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

[Seven (aka Arnulf)]

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Hey,
sorry to spam Discuss with nerdy smalltalk. We might want to move back
to the standards list for follow ups.

Brian Russo wrote:
> I have a simpler/better idea - have the OGC stop creating
> unnecessarily complex standards hundreds of pages long that hardly
> anyone implements. This will save time/money, and benefit users,
> proprietary and open source developers alike.

Yes making standards readable and usable is a great idea. It takes time
and brains to implement a good standard. I lack both, so not a good
choice. How about you? If you are good at this why don't you join the
OGC process and help do it better? But watch out, the OGC has a high
frustration potential because there is always knowledgeable folks around
who pick apart what you just put together. Which is why some standards
actually work pretty well.

> Sometimes I think it's a concerted effort to make sure the 'open'
> standards are as complex as possible so few people have the resources

Thank you for the laugh but you do not believe this yourself. So why say
it? This is exactly the tone I regret in this discussion. OGC is neither
a conspiracy nor are they all brain dead. I might be both, conceded, but
this is beside the topic.

> to implement them (except proprietary vendors and academics with tons
> of time) and the rest of us all stick with proprietary standards

I guess that you will be of the same opinion as me that an open standard
that all can use for free is better than a costly and potentially patent
infected proprietary standard that can be changed at the whim of its
singular (proprietary vendor) owner. At least I can see a difference.

> (because we have the software - the lazy solution), or simple open
> ones like GeoRSS-Simple (because a normal person with a normal
> schedule can actually understand it).

That is another one that should go under the hood of OSGeo, if it is to
become of any relevance for example to INSPIRE. If they want to use it,
it has to become an ISO standard, else you can't stuff it in a law.
Stupid, aint it?

> WMS has been a pretty good success even though I'm sure that'll get
> some snickering from the peanut gallery due to its age - it is still a

Ah - but a standard is good if it lasts, isn't it? Imagine having http
change every half year. Wouldn't that be fun? There sure would be more
work to do for us. HTTP 1.1 is 176 pages[1].

> common method especially for some older software we support - but when
> I look at the list of OGC standards
> (http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards), for the most part I see
> well-intentioned but effectively irrelevant standards. What happened?

Quite a few standards never took off because they are crap. As simple as
that. It is somewhat similar to SourceForge. By just looking at 350.000
Open Source projects one might be awed. But how many really work?

> Sarcasm? Maybe, but WMS 1.3.0 runs in at 84 pages, and is
> well-written/concise. Looking at just the GML description gives me a
> headache - http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/gml. It proudly
> proclaims it's an ISO standard as well. So what? If it's barely used

You are right, GML sucks bad. But it is not true that it is not used.
The German Cadastral and Surveying Authorities of the Länder adopted GML
as core for the new cadastral base map format. They could only do so
because it is an ISO de-jure standard and can only thus become part of a
law. Technically it is a huge PITA. Just like cadastral bas maps are.
But it also makes sure that folks now don't fall off the plate when they
step over the border of their city boundaries, county or state. This is
an achievement that neither proprietary vendors nor foss hackers managed
in the whole cadastral IT history. The use case is just a bit different
than locating the next pizza palace. The cadastre maps ownership - the
basis of our whole economy (be it broken or not, this is what we live
in, on and off).

> it's barely a standard. Maybe my corner of the world is just strange
> and elsewhere it's a candyland of people happily plucking geodata from
> OGC-standardized data services while riding unicorns, but I don't
> think so. I think we're pretty typical.
> 
> OGCification of standards like KML are even more hilarious since
> Google Earth is well below ESRI on my list of 'opendata-compliant
> software'. Sure lots of people 'support' KML but overwhelmingly they
> support some simplified subset of the ~250 page standards document.

KML is more interesting from the governance perspective. And I am pretty
happy that KML is not owned by Google any more but by the OGC because
the OGC is a non-profit organization dedicated to make the world
interoperate. When KML came out everybody was full of praise for the
pragmatic way of doing things. Now that it is in the OGC it sucks again?
Funny.

Google now has to ask a diverse bunch of spatial experts, geo
professionals and neo geographers if their changes to KML are worth
pursuing. And OGC makes sure that even you have a say in the public
comment period. Not bad, huh? But it gets even cooler. You could be one
of those diverse spatial experts, geo professionals and neo geographers
and join the process right from the start! If you think it sucks, then
you can say so right away. Why wait until many people have invested lots
of time and written large incomprehensible documents? You are wasting
other people's time by complaining *afterwards*.

:-)

No offense taken please. Maybe I got carried away just a bit.

Regards,
Arnulf

>   - bri
> 
> 
>>>> Schuyler Erle wrote:
>>>>> * On  6-Apr-2010 at  6:13PM EDT, Cameron Shorter said:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Suggested improvement: The OGC should weight OGC testbed funding to
>>>>>> favour  Open Source implementations, as the implementations are
>>>>>> significantly more valuable to OGC sponsors and the greater GIS
>>>>>> community as the implementations are made available for free.
>>>>> One last point: The OGC should take the final suggestion made by
>>>>> Cameron very seriously.
>>>>>
>>>>> SDE
> 
> 
> 

[1] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616#page-176

- --
Arnulf Christl

Exploring Space, Time and Mind
http://arnulf.us
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