GeoRSS redux
It seems my post caused a bit of a stir. Andrew Hallam has the most complete linklog of the discussion. Here’s an update on what’s currently going on:
- The copyright/spec licensing issue is gone. This was an oversight, not malice.
- In private email, I was assured that by playing within the OGC, GeoRSS would not be “locked out” in the sense that individuals who cannot join OGC cannot participate in the standard development. We’ve yet to see details on how exactly this would work given that it is incongruent with the way OGC currently operates, but nonetheless this is encouraging.
- The mechanics and details of how exactly the “edge”, as Ed Parsons puts it, is supposed to interact and collaborate with OGC still make me a bit nervous.
- I still think that GeoRSS is/was being used as an OGC membership marketing opportunity for places like Where 2.0.
I can appreciate that GeoRSS would be somewhat new ground for OGC, especially given that it is one of a number of geo standards that was mostly developed outside the direct realm of influence of the OGC. I’ll also gladly give OGC credit for having a mostly positive influence on the industry, but I would state that the job isn’t done yet. Interoperating down in the trenches with member’s implementations is still a rough, unforgiving, and frequently frustrating experience.
Maybe whether or not OGC shepherds GeoRSS will have no impact on how it is implemented, but for me, as a developer, a member’s self-proclamation of “OGC support” can often mean an incomplete, inconsistent, and unfulfilling experience. The simplicity of GeoRSS makes it brain-dead simple to avoid repeating that experience. In that sense, GeoRSS going into the meat grinder of OGC still makes me a bit nervous that there is the potential for what goes in might not be the same thing as what comes out.
Errata
Ugh, Plone gave me fits this weekend as I was updating to a new version. I ended up re-publishing all of my entries again, causing a very public spamming of Planet GeoSpatial. I think things are mostly in order now. If you find something drop me an email.
Also, I do not allow comments and trackbacks on this weblog because I’ve no patience for dealing with the spam. Everyone has a weblog these days, right?