[georss] Geospatial Incubator Group

Wed Jul 19 18:37:32 EDT 2006

Hi,

This (MS example) would already seem to be an application that requires
a lot more than the expression of point location.

R

________________________________

From: georss-bounces at lists.eogeo.org
[mailto:georss-bounces at lists.eogeo.org] On Behalf Of Mike Liebhold
Sent: July 19, 2006 3:35 PM
To: Josh at oklieb; GeoXG GeoXG; georss at lists.eogeo.org
Subject: Re: [georss] Geospatial Incubator Group

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/

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