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Geospatial Standards Block Innovation?
posted by Satri
on Thursday June 28, @11:29AM
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from the aren't-they-suppose-to-do-the-opposite? dept.
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from the aren't-they-suppose-to-do-the-opposite? dept.
Charlie Savage has an interesting and severe critic of geospatial standards, including GML, WMS, SLD, WFS and of course KML and GeoRSS are also discussed. Here's a recent previous entry from the same blog on the same topic. From the first link: "So do you see these standards used on the Web? I sure don't. Instead I see people using RSS and ATOM with GeoRSS, or shoehorning feature information into KML. There is event talk of shoehorning GML into KML. [...] So standards strike out on map rendering and sharing geographic features, but have succeeded in specifying locations and custom map content. And there is an interesting pattern here - the dejure standards have failed, while the defacto standards have succeeded."
Related Stories
The OGC on OGC standards and the Geospatial Web
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In their latest newsletter, the Open Geospatial Consortium shares their view on the OGC's own standards and the geospatial web. From the CTO's message: "Some of these standards are OGC standards but
others are from the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), from ISO, from the
IEEE, or from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
The reason for this is that the Geospatial Web consists of many
layers. The following is a somewhat simplistic view of the number of
layers that define the geospatial web. [...] The Geospatial Web is not just a bunch of mash-ups or even the
hundreds of SDI's that have been successfully deployed. The Geospatial
Web is about the complete integration and use of location at all
levels of the internet and the web."
Technology: TileCache 1.4 Released 2 comments
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The OpenLayers mailing list announced the release of TileCache 1.4. From the announcement: "TileCache provides a Python-based WMS/TMS server, with pluggable caching
mechanisms and rendering backends. In the simplest use case, TileCache
requires only write access to a disk, the ability to run Python CGI
scripts, and a WMS you want to be cached. With these resources, you can
create your own local disk-based cache of any WMS server, and use the
result in any WMS-C supporting client, like OpenLayers, or any TMS
supporting client, like OpenLayers and worldKit." See also the OSGeo Tile Map Service specification.
Technology: Using Geographical Standards in Web Applications 3 comments
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Brudert writes "I am developing a web mapping application called Trailtracer that will ultimately serve as a map viewing, editing, and sharing service. I am a huge fan of standards and am interested in any advice or guidance that the Slashgeo community can offer. I plan on using GML and geoRSS but are these the right choices? Are there other standards I should consider?"
OGC Moves KML Closer to a Standard
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Green Palolo writes "http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/44454-1.html
The Open Geospatial Consortium has dubbed Google’s Keyhole Markup Language – the language used for developing Google Earth – a best practice and is working with Google and other OGC members including ESRI and Autodesk to make sure KML integrates well with such other standards as the Geographic Markup Language.
Microsoft — which is continuing development of its Web-based mapping product, Microsoft Virtual Earth — is not currently an OGC member, though it is expected to join soon.
Google offered KML 2.1 to the consortium last April and is working closely with OGC in further development of the language.
An OGC official said the main advantages of making KML a standard are that it speeds development of Web-based mapping applications, encourages greater interoperability of products and ensures easier movement of data between applications.
OGC expects KML 3.0 to be released as a standard early next year." See the several related stories below, this has been covered previously.
OSGeo Discussion List on Standards
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A new OSGeo mailing list is now up: standards@lists.osgeo.org. The new list will host discussions on topics related to the huge world of standards, focusing on and starting from existing and possible relationships between OGC standards and activities on open source geospatial software.
