[Geodata] Minimal metadata for modern geodata

[Jo Walsh]

dear all at geodatacommons,

I come in peace from the OSGeo Geodata Committee. Collectively there
has been some hard thinking about geospatial metadata, with a lot in
common with the position held in your MD whitepaper. We've also been
coordinating a FOSS community response to the draft profile for
metadata in Europe. It's more of a meta-profile, a very different beast
from the new North American Profile guidelines based on ISO19115. 
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Reading_the_INSPIRE_Metadata_Draft

If you read that page, there is a mention of wanting to connect with
the geodatacommons group on a response to the NAP Profile draft.
I sat down and read it, realised there is no way of modifying or
critiquing it without critiquing the whole ISO19115 model, and wrote
this discussion draft: http://frot.org/terradue/minimal_metadata.html

On the one hand I am starting to hear real world success stories from
people working, without other options, in an ebXML framework to carry 
metadata about OGC standard web services for geographic data around; 
on the other, GeoRSS/FOAF/Dublin Core between them provide adequate
representation for a minimal model for 'non-expert' metadata to be
published and collected. ISO19115 is falling between two stools, and I
fear that as it is currently framed it is going to have as little
utility to data producers and users, as the current FGDC core does.

I want to know what I am overlooking, what I am taking for granted and
how the free and open source geospatial community could help out the 
geodata/metadata user community by building simpler interfaces and 
real use cases into cataloguing and search platforms... 

cheers, and best of luck,


jo
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