK grid.

Yes, exactly. And your translator might be big and expensive, if for example, you moved here and brought your white goods with you. I have a US-market breadmaker which needs 700W at 110v; that needs a significant transformer, not just a simple shape-shift. But in the end home electrical needs are simple and the differences between the different plug standards well documented, because all are standardised in their home countries. Is there a country where there isn't a standard plug/socket/supply?

> 
> What was the standard here? I didn't force UK to change to 110 v and
> to flat pins. I just went to the market and bought a translator.

Ok, go to market and buy a translator that works between a whole bunch of voltages and all plugs (do include the Swiss one...) for any domestic appliance e.g. a vacuum cleaner at 1.2kW as well as your laptop, mobile and MP3 player. Then do that for undocumented, unstandardised binary data formats.

> 
<snip>
> >
> >  SQL already is a standard (the openness of it let's debate another
> day). A well-behaved (R/O)DBMS responds more or less the same way to
> an SQL query as the others. This has been a useful evolution of
> databases, reflecting their relative age. But we do not have standards
> in many areas of digital life where it would be important, or where
> the standards exist, they are not being mandated and therefore are not
> being adopted.
> 
> SQL is not a data storage format. SQL is a query standard, and a
> fairly malleable one.

Yes, but it is a standard. How the (R/O)DBMS stores the data is neither here nor there if the query is well-formed and response appropriate. The standard for databases is not the storage format but the query language and response. Compliance with one of the SQL standards is commonly de riguer in government projects with databases.

> 
> Are you talking about data storage formats or about query standards?

Standards. For the digital world. For file formats, for query languages, for APIs, for wikis.
> 
> >
> >  So the shortish answer to your question: standards for the digital
> plugs and sockets and standards for the digital power supply. The
> plugs and sockets are the APIs and the protocols; lots of that is
> already sorted. The digital power supply is the information that
> flows, the stuff that is important in this information age we are
> entering. It is there we are short of standards. I don't want to
> dictate to anyone what software they should use. I do think I should
> be able to demand that they provide information in a standardised
> format and this not be an issue because they don't have a specific
> software package. Where there are no available standards we have to be
> pragmatic initially, but we must move, with some urgency, towards a
> position where there are standards for those interchanges i.e. develop
> them either from existing formats or by starting clean.
> >
> 
> 
> My shortish reply is that there is no shortish reply. I am with you
> with regards to the sentiment. But I am convinced that the
> digistan/"Hague declaration" is not the way to go about doing so.
> 
> We've had a lot of discussion about standards on OSGeo lists as well
> as on Geowanking lists. Some of that discussion merits re-reading.
> 
> Some are born standards (Shapefiles, by virtue of first-entry as well
> as subsequent ubiquity)

Shapefiles are not a standards until they are documented and in the control of a neutral party. Wait until ESRI switch to shapeb, the new binary default file format... Shapefiles are however a good starting point for a standard for storing that type of digital information as they are at least clear and well-understood. I'm told there was also a GIS project file format that was similarly easy to understand.

, some achieve standards (OGC-type standards
> by
> discussion and committee), and others have standards thrust upon them
> (big agencies using MS-Word or ArcGIS).

You confuse common ways of doing things with standards. MS Word and ArcGIS are not standards, just dominant players in their field. It is not appropriate that specific software is needed to interoperate with information created in those applications.

OGC makes standards. They are a fairly typical standards consortium composed primarily of companies that would normally throw things at each other rather than collaborate who have forced themselves to collaborate on developing standards. OASIS is another such body with a less-focused remit.
> 
> In the end, the most useful and easy to implement format and query
> interchange method approaches the level of a standard.
> 
> >
> >  Chris
> >
> >
> >  ------
> >  Files attached to this email may be in ISO 26300 format (OASIS Open
> Document Format). If you have difficulty opening them, please visit
> http://iso26300.info for more information.
> >
> 
> I found this end-tag to your email quite humorous unintentionally --
> thankfully no file was attached, but if it had been, and if I had had
> difficulty opening it, seems like it would have been my
> responsibility
> to figure out how to open it. Thankfully, my life didn't depend on
> it.

No file, not that time. But isn't nice of me to ensure that people don't just receive a file they can't open without providing any assistance? Sent or received received many docx files? DWG (really recent versions, preferably) files?

BTW, you don't have OpenOffice? Or KOffice? Lotus Symphony? A Google Docs account? All deal with ODF just fine ;)

> Some "standards" have a long way to go before they become a standard.

Not so far as you might think. ODF is mandated by a number of governments worldwide. Several US states tried to adopt it but the lobbyists got mean and nasty on that one. I would expect MS Office to have reasonable ODF support in the foreseeble future, that's why the government mandate is so useful...




------
Files attached to this email may be in ISO 26300 format (OASIS Open Document Format). If you have difficulty opening them, please visit http://iso26300.info for more information.