Here's the link to signup: http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/standards
Here's the link to signup: http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/standards
DM Articles: Top Ten of 2007, Extensible GIS via SOA, Afghanistan Mapping and Much More 4 comments
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Here's several interesting recent articles and reprints from Directions Magazine. First is Adena's geospatial industry top ten of 2007, unsurprisingly generic but interesting nonetheless. There's a brief article from Microsoft's Bill Gail on public vs private remote sensing data: "The success of privately funded systems can be evaluated by spreadsheet, while that of publicly funded systems must somehow be related to diffuse concepts such as the value of a human life or animal habitat, scientific progress, and national prosperity/security." Then there's an article named creating an extensible GIS using SOA and web services, it's generic but pertinent: "An SOA [service-oriented architecture] approach can expand the benefits of proper communication by allowing more streamlined communications between systems, as well as people and processes." There's a note on the U.S. NGA support for Afghan Mapping Initiative: "As part of the initiative, NGA will install a nationwide geodetic network, procure and install a basic map production system, provide training and conduct joint AGCHO-NGA projects." There's an article on the future of mobile devices. There's an article named geography lessons for online retailers: "Knowing where and how Web visitors are accessing the Internet is fundamental to preventing online fraud and complying with regulations." Then there's an article on GIS integration in the transportation sector: "In some instances, a general shortage of knowledge regarding GIS capabilities makes the task of integration seem more complex and can unfairly outweigh the immense value, usefulness and functionality available." There's an interesting article from OGC's Sam Bacharach on geospatial standards and technology convergence: "Knowing what data to share and what data not to share is a balancing act, but in business and research, the game is clearly moving in the direction of openness. In both domains, of course, security, access, liability and intellectual property rights - implemented in automated service chains - are becoming very important policy and technical requirements." And the last one, a 2007 stock performance analysis of geospatial companies: "Stock market investing is never for the faint of heart, but clearly the location technology market sector is hot." Please allow this unusually long Slashgeo story, I'm still catching up geonews from the last four weeks.
The Strategic Power of OGC Standards
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A little less than two weeks ago Directions Magazine published an article named "the strategic power of OGC standards" written by a Leica representant. From the article: " Companies in any industry need to make technologies and products work together when they seek to integrate information systems from different divisions or subsidiaries, or when they purchase new software that must be made to work with diverse systems already in use within the company. A decade ago, such integration typically required expensive, time-consuming software development. The interfaces between system components often had to be created anew for each job and maintained separately for each customer. Today, the Web - and standards - have made this kind of work much easier." Comments on the site for this article are very interesting. See also some related previous stories below, including the one asking whether geospatial standards block innovation.
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Geospatial Standards Block Innovation?
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
The Sad State of GIS Web Standards
(Score:3, Insightful)Charlie makes some good points. WMS isn't widely adopted because it isn't scalable. The WMS working group is discussing a tiling approach. If the group can stay on target, they have a chance to produce something scalable.
This may be mildly unfair, as Charlie doesn't mention a de-facto interoperable feature-styling language that has succeeded. Perhaps people aren't doing much of this at all, especially considering that it's impossible with a tile-oriented approach.
Charlie mentions GML but doesn't mention GML Simple Features (SF). IMHO, GML is fundamentally impossible to implement successfully on the client side without something like SF, but with SF it is quite straightforward (I've done it myself). I agree that the Filter expression language was a mistake.
I think that a big part of the problem with de-jure standards is with the people and the process. Two broad groups of technical people who participate in such projects are "pragmatists" and "theoreticians". Pragmatists always want to make something simple that works and theoreticians always want to make something complicated that handles every conceivable need, and which makes use of a myriad of immature technology. De-facto standards tend to be produced by pragmatists only.
Also, the biggest problem during the process isn't in producing a design, but in gaining the consent of all the participants. There is always someone who wants to throw in some additional silly thing and the easiest way to get consent is to include their silly thing as an option. Then there is someone else who wants a silly thing, etc. In the end, the design is a bloated compromise that few technical people are actually happy with. The group designing the Tiled-WMS interface has spent months and could spend several more months before coming up with a compromised design that may or may not be scalable. A single competent developer could produce a design in an hour that is simple and scalable and does what is needed.
Re:The Sad State of GIS Web Standards
(Score:3)( http://alexandreleroux.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday March 17, @04:07PM )
My comment was asking what Charlie thinks of TileCache [tilecache.org]. Related, the OSGeo is also working on a tile implementation [osgeo.org].
Re:The Sad State of GIS Web Standards
(Score:3, Informative)Re:The Sad State of GIS Web Standards
(Score:3, Interesting)