Let me jump in and provide one example of what the OGC community
wants to facilitate with GeoDRM. I'm on OGC staff, but not directly
involved with the GeoDRM work. My background is in city planning, so
I'll tell a story from that point of view.
Let's say you work in a town in the planning department, and you have
a lot of design sketches of potential developments in an old
industrial area. You know that participatory democracy works best
with a free flow of information, but you also know that people will
do stupid things with data (like assume all those building plans have
already been approved by the city). So what happens currently is that
the city will probably NOT post those plans on the web, and require
at least a trip down to city hall to see them, if not attendance at a
scheduled meeting or a full-fledged FOIA (freedom of information act)
request.
One thing our GeoDRM work seeks to support is the ability of towns to
attach disclaimer statement to data, so that the well-intentioned
city staff can post things more freely and at least say they "told"
everyone that those plans were not as-built drawings, and do not
imply that building permits will be issued, etc. So the idea is
basically to make sure that the things you would make sure to tell
someone when you gave them data, are transmitted when you provide the
data in an automated fashion.
Yes, the technical mechanism for doing this *could* end up being a
pain in the neck, like music DRM is now. But at least we'll take away
one excuse for not sharing data. Unlike the music industry, I think
the geo industry cares less about "stealing" information than about
appropriate use issues.
---
Raj
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