Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: idea for an OSGeo project -- a new, open data format

2007-11-17 Thread Jo Walsh
dear Steve, all,
On Tue, Nov 13, 2007 at 05:24:55PM +, Steve Coast wrote:
> Real artists ship. For everyone else there's standards wanking.

As the origins of the word 'yardstick' suggest, size is relative,
and standards and wanking have always been intimately connected.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=yardstick
 
> this: We should have got a committee to design a standard, then we  
> could think about a committee to design an ontology... and choose a  

As http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Map_Features states, 
"there is benefit in agreeing a recommended set of features and
corresponding tags". This page is a beautiful work and has many
interesting properties. But it's an ontology designed by a committee,
the work of core contributors needing more structure to achieve their
aims, than an completely open key-value tag system.

I'm impressed to see how many different language communities have
worked to translate this page and explain its contents. 
Yet, italians, swedes and spaniards alike must use english-language 
key and value 'tags' in order to have their work show up on the map.
Many annotations made before the "core recommended feature set" was
fixed have been lost to perception; though it's technically possible
to use a different system, adapt the rendering and annotation clients,
then that work would be lost to re-use. A bit more structure would
afford a lot more future adaptation and translation.

OSM is a brilliant project, borne of real need and social momentum.
Meanwhile some corners of the standards industry really have gone off
the rails and appear to be acting against common sense and user benefit.
About the most depressing thing i heard at FOSS4G was, in the middle
of an interesting talk, "we were going to implement cool feature X,
but we're *waiting for the standard*". 

As i think you've pointed out in the past, "standards" like the core
Map Features ought to emerge from common practise, from comparing
different things that are shipped and running and being used. 
"Standards" that *do* work, like WMS and RSS, will get picked up.
The core difference in approach seems to be a question of process. 
As Bitner pointed out, sometimes it makes sense to slow down a bit in
order to let others catch up, so we can all go faster.


jo
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Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] idea for an OSGeo project -- a new, open data format

2007-11-17 Thread Luis W. Sevilla
Hi,
  +1 for GML with BXML encoding as next open standard. GML 3.* with his
ability to be 'profiled' seems to be on the base of  almost all and
every OGC norm being proposed on last 2-3 years. As Rob Atkinson said to
me, BXML may be an encoding for GML, in a way no standard needs to be
modifyed to support this encoding, only implementors must add support to it.
At gvSIG we're currently working both on a low level library for
reading and writing GML 3.* + other GML alike formats, disacopled of 
our object model, and a java port of this cubewerx BXML encoder/decoder.
We hope to release early results by the end of 1st term next year.
Maybe the way of push the standard (both OGC and ISO) it's by simply
implement parsers and writers, and use it a widely as possible.

greetings
   Luis
Paul Spencer wrote:

> Cubewerx created a binary XML implementation that is open source.  
> They claim substantial benefits, so perhaps GML plus a binary XML 
> library could be an alternative?
>
> http://www.cubewerx.com/web/guest/bxml
>
> Cheers
>
> Paul
>
> On 15-Nov-07, at 5:21 PM, Lucena, Ivan wrote:
>
>> Sampson,
>>
>> I am not a GML guru and I don't know if a binary version exists 
>> already, but I would imagine that HDF5 would be a excellent choice 
>> by its own hierarchical nature. I mean, we can use GML as a schema 
>> to store the data in binary format in the HDF5 format.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Ivan
>>
>> Sampson, David wrote:
>>
>>> Alright,
>>> Here are some other thoughts.
>>> First off what about a open office (open base) type approach... This
>>> mimmics the ESRI MSAccess approach and seams to work well for non 
>>> server
>>> environments. Also open office is a good environment for some basic
>>> applications.
>>> Next, what ever happened to the adoption of GML... Was GML not 
>>> supposed
>>> to be the NEXT interchange fomrat?  Perhaps this is a good 
>>> discussion to
>>> include the GML gurus in. The whole discussion of going with a binary
>>> GML format makes sense and GML is already used for many web mapping
>>> (feature) services. It sounds like a duplication of GML to me... 
>>> Unless
>>> someone can offer a direct compare and contrast between the concept 
>>> here
>>> and the GML/Binary GML concept.
>>> In either case being able to convert to and from GML would be a 
>>> necesity
>>> for wide adoption IMHO.
>>> Another thought is to encourage some of the proprietary formats to 
>>> open
>>> up. What would it take to get ESRI on board to open up the format 
>>> (open
>>> as in free speech). What about other non-open standards? Once it's 
>>> open
>>> then we can bring the SHP format to modern day useage. Surely much of
>>> the format could be salvaged.
>>> Besides, if you want wide adoption of an open format then why not 
>>> go for
>>> those players who hold greatest market share.
>>> Some thoughts.
>>> -Original Message-
>>> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of P Kishor
>>> Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 09:53
>>> To: OSGeo Discussions
>>> Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] idea for an OSGeo project -- a new, open  data
>>> format
>>> So, I am thinking, Shapefile is the de facto data standard for GIS 
>>> data.
>>> That it is open (albeit not Free) along with the deep and wide 
>>> presence
>>> of ESRI's products from the beginning of the epoch, it has been  widely
>>> adopted. Existence of shapelib, various language bindings, and 
>>> ready use
>>> by products such as MapServer has continued to cement Shapefile as  the
>>> format to use. All this is in spite of Shapefile's inherent  drawbacks,
>>> particularly in the area of attribute data management.
>>> What if we came up with a new and improved data format -- call it 
>>> "Open
>>> Shapefile" (extension .osh) -- that would be completely Free,
>>> single-file based (instead of the multiple .shp, .dbf, .shx, etc.), 
>>> and
>>> based on SQLite, giving the .osh format complete relational data
>>> handling capabilities. We would require a new version of Shapelib,
>>> improved language bindings, make it the default and preferred 
>>> format for
>>> MapServer, and provide seamless and painless import of regular .shp 
>>> data
>>> into .osh for native rendering. Its adoption would be quick in the 
>>> open
>>> source community. The non-opensource community would either not  give a
>>> rat's behind for it, but it wouldn't affect them...
>>> they would still work with their preferred .shp until they learned
>>> better. By having a completely open and Free single-file based, 
>>> built on
>>> SQLite, fully relational dbms capable spatial data format, it would  be
>>> positioned for continued improvement and development.
>>> Is this too crazy?
>>> -- 
>>> Puneet Kishor
>>> ___
>>> Discuss mailing list
>>> Discuss@lists.osgeo.org
>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>> ___
>>> Discuss mailing list
>>> Discuss

When *is* a format 'open'? (was Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] idea for an OSGeo project -- a new, open data format)

2007-11-17 Thread Jo Walsh
dear all,
On Thu, Nov 15, 2007 at 04:17:18PM -0500, Sampson, David wrote:
> Besides, if you want wide adoption of an open format then why not go for
> those players who hold greatest market share.

When is a format an open format? We know an "open license" can be one
complying to the OSI open license definition. For a couple of years
the Open Knowledge Foundation has been working over a complementary 
"Open Data Definition" and trying to align it with similar efforts. 
There's been a recent effort around "Open Services", too.
http://opendefinition.org/ ... http://opendefinition.org/osd

Lorenzo raised this issue of Open Formats as something that OSGeo, the
OGC etc could use their weight to support. There are some brief
initial notes here: http://opendefinition.org/open_format_definition 
which need worked up into a "set of principles" which, a format, to be
open, should abide by. But we are lacking experience-driven context,
and would greatly welcome contribution to this topic; it could be very
useful as a yardstick for formats like SDF - how open is open?

cheers,


jo
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