Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Would you be concerned if the GeoServices REST API became an OGC standard?
All, Having read this thread I support what has been said by Adrian, Bruce and others. If anything, acceptance of a set of standards that basically replicates what W*S standards already do will confuse customers. Maybe that is exactly what esri hopes to achieve, it definitely doesn't help our (the geospatial community) business. And as Bruce states, it will have serious impact on the OGC credibility. As OSGeo I can imagine that we then decide to start our own standardization process and build a standards brand around OSGeo products. Not a nice perspective, let's hope OGC won't go down that route. Jeroen On 6 mei 2013, at 01:08, bruce.bannerman.osgeo bruce.bannerman.os...@gmail.com wrote: Cameron, My personal opinion is that if this proposal was accepted, it would be a bad move for OGC. Remember that OGC is a community and its Technical Committee membership are the people who vote on the acceptance of Standards. The TC comprises many different organisations. I do understand that OGC are trying to be inclusive in their processes and to try and cater for alternative approaches to a problem, much the same as OSGeo does in supporting multiple projects that essentially handle similar use cases (e.g. GeoServer, MapServer and Degree). I have also personally witnessed ESRI's commitment to helping to further the development of Open Spatial Standards through their work on OGC Working Groups and at OGC Technical Committee meetings. ESRI also have made a valid point in their response to the 'NO' vote for the GeoServices REST API that the OGC has already allowed alternate approaches with the acceptance of netCDF as a data format and KML as a combined data/presentation format. With the GeoServices REST API, I think that the approach proposed: - is very divisive for the OGC community. - essentially appears to propose an alternate way for working with spatial services that does not utilise or build on the W*S suite of services that have been developed through robust community processes for in excess of a decade. - does not provide REST bindings to the W*S suite of standards that have been widely implemented in a range of software. - will result in confusion within the user community that are trying to utilise 'OGC' services. If this approach were to be adopted, I believe that OGC will go too far down the alternate solution approach and will risk losing its public acceptance as one of the key leaders of open spatial standards. I'm interested in hearing other OSGeo members opinions as to how this proposal would affect their projects. Would you consider implementing the GeoServices REST API within your projects? If you did, would you maintain support for both it and traditional W*S services? Bruce ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Would you be concerned if the GeoServices REST API became an OGC standard?
Adrian sums up the problems and the discussions that were happening really well. I fully agree with the problems that arise. I just want to add that from my perspective this isn't an anti-ESRI campaign from some OSGeo fellows, but it's against one company pushing something through the OGC that defeats a lot of the efforts from the people that want to have open standards for the greater good. I appreciate that ESRI publishes their specification of the product, so that others don't need reverse engineer it in case you want to have interoperability. Though it would make much more sense to me to have it published on their website and not having it pushed through the OGC to have some approval from a standardisations organisation. It really describes their product and it's not about harmonisation/interoperability. Cheers, Volker On 05/04/2013 06:43 PM, Adrian Custer wrote: Dear Cameron, all, There is indeed a massive conflict at the OGC related to this proposed standard and it may be useful to inform this list about that conflict and the process. However, I am unsure how expanding the *discussion* here helps. The proposed standard aims to document a series of web services and a JSON based data exchange format. The standard comes in eight parts 12-054r2 GeoServices REST API - Part 1: Core 12-055r2 GeoServices REST API - Part 2: Catalog 12-056r2 GeoServices REST API - Part 3: Map Service 12-057r2 GeoServices REST API - Part 4: Feature Service 12-058r2 GeoServices REST API - Part 5: Geometry Service 12-059r2 GeoServices REST API - Part 6: Image Service 12-060r2 GeoServices REST API - Part 7: Geoprocessing Service 12-061r2 GeoServices REST API - Part 8: Geocoding Service and there are also 12-068r2 GeoServices REST API - JSON Schemas and Examples The documents describe the functioning of a set of web services, developed originally by ESRI, and the JSON format for many objects, also defined by ESRI, and used by those services. The OGC request for comments (now closed) is here: http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/89 with each of the documents. Note that Cameron was either unclear or incorrect in his presentation of where the standard now stands. * The document was released for public comment. (see above) * A response to all the comments was issued. (however incomplete) * The document was then released for a vote. * The vote was suspended because two 'no' votes were heard. * A response was issued to the 'no' votes. * The vote was resumed * The vote was (re) suspended because two additional 'no' votes were heard, with new arguments. = the vote is current suspended awaiting (1) a response to the new reasons, and (2) a decision of what to do next by the leadership of the OGC technical committee (where all this work happens), since we have not yet faced such lack of consensus. The proposed standard has been controversial from the start at the OGC. The controversy, as best as I can tell, centers on the following issues: * no backwards incompatible changes were allowed, * no work was done to integrate the proposed services with existing OGC services (W*S, ...), * the only implementations are by ESRI and its partners, * the name of the standard and services are not accurate or distinct. Banning backwards incompatible changes is controversial both because it blocked collaboration at the OGC (which essentially had to approve the ESRI implementation as is) and because it prevented things like using GeoJSON where appropriate. Also, going forwards, backwards compatibility will have to be maintained giving the existing implementations (i.e. ESRI's) a huge advantage in defining extensions (ESRI already has a number in the pipeline). The lack of integration with existing services is controversial both because they made no effort to work with the existing working groups and because it splits the work of the OGC into competing efforts. There is no clear path forwards towards harmonization despite the fact that most groups working on OGC Services are tackling issues in the same area (simple services, JSON exchange format, REST design). The dominance of ESRI is controversial both because the working mode lacked any collaborative spirit and, perhaps most critically, because this is seen as a way through which ESRI can bring its own service onto an equal footing with the current, public OGC standards in the government procurement game. Governments are shifting towards requiring that all spatial software conform with published, open standards; the proposed standard, if adopted, would allow ESRI to push its own software as also an Open Standard and compete on an unequal footing with implementations of the software being worked on by everyone else. The name of the standard
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Would you be concerned if the GeoServices REST API became an OGC standard?
I am also of the opinion that single-vendor standards such as KML and this GeoServices REST API are turning OGC into a rubber-stamping organization and this is not what the geospatial community needs. Don't get me wrong, it is good to see these openly published, but the publication should be by their owners (Google and ESRI in those case) and not be rubber-stamped by OGC. What the geospatial community needs is an organization that provides direction around a consistent set of standards that guarantee interoperability between interchangeable software components. The suite of WxS services built over the last 10-15 years is somewhat on the way of achieving this, even if some pieces still do not interoperate as smoothly as we wish. Is OGC trying to tell the world that it no longer believes in WxS? OGC and its members need to decide whether they want the OGC logo to be perceived as the guarantee of interoperability, or just as a rubber-stamping organization with a large portfolio of inconsistent standards. Whether your source is open or closed is out of the question here, so I am not sure that a statement from OSGeo matters unless it is to point at this obvious slippery slope in which OGC is falling (a movement which started with KML a few years ago). Daniel On 13-05-06 3:41 AM, Jeroen Ticheler wrote: All, Having read this thread I support what has been said by Adrian, Bruce and others. If anything, acceptance of a set of standards that basically replicates what W*S standards already do will confuse customers. Maybe that is exactly what esri hopes to achieve, it definitely doesn't help our (the geospatial community) business. And as Bruce states, it will have serious impact on the OGC credibility. As OSGeo I can imagine that we then decide to start our own standardization process and build a standards brand around OSGeo products. Not a nice perspective, let's hope OGC won't go down that route. Jeroen On 6 mei 2013, at 01:08, bruce.bannerman.osgeo bruce.bannerman.os...@gmail.com wrote: Cameron, My personal opinion is that if this proposal was accepted, it would be a bad move for OGC. Remember that OGC is a community and its Technical Committee membership are the people who vote on the acceptance of Standards. The TC comprises many different organisations. I do understand that OGC are trying to be inclusive in their processes and to try and cater for alternative approaches to a problem, much the same as OSGeo does in supporting multiple projects that essentially handle similar use cases (e.g. GeoServer, MapServer and Degree). I have also personally witnessed ESRI's commitment to helping to further the development of Open Spatial Standards through their work on OGC Working Groups and at OGC Technical Committee meetings. ESRI also have made a valid point in their response to the 'NO' vote for the GeoServices REST API that the OGC has already allowed alternate approaches with the acceptance of netCDF as a data format and KML as a combined data/presentation format. With the GeoServices REST API, I think that the approach proposed: - is very divisive for the OGC community. - essentially appears to propose an alternate way for working with spatial services that does not utilise or build on the W*S suite of services that have been developed through robust community processes for in excess of a decade. - does not provide REST bindings to the W*S suite of standards that have been widely implemented in a range of software. - will result in confusion within the user community that are trying to utilise 'OGC' services. If this approach were to be adopted, I believe that OGC will go too far down the alternate solution approach and will risk losing its public acceptance as one of the key leaders of open spatial standards. I'm interested in hearing other OSGeo members opinions as to how this proposal would affect their projects. Would you consider implementing the GeoServices REST API within your projects? If you did, would you maintain support for both it and traditional W*S services? Bruce ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Daniel Morissette http://www.mapgears.com/ Provider of Professional MapServer Support since 2000 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Would you be concerned if the GeoServices REST API became an OGC standard?
