[Aust-NZ] RE: Finding a way forward - GeoNetwork as platformto support - unclassified [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

[Ben.Searle at ga.gov.au]

Classification: CLASSIFICATION REQUIRED!

Byron and Simon,

I agree with Byron's thoughts in relation to the potential of GeoNetwork and
the potential for OSGeo in this area. OSDM is keen to support this community
and has considerable interest in GeoNetwork.

OSDM has been under staffed in recent years but this is beginnoing to change
and I would like to devote some staff (and my) time to moving this forward.
As I have mentioned previously there is a short term (12-24 months) need for
productive and stable tools and a longer term need for a re-architecturing of
the GeoNetwork and GeoServer applications to better address the current and
future Web 2.0 collaborative user needs. 

Some of you may be aware of the NCRIS project on the Spatial Information
Services Stack that should kick off later this year. 

OSGeo can play a significant role in the Spatial Data Infrastructure space
and OSDM is keen to work with the OSGeO community with this. Any suggestions
on how we can help?

Regards

Ben Searle
General Manager
OSDM

Ben Searle

This email has been sent from a BlackBerry device provided by Geoscience
Australia.

----- Original Message -----
From: aust-nz-bounces at lists.osgeo.org <aust-nz-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>
To: Simon.Pigot at utas.edu.au <Simon.Pigot at utas.edu.au>
Cc: anzlicmet-l at listserv.its.utas.edu.au
<anzlicmet-l at listserv.its.utas.edu.au>; aust-nz at lists.osgeo.org
<aust-nz at lists.osgeo.org>
Sent: Tue May 20 06:17:02 2008
Subject: RE: [Aust-NZ] RE: Finding a way forward - GeoNetwork as platformto
support - unclassified

Good Morning,

First, let me just voice my appreciation for all the great work that Simon
has done, both on GeoNetwork and the MEST version.  I know Simon has
contributed a great deal to the development of GeoNetwork we are very lucky
to have him on our team. His work to avoid the forking issues has been
tremendous.  Kudos.  If my comments came across as too negative or minimised
your contributions, my apologies.  

Personally, I think this is a great discussion to have.  And I agree with
Bruce that this would be a great showcase for FOSS4G.  Of course I have a
good deal of self interest involved in seeing growth and progress in
GeoNetwork as both a tool and a community.  The main point of my last email
was to illustrate some of the pitfalls I see in our way.  While my
programming skills are not nearly as proficient as someone like Simon ( I am
working on that :)), I have gained over the past 15 years, some pretty good
experience with implementations of metadata systems (with varying degrees of
success).

I see this community as a place to help us progress with both our individual
and collective goals.  My own efforts are currently focused on developing an
automated Spatial Metadata Extraction Tool I call SMET that will integrate
with GeoNetwork.  I am also interested in, among other things, workflow and
notification mechanisms for GeoNetwork, and developing/collecting XSL
translators for different metadata formats.  I would like to find others
interested in these topics.

Cheers,
Byron


-----Original Message-----
From: Simon Pigot [mailto:sppigot at utas.edu.au] 
Sent: Monday, 19 May 2008 9:36 p.m.
To: COCHRANE BYRON, MR
Cc: aust-nz at lists.osgeo.org; anzlicmet-l at listserv.its.utas.edu.au
Subject: Re: [Aust-NZ] RE: Finding a way forward - GeoNetwork as platform to
support - unclassified

Hi everyone,

Bruce, to my recollection, the September '07 Geonetwork technical meeting did
not say a production version would be ready in a few weeks, instead I recall
that BlueNet was asked to develop a basic version 1.0 metadata entry tool
which included the ANZLIC profile - that was delivered. Everything since then
has been version 1.1 :-). Note: the MEST is based on Geonetwork 2.2 and has
been since BETA4 in early March
- so it's not behind anyone :-).

