[OSGeo-Standards] the wide world of standards bodies

[Arnulf Christl]

Oh. Thank you, Carl. I could have spared me my last email. Thanks for the clarification in less twisted words than I have used. 

OSGeo folks, 
do you see what I meant to say?

Regards, Arnulf. 

Carl Reed OGC Account wrote:
> 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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