[OSGeo-Standards] the wide world of standards bodies

[Carl Reed OGC Account]

Jo -

First, let me start by saying that I totally agree with and support your 
desire that the "different communities be 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".

To that end, my following comments are focused on the fact that there is 
already a fair amount of interconnection. Obviously, there is always room 
for improvement and collaboration between the communities. This issue is 
something OGC staff have invested a considerable amount of time in over the 
years and why OGC staff are involved in the standards work being done in 
OASIS, the IETF, ISO, NENA, and other organizations.

The OGC has had and continues to have a strong and vibrant relationship with 
the European geospatial community. For over eight years, the OGC and OGC 
members in Europe have worked collaboratively on a number of Framework 
activities, such as ORCHESTRA, GMES, SANY, and INSPIRE. Check out the GMES 
site http://www.gmes.info/180.0.html for links to a number of EC projects 
that the OGC community has been involved in.

As a result of this multi-year collaboration, there is great uptake of OGC 
standards in Germany, Spain, France, Denmark, Norway, the UK, and other 
European countries. For example, the Danish SDI is built using OGC, ISO, 
OASIS, and other international standards. Other examples are Northrhine 
Westphalia SDI in Germany, the National Dutch Water Authority (my English 
translation), and the Catalonia SDI.

As you know, in many European procurements there is often the requirement to 
use ISO standards. The same is true in other regions of the world. This is 
why the OGC has maintained a Class A liaison agreement with ISO for many 
years. Under this agreement, the OGC can submit OGC member approved 
standards into the ISO process as joint work projects. This is how WMS, 
Simple Features, and GML have all become ISO International Standards. WFS is 
currently in the joint ISO/OGC process.

As to the IETF, I have been working as a participant in the GeoPRIV WG for 
almost 4 years. There are now a number of internet RFCs and draft internet 
standards that require the mandatory use of a GML application schema for 
expressing a location payload (what they call a location object). Check out 
something called PIDF-LO. SIP, ECRIT, RADIUS, LoST, and HELD all reference 
the Location Object (LO) and state the use of the GML application schema for 
expressing "geodetic" location.  I also collaborated with the IETF community 
on specifying how location can be encoded as part of a DHCP packet. The IETF 
work that requires the use of location is being driven by the 
telecommunications, emergency services, and location services industries.

Finally, in response to your statement regarding the ability to "match the 
lobbying  power and influence of the likes of Google, ESA etc". I recently 
wrote a blog posting about standards development and balance of interest. 
One of the OGC policies is that all member organizations gets one vote on 
any motion brought before a Working Group. So, when a document is being 
discussed in a Working Group, a University member gets one vote, an open 
source member gets one vote, a fortune 500 company member gets one vote and 
so forth. Further, any member can raise issues and objections at any time in 
the document approval process. Finally, there is an OGC Review Board. Any 
member at any time can bring a process issue before the Review Board for 
consideration. These processes are in place to insure balance of interest 
and to abide by anti-trust regulations. A strong balance of interest policy 
is the hallmark of a viable and open consensus standards process.

If anyone has any questions about the work of the OGC and the activities we 
and the OGC members are involved in, please let me know.

Best Regards

Carl Reed
CTO
OGC


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jo Walsh" <jo at frot.org>
To: <standards at lists.osgeo.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 12:01 AM
Subject: [OSGeo-Standards] the wide world of standards bodies


> 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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