Up until last month we've fed a lot of the code from the MEST back into the
trunk but there is a need to write proposals and get them approved by the
community before some of the later changes can be committed. 
Community approval is a good thing but it takes time to get this together and
slot things in to the trunk - that time lag would be a problem for anyone
(not just BlueNet) - especially when the priority for us has been features we
need.

BlueNet did also commit to coordinating development of the MEST release with
the trunk (at the Sept '07 meeting) - which we've done - indeed there hasn't
been much of the usual danger of 'fork'ing :-) because we've been pretty
assiduous at keeping the MEST synced with the trunk.

In the absence of a plugin architecture for profile support, then maybe the
following would be steps forward:

1. Get rid of the word BETA (and MEST which I don't like either) - the
current code is based on 2.2 final anyway - the BETA label is just something
BlueNet has used because it has shown our progress toward having a production
tool that we can use for the BlueNet researcher workshops to be held over the
next few weeks. The next release will be the final because we've frozen for
the workshops now. Maybe calling it GeoNetwork 2.2 ANZLIC would be less
confusing (the current BETA5 already has an 'About' menu that tells you a bit
about who did what and when).

2. We need to develop and submit proposals for the functions that were added
recently to GeoNetwork 2.2 ANZLIC (or whatever we finally decide to call it)
and that are not in the trunk - we need to keep the number of differences
between GeoNetwork 2.2 ANZLIC and the trunk to a minimum because it makes
syncing with the trunk easier. BTW: It's not only skins Byron - its also
about slightly more fundamental things not yet in the
2.2 trunk eg. saxon for xslt2, temporal search, separating editing &
ownership rights, remote html in Z etc

3. A set of instructions needs to be provided that will allow anyone to take
the profiles from GeoNetwork 2.2 ANZLIC and add them to an install of the raw
trunk. This would suit those that want to customise the trunk for themselves.
(I think this is what Byron was suggesting?).

This all needs more discussion - but in a positive way - its not about lack
of progress - its more about the expanding community, changing/more
sophisticated needs and moving on from the things we agreed at the Sept
07 meeting.

