[georss] OpenSearch Geo - Feedback

[Stefan Keller]

Andrew, was nice to meet you in Victoria! I've just posted a list of
possible protocols at http://lists.eogeo.org/mailman/listinfo/dclite4g
including
OpenSearch but put a remark "fit-for-use" after it. Let me explain this.

I like OpenSearch being simple and well integrated in RSS/JSON and I think
it's fit-for-use to programmatically describe search engines' i) query
syntax, ii) response encoding and iii) make then discoverable.

My main concern is about how OpenSearch was meant to exchange machine
readable geo metadata? OpenSearch as I understand it is about search engine
result pages (SERPs in SEO lingo). But these results are mainly links to
human readable resources (i.e. web applications) and neither machine
readable URLs like datasets (e.g. geodata) nor services (e.g. WMS), right?

Assuming it's also meant for this, let me sketch out what would be needed:

There is no part which which defines the semantics of such URLs and no
machine readable encoding which indicates if a found item is a i)
webapplication, ii) a dataset (like KML, Shapefiles) or a iii) service like
WMS (or Web Processing Services or a SOAP service...).

In addition, to me something like a subset of Dublin Core (dc:) is also
needed. So, looking at the item element of a OpenSearch query response
record we find title (= dc:title or dct:abstract), link (dc:identifier),
description (dc:description) and even a bounding box if we take a GeoRSS
ecoding. What's perhaps missing are (RSS) equivalents to dc:type (dataset or
service), dc:format (KML, RSS, shapefile) and perhaps dc:rights (e.g.
Creative Commons By Attribution - No Derivatives).

-- Stefan

2007/6/15, Andrew Turner <ajturner at highearthorbit.com>:
>
> Greetings - as some of you may know - from WhereCamp - we rapidly put
> together a draft specification of OpenSearch-Geo. We did it with
> DeWitt Clinton - the original mastermind behind OpenSearch, and had
> general consensus in the group.
>
> I've posted the draft here - with some modifications:
>
> http://www.opensearch.org/Specifications/OpenSearch/Extensions/Geo/1.0/Draft_1
>
> I would definitely like any more feedback or thoughts people could
> offer on the spec. The guiding principle behind the spec was to make
> it work with existing services where possible (hence the bbox w,s,e,n
> order) and also make it parallel to GeoRSS and GeoJSON.
>
> This makes it easier for all the specs to try and move forward
> together in the future (we can argue concepts/terminology once and
> have it apply to all) as well as educating other developers and users
> by being able to instruct once and have common concepts carry over to
> the different "formats".
>
> I figured Friday afternoon - you're all looking for some interesting
> reading and the weekend to play with it. :)
>
> Thanks
> Andrew
>
> --
> Andrew Turner
> ajturner at highearthorbit.com      42.2774N x 83.7611W
> http://highearthorbit.com              Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
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