[OSGeo-Discuss] Geospatial LoB RFI

Tue May 2 19:12:13 EDT 2006

Good additions... have to admit that some of the questions fly a little over
my head (change management??) but I think we should be able to come up with
some consensus pretty easily.

-Mike

On 5/2/06, Ned Horning <nedh at lightlink.com> wrote:
>
> Hello again,
>
> I made a few changes to the RFI wiki. I probably won't be able to spend
> time
> on this tomorrow (Wednesday) but may be able to look at it again on
> Thursday. It has to be turned in by e-mail by 5:00 PM EDT this Friday so
> there isn't a lot of time to wrap this up. Comments and edits are needed.
> As
> I mentioned yesterday this is not my area of expertise and I'm hoping some
> other folks will be able to help craft this into a decent document.
>
> At this point it's probably best to write in full sentences unless there
> is
> someone willing to convert some of the (excellent) bullets into a
> paragraph
> format Thursday or Friday.
>
> Here is what I added today in case you can't access the Wiki. There is
> some
> other good text on the Wiki page from other contributors so I encourage
> you
> to check it out if you can.
>
> --
> 2.2.2 What are the critical change management issues and best practices
> for
> successful transition to and full implementation of common solutions?
>
> A fundamental change management issue is to promote and adapt open
> standards
> for the collection (protocols), storage (file formats, media, and
> metadata),
> access, and processing of geographic data. A recently released report by
> the
> Digital Connections Council of the Committee for Economic Development,
> "Open
> Standards, Open Source, and Open Innovation: Harnessing the Benefits of
> Openness" (http://www.ced.org/projects/ecom.shtml#open) highlights the
> benefits from adapting open standards. This report found that openness can
> be used effectively to build standards that in turn can be used to enhance
> interoperability.
>
>
> 2.2.3 What cultural impediments and training issues are paramount at which
> stages of the transition? What are the solutions to them?
>
> Although the United States is a global leader in providing public access
> to
> data the process of collecting/creating, storing and processing these data
> are less open largely because vendors providing these services use secret
> and proprietary methods with the intent of gaining a competitive edge over
> their competition. This approach is rooted in traditional intellectual
> property protection ideals and can result in incompatibly and high costs
> to
> the government. This mindset is a significant cultural impediment to
> achieving common solutions for working with geospatial data and can be
> overcome by developing open data and software standards and promoting the
> benefits of this approach to the business community and government
> organizations.
>
>
> 2.2.8 How do you retain the advantages of competition while reaping the
> benefits of geospatial coordination and optimization?
>
> Advantages of competition are perceived to be improved innovation
> (producing
> a better product) and reduced cost to the consumer. By developing and
> using
> open standards innovation is improved because of the size and diversity of
> the community developing the standards. Cost is also reduced because once
> the standards and clearly defined metrics of success are in place the cost
> of entry to begin developing products is reduced. Competition is important
> but to strengthen competition it helps if companies can compete on a level
> playing field that is promoted through the use of open standards.
>
>
> 2.2.9 How do you ensure and manage ongoing innovation in geospatial
> coordination and optimization?
>
> The most effective way to ensure continued innovation with regard to
> geospatial coordination and optimization is to promote and adopt open
> standards for the creation/collection, storage, access, and processing of
> geospatial data. This includes contributing to the development of open
> source geospatial software. It is in the data users' and producers'
> interest
> to have interoperable solutions and the most effective way to accomplish
> this is to include them in the process of developing standards and
> software.
> The benefits of using open methods are becoming well publicized (could use
> a
> citation here). To further benefit from current open approaches it is
> necessary to fund research to further develop open geospatial-focused
> standards for improved interoperability and access. Research should also
> be
> conducted on innovative open approaches for creating and maintaining
> geospatial data layers in an open environment. The potential of openness
> in
> the geospatial sector is great but funded research is needed to expedite
> the
> realization of these benefits.
>
>
> 2.2.12 What governance model do you use or would you recommend for
> coordinating the use of geographic information or optimizing related
> spatial
> data activities?
>
> A refined and clear cut governance model for coordinating the use of
> geographic information and related activities does not exist but as with
> developing standards this should be developed using an open process. There
> is a wealth of information related to governance models that can be drawn
> from the open source software community. The open source software
> community
> is thriving by leveraging the expertise and interests from a diverse group
> of individuals and a similar model can be used to benefit from and better
> coordinate the use of geographic information and to optimize related
> spatial
> data activities.
>
>
> 2.2.13 What is the best approach for assembling and using multiple data
> sets
> from diverse fields where scale, units of analysis and data types differ?
>
> The key to working with diverse data is interoperability and this can be
> best achieved through the use of open standards for data and software.
> Open
> source geospatial software offerings have a proven track record for often
> being the first to implement geospatial standards developed by the Open
> Geospatial Consortium (OGC).
>
> The inability to read a particular file format is often the factor
> preventing access to a particular data set. This can occur for several
> reasons but two common problems are an insufficient capability of a
> software
> program to read a particular file format or the inability to read a
> proprietary file format using incompatible software. Adopting open
> standards
> and open source software can alleviate both of these problems. Having a
> community of individuals and organizations build on open source software
> libraries can help strengthen the ability of software packages to handle a
> wide variety of format. A good example of this is the open source
> Geospatial
> Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) and OGR which are raster (GDAL) and vector
> (OGR) translator libraries. Building on open source libraries provides
> excellent resources for open source and proprietary software developers
> alike.
> --
>
> All the best,
>
> Ned
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Ned Horning [mailto:nedh at lightlink.com]
> > Sent: Monday, May 01, 2006 4:34 PM
> > To: discuss at mail.osgeo.org
> > Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Geospatial LoB RFI
> >
> > All,
> >
> > I'm going to have to run for the day but wanted to let you know what I
> plan
> > to do with this document tomorrow and maybe later in the week. I would
> also
> > like to put out a couple requests for help. Again, here is the URL to
> the
> > document:
> > http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Response_to_RFI_for_US_Gov_GeoSpatial
> >
> > It is probably best to focus on a few sections of this RFI that are in
> line
> > with the OSGeo ideals and that we can put together a worthy response.
> This
> > RFI does not focus on software but I think OSGeo can make a significant
> > contribution. I may take a shot at the following sections:
> > 2.2.2
> > 2.2.3
> > 2.2.8
> > 2.2.9
> > 2.2.12
> > 2.2.13
> > Scenario 2
> >
> > If someone wants to start any of the above sections please do. I'm just
> > letting folks know where I think I can contribute something. I'm not the
> > most qualified person to be writing these sections but I do think this
> is
> a
> > good opportunity to discuss some of these issues and hopefully begin to
> make
> > our presence known within the US Government. Please feel free to shred
> > whatever I write and let me know if sections or the entire document are
> not
> > worth submitting.
> >
> > We need to supply contact information (point of contact, phone number,
> > e-mail address). Any idea on how we should approach this?
> >
> > Someone should write a paragraph or more for section 2.4 which is
> > "additional information beyond the questions". This would be a good
> place
> to
> > promote the ideals of OSGeo although we do have to be careful not to
> market
> > OSGeo (this is explicitly frowned upon). Can anyone volunteer? We can
> > probably get a lot of reuse out of this section.
> >
> > In haste,
> >
> > Ned
> >
> >
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>
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