Cheers,
Simon

COCHRANE BYRON, MR wrote:
> Bruce, et al,
>
> GeoNetwork has become a subject that has involved a good deal of my
professional time and concern.  So I am very interested in its development. 
>
> First, a little background.  I have been using GeoNetwork since March of
last year.  As Data Manager, I needed a good metadata cataloguing tool to
manage the geospatial data holdings of the NZDF.  Then, as now, I determined
GeoNetwork to be the "best of breed" software for performing this duty.  The
fact that it was Opensource was, in my mind, a plus.  Since that time I have
moved into the role of GIS Developer, but the implementation and support of
GeoNetwork has remained a major focus of my work.  Today we have
approximately 1500 records in our catalogue and are running GeoNetwork 2.1
and will soon be migrating to GeoNetwork 2.2.
>
> I came to my initial decision to use GeoNetwork without knowing that ANZLIC
was also considering moving their MEST effort to this platform.  The fact
that they latter did so made it much easier to convince managers that this
was the right path to take - particularly after the decision by BlueNet to
include the ANZLIC and ADO profiles was made. 
>
> To date, I have not implemented any of the BlueNet versions of GeoNetwork.
At this point, I am unlikely to do so in the near future.  There are many
reasons for this, and I would like to elaborate on a few of them.  First is
the problem that you identified, Bruce - the tool has not moved out of Beta
and watching the trac, I am uncertain when this may happen.  Another reason
is that we have been ahead of MEST in release versions.  I had already moved
to GeoNetwork 2.1 when the MEST was at 2.0.3. 
>
> Most importantly, the MEST tool is becoming more than what we want.  What I
mean is that we want a tool that includes the ANZLIC and ADO profiles and
MEST does that, but I am not so interested in the gui changes on top of
GeoNetwork.  Not that many of them aren't useful improvements, they are, and
I would use them if they were included in core GeoNetwork.  Luckily, Simon is
a core contributor to GeoNetwork so it is likely that much of his work will
merge back with trunk.  But I have done my own customising of GeoNetwork to
meet our own needs and for sake of simplicity, would rather apply these
changes to trunk GeoNetwork trunk rather than a fork when GeoNetwork updates
come.
>
> I am very interested in improvements to GeoNetwork that would allow the
ANZLIC and ADO profiles to be more easily plugged into my own implementation
of GeoNetwork.  GeoNetwork contributors like Simon Pigot and François
Prunayre have been looking at this.  I am willing to contribute whatever help
I can if this is important enough to get GeoNetwork more broadly implemented
in the region, but right now my GeoNetwork development efforts are more in
the areas of automated metadata capture and workflow aids.
>
> To sum it up, I am interested in the tools of MEST but not so much the
skin. I for one, would like to see the name MEST disappear.  It adds
confusion in that I find myself needing to explain that "MEST IS GeoNetwork"
again and again.  At least the release numbers could be synced.  And, as I
have indicated, it would be useful if the tools improvements in MEST,
especially the profile schemas, could be separated from the gui improvements.
>
> Some of these problems I believe are inherent in government trying to adapt
to the world of Opensource.  I think that we as a group can and should help.
Asking a contractor to perform work that is open source is new to most
administrators and developers in government.  At least I am finding this to
be true as we have hired contract support for developing an automated
metadata harvester that I am developing to run along side GeoNetwork.
>
> Another problem I see is one that seems inherent to Opensource.  This
problem is forking of the source code.  I am worried that MEST may become a
permanent fork of GeoNetwork and I do not think this a good thing.  Luckily,
since Simon is a contributor to GeoNetwork, this risk is somewhat minimised,
but by no means removed.  As we pool our efforts to develop MEST we need to
keep very clear on what is MEST specific and what is general GeoNetwork in
order to avoid the forking problem.
>
> A third problem I see is one that seems inherent in metadata itself.  What
I have seen through my career is what I consider an over-emphasis on getting
the model right before implementing anything.  While the proper schema is
important, I did not think that the lack of a ANZLIC or military profile was
sufficient reason to delay our implementing a metadata solution now.  Yes, it
does mean that we will need to revisit all we have in our system now will
need to be revisited when we implement a different schema, we would need to
do this anyway when the schema changes - and the schemas will change, or our
own definitions of how the schemas be completed change.  What is important is
that it helps us do our work. GeoNetwork is good now.  I see no reason to
delay implementing it.  What we need is a good community of local developers
and users to help others with implementations and migrations.
>
> I think GeoNetwork is an excellent opportunity to prove once again the
worth of Opensource - particularly for GIS.  There is very little out there
to compete with GeoNetwork capabilities in the metadata catalogue world.  And
as we all know, the payoffs to a well functioning distributed Metadata
Catalogue network would be enormous.  More than anything, of course, open
source is about the community.  Combining our efforts to finding solutions to
the MEST-GeoNetwork problems is just what open source is about.  I feel that
