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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Subject: | RE: GISList: OGC and Standards |
| Date: |
01/07/2003 11:20:53 AM |
| From: |
Anthony Quartararo |
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Sonny,
Nicely articulated. However, the debate has hardly deteriorated at all,
given the sheer number of off-list emails I have received in support of not
only my comments/positions, but others of like perspective. I can only
surmise that there is a significant number of people that are
disenfranchised, disappointed, disillusioned and otherwise dismayed at the
state of the industry, in no small part due to OGC and it's sugar-daddies.=
=20=20
Further, I'm glad as well to see a refreshing piece of candor and frankness
from you, and I echo what Dimitri said regarding the larger OGC market spin.
Be honest and clear about what OGC's mission and efforts and don't pretend
there are no hidden agendas. Carl Reed replied to another person off-line
(the post was made public by someone else so it's fair game), that 95% of
OGC's revenue comes from the like of USGS, Census, NIMA, Ordnance Survey
and the like. I'll take his word for it, even though my math differs from
his math based on OGCs website figures. If this is true, this is a
regrettably scenario. USGS, Census, NIMA, et al should absolutely not be
involved in controlling the destiny of "interoperability" at any level,
whether "internet only", "desktop", or wherever. The devote public funds
towards proprietary private technology is wrong. The organizations do not
represent the global geospatial user base nor do they have that
constituency's best interest(s) at heart. To further quote Dr. Reed in this
email, he suggests that vendors appreciate getting the feedback from "users"
to help drive product development. As I assert that the dubious title of
user as bestowed on USGS, etc. is a falsehood, I was unaware that a prime
objective of OGC was to help vendors refine product. Does this bother only
me ? First we have major US Government organizations providing a majority of
the funding to OGC and in turn, they get to act unilaterally as
representatives for GIS users worldwide in defining highly focused
specifications
(http://www.directionsmag.com/pressreleases.php?press_id=3D6151)? Who do y=
ou
think supplies 90-99% of US Government GIS software ? Is the term "coverage"
not a proprietary term referring to one specific vendor's data model ? Talk
about not letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing, come on!
I too admit that I am somewhat numb to the subtleties of what OGC's real
mission is, whether it is for GIS in general (encompassing enterprises,
desktop, PDA, mobile devices, internet only, all of the above, all of the
above and the entire future...etc.) Much of what I hear and see and read
these days is solely focused on such narrow-band issues as "web coverage
service" or "web mapping service". This might actually impact .01% of the
professional GIS users in the world, having a better chance of impacting a
large portion of the business consumer world and a much, much better chance
of impacting the casual "mapquest" type users out there. But then again,
why go through the trouble, mapquest has already provided the service, with
.NET and others playing catch up. If OGC's efforts is not really targeted
toward "GIS" users, that's fine, just don't trademark the name "OpenGIS..."
and lead people down the primrose path yet again. If it's about creating
something from nothing for a market that really doesn't exist (or has boomed
and gone bust), then it's ok to own up to that and say "sorry folks, show's
over, get back to work", better that than letting this continue to press on
with no clear goal in sight.
When will OGC be done? I mean, do you think it would do the noble thing and
fold itself up if/when all it set out to accomplish came to fruition? If the
answer is no, then why not ? I'd wager the answer would be "no" and it
would be an evergreen situation, because the landscape will continue to
evolve at lightning speeds, which again, begs the question, why do we need
OGC ?=20
Lastly, GeoComm is gracious enough to host this list, and certainly Glenn
has taken plenty of heat at times (warranted as well as unwarranted), and I
am sure he will not be able to resist lurking on the list while on holiday,
so I'll throw this bone out too. He published in the SpatialNews newsletter
that a lot of you also receive, the "answers" that Carl Reed provided to
(mostly) my question from one of the original posts I made in this battled
thread. However, I found it quite curious that he (being the Editor) went
forward and published a rather one-sided perspective and only then came to
me privately and told me about it (after the fact) and asked if I thought my
original comments/thoughts should be put out there too (by name). I blasted
him a bit for this as fairly un-Ed
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