[georss] Geospatial Incubator Group

Mike Liebhold mnl at well.com
Wed Jul 19 18:34:54 EDT 2006 

a quick clarification: i'm not suggesting abandoning the simple approach 
to vectors, using coordinate pairs in geoRSS, but suggesting that, for 
the time being, we limit 'scope creep' of the geoRSS spec. in favor of 
refining the spec to date, for fast track adoption by the OGC, W3C and 
the Big Guys who are setting off in forking directions

This is really a critical moment where the Big Guys are jockeying for 
position, using data structures for advantage in our space.

Case in point: Microsoft SenseWeb is an amazing project showing mashedup 
MS livemaps with raltime data from D.O.T. road sensors, samll weather 
stations, web cams, and user hosted sensors of all kinds. Although an 
ideal geoRSS case,  senseweb is -not- georss, and exactly the kind of 
application that could go viral, just like google maps, and google earth 
setting another big company down a forked path.


Mike Liebhold wrote:

>Hi Josh,
>
>There's ample evidence that anything 'sufficiently expressive'  beyond  
>point descriptions will be sufficiently complex enough to be 
>controversial and laborius to settle. (e.g. geometry, topology, and real 
>world object descriptions.)
>
>The good news is that the Springer Book: 'The Geospatial Web - How 
>Geo-Browsers, Social Software and the Web 2.0 are Shaping the Network 
>Society' - http://en.know-center.at/geoweb/ and the Ordinance Survey 
>conference:  Terra Cognita 2006 - 
>http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/partnerships/research/research/terracognita.html  
>are going to provoke a significant bodies of new thinking on the larger 
>problems of  spatial semantics
>
>No need to shy away from the interesting problems, let's just take care 
>of the least complex case first: setting a consensus description of 
>point cooordinates.
>
>There is a bit of urgency to move forward on this task. Although 
>Microsoft, and ESRI  and Yahoo have all announced geoRSS support,  
>Google is raging foward with  serious momentum for their own 
>approaches.  In order to prevent forking and balkanazation we need to 
>consolidate our considerable gains  asap, sufficiently to coax Google to 
>interoperate, and the others to formalize their committments to a point 
>code, and a process for normalizing more complex geospatial semantic 
>structures.
>
>Mike
>
>
>Josh at oklieb wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Mike,
>>
>>What do you feel are the issues, then, in getting to adoption of point 
>>geotags or other objects? I ask because the premise of GeoRSS has in 
>>one way been that the geo:Point object was successful as far as it 
>>went but not sufficiently expressive to satisfy wider needs for 
>>geographic encoding. 
>>
>>-Josh
>>
>>
>>On Jul 19, 2006, at 2:37 PM, Mike Liebhold wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>While I am thrilled to hear of any significant efforts in building 
>>>useful spatial semantics, and extended interoperable ontologies I am 
>>>hoping we can simply focus on setting a basic standard for coding 
>>>location coordinates for waypoints, point annotations and geocoded 
>>>web objects.
>>>
>>>In my humble opinion a simple exchange of point objects is THE 
>>>foundation of a geospatial web. After that we're in for years of 
>>>debate and discussion about more complex metastructures including 
>>>various semantic, rendering and logical descriptions.
>>>
>>>So far so good. let's just keep it simple, for now. Personally I 
>>>can't wait for the real  dialogue to begin on harmonizing OWL/RDF 
>>>with GML, KML, SVG, and 18 other higher level knowledge structures. 
>>>But in the meantime will be absolutely delighted if we can effect 
>>>universal adoption of the simplest, easiest to implement point geocodes.
>>>
>>>-Mike
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Josh at oklieb wrote:
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>This is a good discussion which I would like to include in the 
>>>>geoxg  list as well. There is usually some tension between starting 
>>>>small  and creating a comprehensive foundation. In this case I 
>>>>envision that  there are plenty of tools on both the SemWeb and 
>>>>GeoWeb sides. The  small steps (e.g. GeoRSS) are working out how 
>>>>they can effectively be  combined. An OWL realization of the GML / 
>>>>19107 feature model is  sitting out there as a somewhat 
>>>>straightforward goal, but we (at  least I) do not understand yet how 
>>>>best to enhance both sides with  this development.
>>>>
>>>>Josh
>>>>
>>>>On Jul 19, 2006, at 1:47 PM, Ron Lake wrote:
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>>I agree, provided you have already thought out HOW to extend 
>>>>>beyond  the
>>>>>simple stuff - since that extension will happen rather quickly.
>>>>>
>>>>>R
>>>>>
>>>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>>>From: Gregor J. Rothfuss [mailto:gregor at apache.org]
>>>>>Sent: July 19, 2006 10:07 AM
>>>>>To: Ron Lake
>>>>>Cc: Carl Reed OGC Account; Mike Liebhold; noiv; georss at lists.eogeo.org
>>>>>Subject: Re: [georss] Geospatial Incubator Group
>>>>>
>>>>>Ron Lake wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>>>Hi,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>If we want to build a solid foundation for geospatial extensions to
>>>>>>            
>>>>>>
>>>>>the
>>>>>
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>>>semantic web - or flipped the other way to add more semantics 
>>>>>>into  the
>>>>>>GeoWeb - how is geoRSS a foundation.  It strikes me as too limiting
>>>>>>unless you have a very restricted notion of what the Geo-Semantic Web
>>>>>>means.  I would more favour directions like an OWL encoding of GML or
>>>>>>OWL decoration of GML.
>>>>>>            
>>>>>>
>>>>>too limiting for whom? it boils down to whether you want to cater  
>>>>>to GIS
>>>>>
>>>>>professionals, or a couple orders of magnitude more people. starting
>>>>>with something simple that fits on 2 pages of spec strikes me as a
>>>>>superior idea if you want uptake. you can always come back and extend
>>>>>once people actually use the simple stuff.
>>>>>
>>>>>-gregor
>>>>>
>>>>>-- 
>>>>>http://43folders.com/2005/09/19/writing-sensible-email-messages/
>>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>>georss mailing list
>>>>>georss at lists.eogeo.org
>>>>>http://lists.eogeo.org/mailman/listinfo/georss
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
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