All, I'm pretty much in the same camp as Jeroen has described below. The original advertised capabilities from OGC were to develop a set of common and documented standards that could be used as interoperable building blocks. It was supposed to be a nice and easy way to say that I, (or we) as developer(s) is/are adhering to a standards approach. It was supposed to be easy to rally around. As noted elsewhere in this thread the KML stuff seemed to fracture the OGC universe somewhat. I had a hard time with its introduction as a standard at the time as well. Each of these new introductions of processes seem to fracture the original OGC intents even further as far as being a set of standards to point at. Now even after having said all of this, how does the community maintain a standards approach while still embracing change. New approaches need to be vetted and possibly approved as to what they are are and what their capabilities are. The bigger piece here seems to be the missing aspects of description needed by the end users of the standards, and about what those standards are really capable of, and second, and probably more important, how popular it is to the Open community. I have no idea how a popularity ranking might occur, but it would allow for all sorts of approaches with various standards being introduced but also demonstrate which ones are being used the most. Hmmm, maybe OGC needs an Incubation stage of adoption, which lets a following build (if it's there) or not. Bobb -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Jeroen Ticheler Sent: Monday, May 06, 2013 2:42 AM To: bruce.bannerman.osgeo Cc: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Would you be concerned if the GeoServices REST API became an OGC standard? All, Having read this thread I support what has been said by Adrian, Bruce and others. If anything, acceptance of a set of standards that basically replicates what W*S standards already do will confuse customers. Maybe that is exactly what esri hopes to achieve, it definitely doesn't help our (the geospatial community) business. And as Bruce states, it will have serious impact on the OGC credibility. As OSGeo I can imagine that we then decide to start our own standardization process and build a standards brand around OSGeo products. Not a nice perspective, let's hope OGC won't go down that route. Jeroen On 6 mei 2013, at 01:08, bruce.bannerman.osgeo bruce.bannerman.os...@gmail.com wrote: Cameron, My personal opinion is that if this proposal was accepted, it would be a bad move for OGC. Remember that OGC is a community and its Technical Committee membership are the people who vote on the acceptance of Standards. The TC comprises many different organisations. I do understand that OGC are trying to be inclusive in their processes and to try and cater for alternative approaches to a problem, much the same as OSGeo does in supporting multiple projects that essentially handle similar use cases (e.g. GeoServer, MapServer and Degree). I have also personally witnessed ESRI's commitment to helping to further the development of Open Spatial Standards through their work on OGC Working Groups and at OGC Technical Committee meetings. ESRI also have made a valid point in their response to the 'NO' vote for the GeoServices REST API that the OGC has already allowed alternate approaches with the acceptance of netCDF as a data format and KML as a combined data/presentation format. With the GeoServices REST API, I think that the approach proposed: - is very divisive for the OGC community. - essentially appears to propose an alternate way for working with spatial services that does not utilise or build on the W*S suite of services that have been developed through robust community processes for in excess of a decade. - does not provide REST bindings to the W*S suite of standards that have been widely implemented in a range of software. - will result in confusion within the user community that are trying to utilise 'OGC' services. If this approach were to be adopted, I believe that OGC will go too far down the alternate solution approach and will risk losing its public acceptance as one of the key leaders of open spatial standards. I'm interested in hearing other OSGeo members opinions as to how this proposal would affect their projects. Would you consider implementing the GeoServices REST API within your projects? If you did, would you maintain support for both it and traditional W*S services? Bruce ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Would you be concerned if the GeoServices REST API became an OGC standard?
