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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