Hi Landon, IMO, to put another perspective on it:
Many organisations over the years have invested significant sums of money, time and effort into implementing spatial tools and customising them to meet their needs. I can think of any number of examples over the last few decades where that investment has had to be thrown away and reimplemented using another product. Some examples are (fill in the blanks as you see fit): - A vendor ceases to be financially viable and shuts up shop. - A vendor is taken over by another entity to: remove competition; purchase market share; because its trendy to have one of those in the portfolio; or any number of other reasons. - A vendor retires a product range to focus on a new technology, but doesn't worry about providing an upgrade path. I'd say that most organisations have been bitten by any one of these examples. The OGC standards in particular, give organisations a way to try and abstract their business functionality in such a way that they will be able to swap in and out, vendor or open source components, as they deam appropriate. If its done right they won't need to go back to first principles and start from scratch when they decide to do so. While the OGC standards may not be perfect at the moment, they are are quite functional and are certainly based on a solid understanding of our discipline (as a reading of the abstract documentation will show). I personally think that if we are willing to get involved, we will be able to help refine the standards and their implementation, even if it is just by using various products and standards and providing feedback. I applaud the OSGeo projects that are basing their design on the OGC standards. To me as an implementer, it just makes good sense. Bruce "Landon Blake" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 23/06/2007 02:19 AM Please respond to OSGeo Discussions <discuss@lists.osgeo.org> To <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "OSGeo Discussions" <discuss@lists.osgeo.org> cc Subject [OSGeo-Discuss] Software Standards - The Ugly Truth I’m sending this to GeoWanking and OSGeo discuss, so I apologize in advance if your inbox gets hit with it twice. :] I've written a blog post on the OpenJUMP blog about some of the problems with software standards. I imagine this post will make some people upset, but I think it raises some valid points. I don't think that everyone involved in open source GIS will agree with me, but I think I identify some problems with the love of standards that our of particular interest to our community. (In a way that isn't of interest to those that develop closed-source GIS programs.) At any rate, the post is a long one, so if you do read it give yourself 5 or 10 minutes. Before you flame me remember that I'm just a surveyor that has seen too much sun, and that my opinion doesn't count for a whole lot in the big scheme of things. :] You can read the post here: http://openjump.blogspot.com/ The Sunburned Surveyor Warning: Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against defects including translation and transmission errors. If the reader is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this information in error, please notify the sender immediately._______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
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