[OSGeo-Standards] the wide world of standards bodies

[Jo Walsh]

dear all, 

i am new to the standards list. Past travels through the archives have
shown me a very technical picture of standards content development,
i wonder how much a more "political" discussion of how any efforts
through OSGeo fit in a bigger picture of standards bodies of different
kinds., is apt or wanted here.

Por ejemplo, Microsoft, Google et al are all joining OGC as principal
members and thus certain amounts of "control manoeuvres" will more or
less inevitably be played out in that organisation. Meanwhile, OGC
acquires potentially more real power and weight through the software
industry as a whole, not just the GIS industry.

Yet in the SDI discussion in Europe we see no engagement with the
OGC's body of work, in fact a bypassing of it and a direct
relationship with ISO, which OGC is also feeding into; i have heard
that CEN is resuming work on recommendations to hand up to ISO.
The legislation for public administration spatial data services is
following this path. 

As Chris Holmes talked of a while back, an increasing distance between 
"commercial" and "public" data infrastructures; an SDI for government
projects to collaborate, a broader one for the wider world, more or less
disconnected except at a few narrow points. Not a nice future vision! 

I think it is a real shame the different communities aren't more
interconnected as ultimately we are all trying to do more or less the
same thing in more or less the same way, e.g. encourage more data and
software interoperability through clear guidelines based on solid
design.

Given the unlikelihood of us ever being able to match the lobbying
power and influence of the likes of Google, ESA, etc, perhaps an
interesting "solution" could be to focus on getting IETF drafts into
circulation for protocols, profiles and formats that have really
proven useful to geo developers - WMS, GeoRSS, perhaps even SDF is a
candidate in the future. The IETF could be a "safe haven" from which
to either get useful things into the track at other bodies, or just to
have them logged as being at a certain time in a certain (open) state.
For something to be a "standard", it just has to have a right "stamp"?

Hm, i hope SteveC isn't listening, this is kind of meta-standards-wanking

cheers,


jo
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