The part that bothers me the most about this has to do with the big picture. I'm concerned that if we focus on this or that standard without putting it into the larger context that poor(bad?) decisions are getting made that set precedents for more bad decisions to follow. This had been touched on buy the other responses. There are plenty of standards the are defacto because companies have published them and they have been widely adopted across their respective industry and this is goodness, but I'm not sure that it is justification for making it a standard unless it meets the goals and objects of the standard's body that wants to adopt it. I think it would be very divisive to fracture and dilute the momentum that we have finally achieved with the WxS standards, unless there is clearly a need to grow beyond what exists today that can not be achieved by growing WxS in a compatible way. -Steve On 5/6/2013 11:11 AM, Daniel Morissette wrote: I am also of the opinion that single-vendor standards such as KML and this GeoServices REST API are turning OGC into a rubber-stamping organization and this is not what the geospatial community needs. Don't get me wrong, it is good to see these openly published, but the publication should be by their owners (Google and ESRI in those case) and not be rubber-stamped by OGC. What the geospatial community needs is an organization that provides direction around a consistent set of standards that guarantee interoperability between interchangeable software components. The suite of WxS services built over the last 10-15 years is somewhat on the way of achieving this, even if some pieces still do not interoperate as smoothly as we wish. Is OGC trying to tell the world that it no longer believes in WxS? OGC and its members need to decide whether they want the OGC logo to be perceived as the guarantee of interoperability, or just as a rubber-stamping organization with a large portfolio of inconsistent standards. Whether your source is open or closed is out of the question here, so I am not sure that a statement from OSGeo matters unless it is to point at this obvious slippery slope in which OGC is falling (a movement which started with KML a few years ago). Daniel On 13-05-06 3:41 AM, Jeroen Ticheler wrote: All, Having read this thread I support what has been said by Adrian, Bruce and others. If anything, acceptance of a set of standards that basically replicates what W*S standards already do will confuse customers. Maybe that is exactly what esri hopes to achieve, it definitely doesn't help our (the geospatial community) business. And as Bruce states, it will have serious impact on the OGC credibility. As OSGeo I can imagine that we then decide to start our own standardization process and build a standards brand around OSGeo products. Not a nice perspective, let's hope OGC won't go down that route. Jeroen On 6 mei 2013, at 01:08, bruce.bannerman.osgeo bruce.bannerman.os...@gmail.com wrote: Cameron, My personal opinion is that if this proposal was accepted, it would be a bad move for OGC. Remember that OGC is a community and its Technical Committee membership are the people who vote on the acceptance of Standards. The TC comprises many different organisations. I do understand that OGC are trying to be inclusive in their processes and to try and cater for alternative approaches to a problem, much the same as OSGeo does in supporting multiple projects that essentially handle similar use cases (e.g. GeoServer, MapServer and Degree). I have also personally witnessed ESRI's commitment to helping to further the development of Open Spatial Standards through their work on OGC Working Groups and at OGC Technical Committee meetings. ESRI also have made a valid point in their response to the 'NO' vote for the GeoServices REST API that the OGC has already allowed alternate approaches with the acceptance of netCDF as a data format and KML as a combined data/presentation format. With the GeoServices REST API, I think that the approach proposed: - is very divisive for the OGC community. - essentially appears to propose an alternate way for working with spatial services that does not utilise or build on the W*S suite of services that have been developed through robust community processes for in excess of a decade. - does not provide REST bindings to the W*S suite of standards that have been widely implemented in a range of software. - will result in confusion within the user community that are trying to utilise 'OGC' services. If this approach were to be adopted, I believe that OGC will go too far down the alternate solution approach and will risk losing its public acceptance as one of the key leaders of open spatial standards. I'm interested in hearing other OSGeo members opinions as to how this proposal would affect their projects. Would you consider implementing the GeoServices REST API within your projects? If you did, would you maintain support for
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Would you be concerned if the GeoServices REST API became an OGC standard?
