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| Subject: | Re: GISList: Interior e-gov tack irks GIS vendors (Geospatial One-Stop initiative) |
| Date: |
04/18/2003 01:55:00 PM |
| From: |
Glenn Letham (GeoCommunity) |
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OUCH... this thread oughta be good to watch unravel
Cheers
Glenn
I'm out of here for the week-end!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dimitri Rotow" <dar@manifold.net>
To: <gislist@geocomm.com>
Sent: Friday, April 18, 2003 1:49 PM
Subject: RE: GISList: Interior e-gov tack irks GIS vendors (Geospatial
One-Stop initiative)
>
> Well it seems it doesn't make much difference whether they choose
> living-fossil technology from ESRI or living-fossil pseudo-technology from
> OGC. Either way it will have zero effect on whether or not they achieve
> their stated goals, which depend more upon the politics between agencies
and
> whether or not those argencies are well-managed or poorly managed, than
upon
> which particular technology they choose to implement the project. As has
> been said, "a talented man with an abacus can achieve more than a fool
with
> a calculator."
>
> Consider the goals:
>
> > >
> > > The project has four primary goals:
> > >
> > > * Improve the sharing of geospatial information across
> > > federal, state and
> > > local agencies.
> > >
> > > * Improve planning for future investments in
> > > geospatial data.
> > >
> > > * Support cross-government partnerships on geospatial
> > > projects.
> > >
> > > * Foster the development of geospatial-related
> > > standards.
> > >
>
> If we are to suspend our cynicism for a moment and take the above goals
> seriously, the key question to ask is "Are they taking reasonable measures
> to achieve these goals with the tools and standards already at hand?" The
> answer in this case is a resounding "No," and that's a "No" because many
> agencies simply don't want to share data with the public or even with each
> other and won't release data unless they are dragged into court and
> compelled to do so.
>
> Let's try a thought experiment: suppose agencies really wanted to share
> data - why not use SDTS and simply put everything up for free download via
> FTP? SDTS is a perfectly good, non-proprietary standard suitable for a
very
> wide range of data that is supported by a wide range of modern GIS
packages.
> FTP or similar is low-cost, fast and highly effective as the various USGS
> web sites have proven over the years. You don't need much in the way of a
> web front end to make it possible for people to browse and find data,
> assuming that data's available in the first place. You certainly don't
need
> some ponderous bureaucracy coupled with designer obstacles to fast access
> developed by the famously "unopen" crowd at either OGC or ESRI.
>
> My point is this: if agencies are not using perfectly good Federal
> geospatial standards like SDTS to provide fast, effective and
> non-proprietary access to data using perfectly good, widespread Internet
> technologies, then one would have to be naive to expect that they would
> suddenly decide to share data, etc, as a result of this particular
project.
> Whether they use ESRI or OGC will have no effect on that.
>
> So, let me make a prediction what's going to come out of this project in
the
> next year or two:
>
> 1) There will be no net increase in data available to the public or to
local
> agencies.
>
> 2) Some agencies will use this project to reduce the amount of data that
can
> be fetched from their sites, using this project as an excuse to say the
data
> is still available.
>
> 3) Rather than have a high performance interface, like FTP, that allows
> people to fetch massive amounts of data using widely available tools, this
> project will build a "webstacle" that will make it difficult and slow for
> power users to download large data sets or many data sets at once.
>
> 4) The result will be so slow and frustrating to use that for important
data
> sets knowledgeable people will go to the originating agency's FTP sites,
if
> available, and bypass the "portal."
>
> 5) Rather than build on existing, open, non-proprietary standards like
SDTS,
> this project will end up introducing yet more fragmentation through
> quasi-standards and various proprietary formats unsupported by commercial
> products that 95% of users can afford, but will call such closed efforts
> "open."
>
> 6) Two years from now, there will be no "geospatial-related standards" in
> regular use by more than 1% of GIS users that were developed as a result
of
> this project.
>
> As make-work projects go this one doesn't spend a lot of money so it is
> pretty harmless.
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