My biggest disappointment as I researched .geo was finding no comment from the OpenGIS Consortium (OGC). I did learn that SRI presented its plan at a technical committee meeting OGC last March. I was actually in attendance at the meeting, but do not recall hearing about it. I spoke with David Schell, OpenGIS president. He explained that "the membership did not feel adequately exposed to the proposal to put forward a comment."

Now, it can be argued that the OpenGIS members and the rest of the geospatial community did, in fact, have access to the documents via the web for some time. That may be true. Still, consensus is built on relationships, and it appears that SRI has not done the consensus building required. If they had, the OGC members and others would be happy to write their notes of support or arguments against.

My sense, now that SRI has taken the matter to ICANN, is that OGC, and I'll suggest, "everyone else" has simply not had the opportunity to study the proposal, discuss it with the membership and prepare a meaningful response. And, this in part is something SRI failed to instigate. This should give ICANN and the rest of us pause as we consider whether the world (geospatial and otherwise) is ready for .geo.

That said, Doug Nebert, U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee Secretariat Geospatial Data Clearinghouse Coordinator took the time to "vote" no at the ICANN discussion area. This is his personal statement, not that of FGCD member organizations. I'm pleased that his first comment echoes one of mine - this can be done without a new domain. He goes on to argue that the proposal is not in sync with existing GIS software and data and explains the further dichotomy that this new domain creates. It further separates GIS data from all other data. This is something that most IT professionals, software vendors and others are working hard to eliminate. The idea is to make geospatial data "just like" traditional data - not anything "special." He also questions how data that spans multiple cells will be handled as well as the metadata management for large imagery databases. The latter might have to be replicated both locally and on the georegistry - creating a dilemma for IT. He notes the general human tendency toward least effort and the extra bureaucracy imposed by a new domain. In closing he highlights that several existing internationally recognized methods for performing spatial searches already exist and that this proposal sets them aside for a new, untested one.

I am pleased that someone I've heard of from the geospatial community stepped forward with a well-supported discussion. Another contributor to the discussion noted the following: Sarnoff, along with Atomic Tangerine, Inc. and NextDNS, Inc. which are all well intertwined with, and part owned by SRI, put in a joint application for the .i top-level domain. The .geo proposal and .i proposals, he argues are similar in that they claim a quick indexing method for new services. .geo is about assigning unique spatial metadata. The .i proposal is about providing access to every person and device on earth by providing a name space, which allows indexing of every person and device by a unique identifying number. The question: Should we be nervous about a single entity (SRI) holding the keys to BOTH of these special indexing domains?

 
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