All, I've followed this thread with interest, thanks for the insightful discussion. If I can spare my 2 cents, is that the OGC specifications are complex enough already, with differences in behavior in the various versions, that adding another set of competing standards is just going to increase confusion quite a bit, diluting the OGC position as a reference for standards to a point of no return. Several of the ideas in the REST GeoServices are good, yes, there is demand for REST geoservices, and yes, JSON is popular, yet, especially from the point of view of someone that participates to open source communities, it's sort of unbelievable that someone can come and impose something to be a standard as-is, no questions asked. It's ok for it to be a starting point, but to be something that is embraced at large it should be allowed to be pruned and modified to everybody's satisfaction. Also, I'm not sure here, but not building on top of the existing standards it will likely introduce new terminology, making it harder to talk about the services in a way that makes people understand each other. Adding a REST service on top of existing standards, such as WFS (as a new network binding) and GeoJSON would likely lower this risk significantly. About implementing it or not, I cannot speak for the GeoServer PSC, but we are normally open and pragmatic, so I doubt that if someone comes up with an implementation of the ESRI GeoServervices API we'd refuse it, and if it gets enough traction, it might well enter the core functionality. It's more about someone contributing the code, and the overall user community showing appreciation for it, than making a political statement. Cheers Andrea ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Would you be concerned if the GeoServices REST API became an OGC standard?
All, being involved in both communities I read this thread with high interest. I agree with the issues raised by Bruce, Jeroen, Daniel, etc. I guess my main issue is adding a competing set of standards within OGC without proper justification and thus weakening the overall position of OGC. cu Stephan On 05/06/2013 05:11 PM, Daniel Morissette wrote: I am also of the opinion that single-vendor standards such as KML and this GeoServices REST API are turning OGC into a rubber-stamping organization and this is not what the geospatial community needs. Don't get me wrong, it is good to see these openly published, but the publication should be by their owners (Google and ESRI in those case) and not be rubber-stamped by OGC. What the geospatial community needs is an organization that provides direction around a consistent set of standards that guarantee interoperability between interchangeable software components. The suite of WxS services built over the last 10-15 years is somewhat on the way of achieving this, even if some pieces still do not interoperate as smoothly as we wish. Is OGC trying to tell the world that it no longer believes in WxS? OGC and its members need to decide whether they want the OGC logo to be perceived as the guarantee of interoperability, or just as a rubber-stamping organization with a large portfolio of inconsistent standards. Whether your source is open or closed is out of the question here, so I am not sure that a statement from OSGeo matters unless it is to point at this obvious slippery slope in which OGC is falling (a movement which started with KML a few years ago). Daniel On 13-05-06 3:41 AM, Jeroen Ticheler wrote: All, Having read this thread I support what has been said by Adrian, Bruce and others. If anything, acceptance of a set of standards that basically replicates what W*S standards already do will confuse customers. Maybe that is exactly what esri hopes to achieve, it definitely doesn't help our (the geospatial community) business. And as Bruce states, it will have serious impact on the OGC credibility. As OSGeo I can imagine that we then decide to start our own standardization process and build a standards brand around OSGeo products. Not a nice perspective, let's hope OGC won't go down that route. Jeroen On 6 mei 2013, at 01:08, bruce.bannerman.osgeo bruce.bannerman.os...@gmail.com wrote: Cameron, My personal opinion is that if this proposal was accepted, it would be a bad move for OGC. Remember that OGC is a community and its Technical Committee membership are the people who vote on the acceptance of Standards. The TC comprises many different organisations. I do understand that OGC are trying to be inclusive in their processes and to try and cater for alternative approaches to a problem, much the same as OSGeo does in supporting multiple projects that essentially handle similar use cases (e.g. GeoServer, MapServer and Degree). I have also personally witnessed ESRI's commitment to helping to further the development of Open Spatial Standards through their work on OGC Working Groups and at OGC Technical Committee meetings. ESRI also have made a valid point in their response to the 'NO' vote for the GeoServices REST API that the OGC has already allowed alternate approaches with the acceptance of netCDF as a data format and KML as a combined data/presentation format. With