[georss] Geospatial Incubator Group

Tue Jul 18 23:09:52 EDT 2006

First, I want to be very, very clear on one question raised by Mike: The OGC does not have any intention or plans to replace georss.org or take over the work of the georss collaboration. Period.

Josh can answer better, but I believe that what the Geospatial Incubator is focused on are the broader issues and requirements related to the development of a geospatial-semantic web. GeoRSS is one piece of that puzzle. Therefore, from my understanding, the GeoRSS work to be addressed in the Incubator has to do with harmonization of the W3C 'geo' vocabulary with GeoRSS - not bringing GeoRSS into either the W3C or the OGC. I suspect that what could come out of the Incubator work is one or more suggested changes (change requests) back to georss.org to insure alignment of the three current georss serializations.

Now, in terms of an OGC vetted GeoRSS specification, I believe that the discussions have been along the lines of taking a snapshot of georss - one approved by the georss collaborators, and moving that snapshot version into the OGC for approval as an international standard. In a sense, this would be an endorsement by the OGC membership of the GeoRSS work. As with the W3C activity, the OGC members might have suggested change requests for the georss group to consider. But again, the OGC would be using the good work of georss.org with proper accreditation - not taking the work over.

I hope that I have been very clear on this particular issue. I know that it is a sensitive one. So any questions or concerns out there, please let me know.

Regards

Carl
CTO
OGC

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Mike Liebhold 
  To: Josh at oklieb 
  Cc: noiv ; georss at lists.eogeo.org 
  Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 5:26 PM
  Subject: Re: [georss] Geospatial Incubator Group

  Here's a couple of naive thoughts for Josh and the new w3c Geospatial Incubator Group, and Carl and the OGC:

  One ot the reasons that geoRSS is entering two parallel formal adoption processes, is that the geoRSS specification is explictly designed to link the two standards, and knowledge domains.   

  Will georss.org be replaced by a formally configured, overlapping group of OGC and w3c membership? If not, I am wondering how much visibility will non-member groups e.g. georss.org have on working drafts, and proposals circulated by 'members' within OGC and w3c working groups? 

  One worry, of course, is that 1-2 big industry guys ( naming no names)  might have reasons to push heavily, and privately for some non-obvious spec, that unknown to neutral groups like geoRSS.org, would break the interoperability some way.

  A couple of ideas on how to assure optimal sychronization between alternate worlds are  a formal charter to interlock OGC and w3c processes including a balanced, mutually agreed overlapping list of 'invited experts'  from both mapping and web domains, and crossposting on public lists on both OGC and w3c geoRSS related working groups.  

  And importantantly, until both OGC and w3c adopt the same geoRSS specification, I hope the 'invited expert' members will commit to current postings to both geoRSS.org lists and wiki. until there's consensus in formal committees geoRSS.org has to remain the core maintainer of the draft spec.  

  it's not geoRSS unless it's geoRSS.org .

  :-) Mike Liebhold

  Josh at oklieb wrote:

    Hi, 

    As chair of the group, I hope I can shed some light on this activity. Actually, everyone on this list is invited to join the public mailing list for the group: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-xg-geo/

    The first objective of the group is to have W3C adopt (non-exclusively) the vocabulary of GeoRSS Simple by using it to update the w3c geo vocabulary. Still working on the administrative details of that, but will probably provide a new URI for the geo namespace and refine the RDF definition of GeoRSS Simple (same XML, different schema definition).

    The next objective will be to work outwards towards the S/semantic Web community via a geospatial Web ontology.  I mean the upper/lower case because there are a number of tagging and microformat efforts to which we can contribute a geospatial aspect. In addition, this may be the place to begin defining some basic ontologies and folksonomies for the featuretypetag and relationshiptag elements in GeoRSS.

    After that, well, who knows what might come of the collaboration between the various free and not-so-free communities interested in this activity. Your suggestions are welcome.

    Cheers,

    Josh Lieberman

    Principal, Traverse Technologies Inc.

    mailto:jlieberman at traversetechnologies.com

    tel +1 (617) 395-7766

    fax +1 (775) 514-6621

    On Jul 18, 2006, at 4:37 PM, noiv wrote:

      Hi,

      does anybody could bring some light into the implications
      the recently founded Geospatial Incubator Group will rise?

      http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/geo/charter

      As an 'immediate objective' the group will do:
      "update and harmonization with GeoRSS of the GEO vocabulary,
      aka simplest useful geospatial ontology."

      Will it mean rewriting of code, more possibilities,
      more useful applications or all of them?

      What is now the address to send proposals to?

      Regards

      --
      Torsten Becker aka noiv
      http://ExploreOurPla.net
      _______________________________________________
      georss mailing list
      georss at lists.eogeo.org
      http://lists.eogeo.org/mailman/listinfo/georss

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