part of the failure of MEST to progress faster is that it has fallen into the
old model of just hire someone to do it and wait for the results rather than
do it ourselves as hackers are wont to do by nature.
>
> We have begun making some efforts at a GeoNetwork support community here in
New Zealand, but it is very small.  If we could combine efforts across the
Tasman it would definitely be a good thing.
>
> Cheers,
> Byron Cochrane
> GIS Developer
> NZDF Joint Geospatial Support Facility HMNZ Naval Base (Private Bag 
> 32901), Devonport, Auckland 9, New Zealand
> Ph.: 9-446-1836
> [397-8236 (internal)]
> email : byron.cochrane at nzdf.mil.nz
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> I'm writing this email as a member of the Australia - New Zealand Chapter
of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo-AustNZ). This chapter is
currently in the final stages of formation.
>
>
>
> I'm concerned at how ANZLIC's adoption of the GeoNetwork open source
application as our spatial metadata tool is being handled and also at a
perceived lack of progress in getting a production version of this
application out.
>
>
> 
> Please note: This email is not about trying to apportion blame, but about
***trying to find a way forward that benefits us all***. 
>
>
>
> _Situation_
>
> I participated in a two day ANZLIC GeoNetwork Workshop in September last
year http://www.osdm.gov.au/Metadata/GeoNetwork/Committees/default.aspx.
>
> I understood from this workshop that we would have a version of GeoNetwork
to use in a Production environment within a short period of time (weeks, not
months).
>
> The Victorian Spatial Information Infrastructure organisation subsequently
commissioned the CRC-Spatial Information to undertake testing of the tool to
determine its suitability. I understand that this work found the tool to be
suitable.
>
> ANZLIC and the Australian Government subsequently adopted GeoNetwork for
spatial metadata use http://www.osdm.gov.au/Metadata/GeoNetwork/default.aspx.
>   
>
>
> *** Eight months *** after this workshop we still **do not** have a 
> production version of GeoNetwork that supports the 'ANZLIC Profile 
> of ISO 19115/19139' (AP)
>
> 
>
> What we are doing at the moment as an ANZLIC spatial community is clearly
not working.
>
>
>
> I'm hearing a number of reports of organisations considering attempting to
implement their own independent solutions.
>
> If this did occur, we as an Australian and New Zealand spatial community
would have lost a wonderful opportunity to pool resources to develop a
superior resource that benefits us all.
>
>
> However, regardless of the problems, we still have considerable good will
in trying to get this to work and to find a way forward.
>
>
>
> _Finding new ways forward_
>
>
> I see this as a critical issue for both the (AustNZ) Open Source spatial
community and for the ANZLIC community to resolve together:
>
>
> - ANZLIC have taken a calculated gamble that open source software would be
a good way to provide a free version of a tool that supports the AP and have
invested significant time and effort into trying to make this happen.
>
> - Significant momentum is being developed for the use of Open Source
software within the Australian and New Zealand Governments and industry
alike.
>
> - OSGeo-AustNZ is developing considerable momentum as the local focal point
for Open Source spatial software. OSGeo-AustNZ has been successful in
attracting the International Conference for Free and Open Source Software for
Geospatial to Sydney Australia in 2009 (FOSS4G-2009).
>
>
>
> We all understand that utilising Open Source software and development
models is an area that is not well understood in many organisations.
>
>
> Is there a role for OSGeo-AustNZ to *help* move the AP work forward to
> enable:
>
> - ANZLIC and the Australian and New Zealand spatial communities to 
> have a production version of GeoNetwork that supports the AP in a 
> reasonably short period of time;
>
> - OSGeo-AustNZ and ANZLIC to have a success story for FOSS4G-2009;
>
> - Australia and New Zealand have a vibrant open source community to support
GeoNetwork (the OS application), the GeoNetwork OS community and more
importantly ongoing AP development work based on GeoNetwork?
>
>
>
> We have a considerable depth of experience in both spatial and a wide
variety of Open Source projects within OSGeo-AustNZ. How can this be used?
>
>
>
>
> How can we harness the good intent of a large number of government
departments and companies to build a GeoNetwork AP community where:
>
> - anyone is free to commission work;
>
> - anyone with the relevant technical background can develop the 
> necessary skills to actively participate in development effort;
>
> - we ensure that there is appropriate QA on design, build, test and 
> implementation to deliver a high quality product;
>
> - we work as a part of the parent GeoNetwork community and regularly 
> contribute development upstream;
>
> - we release early and often, to ensure that the ANZLIC spatial communities
have quality tools to work with?
>
>
>
>
> I don't have the answers to these questions. However I believe that we as a
combined community (OSGeo-AustNZ and ANZLIC) do.
>
>
>
>
> _Where to from here_
>
> I'd like to see this issue debated openly on the OSGeo-AustNZ list and
using tried and tested Open Source methodology to find an effective way
forward.
>
> If you are not on this list yet, please consider subscribing to the 
> list
> at:
>
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/aust-nz
>
>
>
>
> I look forward to reading your responses.
>
>
>
>
> Bruce Bannerman
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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