the GeoServices REST API, I think that the approach proposed: - is very divisive for the OGC community. - essentially appears to propose an alternate way for working with spatial services that does not utilise or build on the W*S suite of services that have been developed through robust community processes for in excess of a decade. - does not provide REST bindings to the W*S suite of standards that have been widely implemented in a range of software. - will result in confusion within the user community that are trying to utilise 'OGC' services. If this approach were to be adopted, I believe that OGC will go too far down the alternate solution approach and will risk losing its public acceptance as one of the key leaders of open spatial standards. I'm interested in hearing other OSGeo members opinions as to how this proposal would affect their projects. Would you consider implementing the GeoServices REST API within your projects? If you did, would you maintain support for both it and traditional W*S services? Bruce ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] 2012 Annual Report Participation
I wanted to send out a brief thank you to everyone that wrote and submitted an annual report item for last year. There is double or triple the number of report items this year when compared to last year. Needless to say, I'm running behind with all of the extra content that needs to be reviewed and edited this year compared to last year. (This is a great problem to have.) I'm striving to have something put together, at least in draft form, by the end of May. Thank you again to everyone that submitted this year. It really means a lot to me personally that you took the time away from your programming and other efforts to put together a contribution. Landon OSGeo Journal Editor ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Would you be concerned if the GeoServices REST API became an OGC standard?
On Mon, 06 May 2013 18:24:05 +0200 Stephan Meißl step...@meissl.name wrote: All, being involved in both communities I read this thread with high interest. I agree with the issues raised by Bruce, Jeroen, Daniel, etc. I guess my main issue is adding a competing set of standards within OGC without proper justification and thus weakening the overall position of OGC. Hello all, I share most of the points raised in this discussion, and could not have said them better. There is an agenda item about this topic at next Board meeting (9th of May): http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Meeting_2013-05-09 so I'd like to collect the opinion of as most OSGeo members as possible. Stephan, Adrian: is there an effective way for OSGeo to address a statement to OGC, beside the official requests for comments and our Discuss list? Thanks for your thoughts, Anne cu Stephan On 05/06/2013 05:11 PM, Daniel Morissette wrote: I am also of the opinion that single-vendor standards such as KML and this GeoServices REST API are turning OGC into a rubber-stamping organization and this is not what the geospatial community needs. Don't get me wrong, it is good to see these openly published, but the publication should be by their owners (Google and ESRI in those case) and not be rubber-stamped by OGC. What the geospatial community needs is an organization that provides direction around a consistent set of standards that guarantee interoperability between interchangeable software components. The suite of WxS services built over the last 10-15 years is somewhat on the way of achieving this, even if some pieces still do not interoperate as smoothly as we wish. Is OGC trying to tell the world that it no longer believes in WxS? OGC and its members need to decide whether they want the OGC logo to be perceived as the guarantee of interoperability, or just as a rubber-stamping organization with a large portfolio of inconsistent standards. Whether your source is open or closed is out of the question here, so I am not sure that a statement from OSGeo matters unless it is to point at this obvious slippery slope in which OGC is falling (a movement which started with KML a few years ago). Daniel On 13-05-06 3:41 AM, Jeroen Ticheler wrote: All, Having read this thread I support what has been said by Adrian, Bruce and others. If anything, acceptance of a set of standards that basically replicates what W*S standards already do will confuse customers. Maybe that is exactly what esri hopes to achieve, it definitely doesn't help our (the geospatial community) business. And as Bruce states, it will have serious impact on the OGC credibility. As OSGeo I can imagine that we then decide to start our own standardization process and build a standards brand around OSGeo products. Not a nice perspective, let's hope OGC won't go down that route. Jeroen On 6 mei 2013, at 01:08, bruce.bannerman.osgeo bruce.bannerman.os...