[Qgis-developer] Fwd: [Board] Would you be concerned if the "GeoServices REST API" became an OGC standard?

[Saber Razmjooei]

Seems ESRI has dropped their bid:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/06/03/2229245/gis-community-blocks-esris-geospatial-open-standard-rest-api



-----Original Message-----
From: Paolo Cavallini <cavallini at faunalia.it>
To: Barry Rowlingson <b.rowlingson at lancaster.ac.uk>
Cc: qgis-developer <qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [Qgis-developer] Fwd: [Board] Would you be concerned if the
"GeoServices REST API" became an OGC standard?
Date: Mon, 06 May 2013 08:11:50 +0200

Il 05/05/2013 11:28, Barry Rowlingson ha scritto:
> On Sat, May 4, 2013 at 1:06 PM, Nathan Woodrow
> <madmanwoo at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm starting to wonder if anything becoming a OGC is a good
>> thing.
>> 
>> What impact would this have on QGIS?
> 
> For QGIS it would mean you could create a way to read GeoServices 
> REST API-compliant data from servers. The specification would be
> open and so you could check your implementation against the spec to
> make sure your code is creating the right requests.
> 
> However, unless an open-source implementation of the server is 
> available, you won't be able to test it against a real server
> unless you pay up, or are beholden to the good nature of someone
> who has paid up.
> 
> Imagine testing the WMS code in Qgis only by inspecting the URL it 
> creates, and not by whether a WMS server returns the image you
> were expecting.

IMHO, this would put an additional burden (supporting Yet Another
standard), being at disadvantage with the proprietary equivalent,
without any possible advantage. An arms race among standards in which
we (and I believe the GFOSS world at large) would only have to lose.
If we agree with this, I believe we should raise our voice with OSGeo.
All the best.
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