[Geodata] Themes and Direction from FOSS4G

[Chris Ingrassia]

	I suppose this is probably as good a time as any for me to chime in  
on the list.  Those of you who were present at the session and/or BOF  
at FOSS4G might me remember me as the guy who was evangelizing  
GeoCommons a tad during both events.

	I would just like to reiterate our sincere interest in helping open  
geodata efforts of any sort move forward and that we are very much  
interested in not only putting forth GeoCommons as a potential  
launchpad from which to move forward with our common goals in this  
domain, but also better understanding what we can do to make  
GeoCommons better and more fit to help achieve those goals.

	I also certainly do not wish to give the impression that we are  
downplaying any of the great work done by GeoNetwork or any of the  
other projects and initiatives in the community, and, in fact, we  
would be intently interested in identifying ways that we can work  
with such projects.

	It is not my wish to let this initial email start resembling a sales  
pitch, so I will simply wrap up by throwing out a few of the relevant  
links for review and comment and then shut my yap about GeoCommons:

	GeoCommons itself: http://www.geocommons.com
	The GeoCommons API Documentation Pages: http://docs.geocommons.com


	In response to David's thoughts and inquiry, from where I'm sitting  
now, I think the two most important things to start attempting to  
solve are the issues of data licensing, and attempting, in whatever  
way is possible, to put the metadata concerns to rest.  Those are  
probably two of the most common things that I hear not only day to  
day at FortiusOne, but which also seemed to be recurring themes at  
FOSS4G.

	Perhaps a logical starting point for the ilcensing topic would  
simply be to collect feedback/thoughts on what the specific  
deficiencies of current license schemes are within the context of  
data, and which use cases we should target first in that respect  
(e.g. the completely open "do whatever you want and I don't care,  
just don't try and sue me" or something akin to a data-specific  
Creative Commons Attribution license).

	On the metadata front... I do certainly see the place for community  
driven metadata "standards," as it were, but I think it may be more  
important to simply establish how "close" the metadata needs to be to  
the data itself in various scenarios (e.g. always displayed side-by- 
side and explicitly embedded in any sort of data transmission  
operation vs. a link to arbitrary amounts of metadata from a dataset  
profile) to give different groups of people the level of comfort they  
need, and perhaps coming up with some sort of quick, at-a-glance  
"metadata rating system," as it were.  I guess you might think of it  
as a Fujita scale for metadata, where 1 might mean the content of the  
dataset is roughly described in an informal way, all the way to  
whatever the metadata equivalent of "You could eat off of it" would  
be.  Just my $0.02.


Thanks for your time, look forward to talking to and working with you  
all in the future,

--
Chris Ingrassia
FortiusOne/GeoCommons

On Oct 5, 2007, at 2:52 PM, David William Bitner wrote:

> Greetings all,
>
> I'm just now getting back to the grindstone after Victoria and  
> wanted to provide a summary of some of the discussions that took  
> place as well as some of the directions that I see these taking  
> us.  I've tried to bring up things that were brought up by others,  
> but do note I am not trying to shy away from my own editorializing.
>
> The main Geodata Committee activities at FOSS4G were comprised by a  
> standing room only panel moderated by Schuyler along with Chris  
> Holmes and myself on the panel and Jo piping up from the back of  
> the room and a more intimate, but also more in depth BOF session  
> which built on many of the themes which were brought up during the  
> panel.  Additional Geodata-ish activities could be seen in the  
> strong presentations and labs put on by the GeoNetwork folks -- It  
> was great for myself to really see what GeoNetwork is all about as  
> I had never really gotten into it before this.
>
>
> Some of the issues that came up:
> * metadata hosting
>   -- formal long metadata
>   -- simplified metadata
>   -- why the snot aren't we leveraging GeoNetwork more
> * actual data hosting
>   -- people who would like to see data
>   -- people who have data, but not the resources or business need  
> to host themselves well
> * showcase software with data
>   -- educational use
>   -- people like to see *their* house
> * Geodata licensing
>   -- licensing of specific data
>   -- licensing of formats
>
> One of the trends that I saw harkens back to the lightning talk  
> that Ed McNierney gave at the opening plennary: are we trying to  
> build a 3/4" drill bit or are we trying to get a 3/4" hole.  I  
> think we have spent a lot of time trying to think about solutions  
> to a problem that we haven't ever full defined.
>
> Some of the use cases that were brought up during the conference:
> * Repository of base data sets that could be easily subset and sent  
> to a location in on a drive or dvd in an emergency (low/no  
> bandwidth situations)
> * Showcase foundation software (if this is a goal, we really need  
> to make GeoNetwork a major priority)
> * Catalog to easily find data that is perhaps hosted elsewhere
> * Datasets for educational use (Grass has done an awesome job here)
> * Place to put data that nobody else has resources to host
> * Place to put data that existing resources are inadequate for
> * Place to reprocess data into value added products
> * Resource to provide clarification and leadership on licensing issues
>
> One thing that I would like to see us do is to more clearly define  
> a single mission statement.  Currently we have what I would  
> describe as a set of four objectives that address how we are going  
> to do things, but nothing that describes what it is that we are  
> trying to accomplish and more importantly perhaps why we are trying  
> to accomplish them.  Once we have clearly defined what our mission  
> as a group is, I think that it will be easier to set up  
> infrastructure and direct volunteer efforts in ways that will  
> further both our mission as a group and the mission of OSGeo as a  
> whole.
>
> I'd like to hear what things that other folks took away from the  
> conference.  Also from those who were not able to make it to the  
> conference what $.02 do you have to add?  Are we on the right  
> track?  Are we all scattered off doing our own thing?
>
> David
> -- 
> ************************************
> David William Bitner
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