@gmail.com wrote: Cameron, My personal opinion is that if this proposal was accepted, it would be a bad move for OGC. Remember that OGC is a community and its Technical Committee membership are the people who vote on the acceptance of Standards. The TC comprises many different organisations. I do understand that OGC are trying to be inclusive in their processes and to try and cater for alternative approaches to a problem, much the same as OSGeo does in supporting multiple projects that essentially handle similar use cases (e.g. GeoServer, MapServer and Degree). I have also personally witnessed ESRI's commitment to helping to further the development of Open Spatial Standards through their work on OGC Working Groups and at OGC Technical Committee meetings. ESRI also have made a valid point in their response to the 'NO' vote for the GeoServices REST API that the OGC has already allowed alternate approaches with the acceptance of netCDF as a data format and KML as a combined data/presentation format. With the GeoServices REST API, I think that the approach proposed: - is very divisive for the OGC community. - essentially appears to propose an alternate way for working with spatial services that does not utilise or build on the W*S suite of services that have been developed through robust community processes for in excess of a decade. - does not provide REST bindings to the W*S suite of standards that have been widely implemented in a range of software. - will result in confusion within the user community that are trying to utilise 'OGC' services. If this approach were to be adopted, I believe that OGC will go too far down the alternate solution approach and will risk losing its public acceptance as one of the key leaders of open spatial standards. I'm interested in hearing other OSGeo members opinions as to how this proposal would affect their
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Would you be concerned if the GeoServices REST API became an OGC standard?
Hi all, I agree with Andrea. In my opinion OGC should be building upon the WxS specifications, introducing REST and JSON with a round of new major versions. It was already tough for us to explain WxS services to end users for the last 10 years. Adding new service specifications will not help us be convincing, since there will be a new question: which standard should we use and why? Also, as a professional I would not expect customers, organizations and governments paying for implementations of both standards... this will eventually lead to a market split. I cannot believe that OGC would like something like that. Best, Angelos On 05/06/2013 06:45 PM, Andrea Aime wrote: All, I've followed this thread with interest, thanks for the insightful discussion. If I can spare my 2 cents, is that the OGC specifications are complex enough already, with differences in behavior in the various versions, that adding another set of competing standards is just going to increase confusion quite a bit, diluting the OGC position as a reference for standards to a point of no return. Several of the ideas in the REST GeoServices are good, yes, there is demand for REST geoservices, and yes, JSON is popular, yet, especially from the point of view of someone that participates to open source communities, it's sort of unbelievable that someone can come and impose something to be a standard as-is, no questions asked. It's ok for it to be a starting point, but to be something that is embraced at large it should be allowed to be pruned and modified to everybody's satisfaction. Also, I'm not sure here, but not building on top of the existing standards it will likely introduce new terminology, making it harder to talk about the services in a way that makes people understand each other. Adding a REST service on top of existing standards, such as WFS (as a new network binding) and GeoJSON would likely lower this risk significantly. About implementing it or not, I cannot speak for the GeoServer PSC, but we are normally open and pragmatic, so I doubt that if someone comes up with an implementation of the ESRI GeoServervices API we'd refuse it, and if it gets enough traction, it might well enter the core functionality. It's more about someone contributing the code, and the overall user community showing appreciation for it, than making a political statement. Cheers Andrea ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Angelos Tzotsos Remote Sensing Laboratory National Technical University of Athens http://users.ntua.gr/tzotsos ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Would you be concerned if the GeoServices REST API became an OGC standard?
Hey Ann, all, On 5/6/13 5:48 PM, Anne Ghisla wrote: Stephan, Adrian: is there an effective way for OSGeo to address a statement to OGC, beside the official requests for comments and our Discuss list? Thanks for your thoughts, Anne Any official statement issued by the OSGeo Board or community on this particular vote should probably be addressed to the 'Voting Members of the OGC Technical Committee' since they are the ones who are taking a position during this vote and deciding whether to accept it or not as an official OGC standard. The statement could be sent via Carl Reed, who is the head of the OGC Technical Committee. He lurks on this list as part of the collaboration agreement between the two communities and can be reached directly at: creed U+0040 opengeospatial.org ciao, ~adrian ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
