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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Mailing List Archives |
| Subject: | RE: GISList: OGC and Standards, - a response |
| Date: |
01/07/2003 11:20:52 AM |
| From: |
Rob Hranac |
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Anthony,
> No hit and run comments here. You commented, so tag, your it.
> Rob, it's not a democracy. OGC could have 10,000 members and
> have 10,000 different ideas for specifications, but which ones do you
> think are going to be given priority, preference
OK, not trying to duck any replying responsibilities (at least not
before I go on vacation)! What is your problem with the OGC, exactly?
That it is not a democracy? The OGC is not a democracy because it is
not a government. It is an organization that has to define ways to keep
itself afloat and it does so by charging for membership. Of course it
true that some organizations can spend a lot more than others and (in a
previous email) you seemed to think was a good thing to charge some
lower rates to smaller members. As someone who has actually
participated in the process as a small fish, I would suggest that the
OGC currently balances its need to have revenue with overall process
fairness quite well. I mean, do you have another organizational model
to suggest, here?
> As far as I know, OGC is the only game in town
> It's not too far off to say that OGC specs are (just one more)
solution
> looking for a problem.
As far as the OGC being a solution looking for a problem, if you feel
this way then feel free not to participate. Clearly, the 200+ vendors,
governments, universities, and non-profits who do spend money on
memberships feel that the OGC is solving their problems! For example, I
represent an environmental advocacy non-profit and we feel that the OGC
is the organization that is doing the most to solve our problems, which
is why we are a member. As far as the OGC being the only game in town,
this is not true (ISO TC211, among many others), but it is probably true
that they are the dominant game. Would you prefer to have 20 different
equally dominant standards organizations?
> Huh? Not conformant, or did I miss that? Or am I getting my marketing
lingo
> all jumbled up. Only the major web services ? The minor ones aren't
important?
On the topic of open source reference implementations, in my email:
compliant = conformant. And by major web services, I meant the ones
that have 1.0 releases: WMS and WFS are the only ones with 1.0 releases.
No conspiracies here! However, if you really feel excluded from the
process and hemmed in by vendors, you are free to work with one of the
open source projects that think about this sort of thing (GeoTools2,
MapServer, GDAL all come to mind). Some of the OpenGIS open
sourcers/others have also started this weblog about our ideas on a wide
variety of topics (http://scoop.geoenabler.org/), which is not just a
democracy, it's complete anarchy!
Rob Hranac
The Open Planning Project
377 Broadway, 11th Floor
New York, NY 10013
w: www.openplans.org
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