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Subject: RE: [emergency] RE: OGC UoM Best Practices guidance
Gary -
I believe that we are in violent agreement! Just stating things a bit
differently :-) This is why I suggested that the correct approach - as you
are suggesting - is both bottom up and top down.
Also, thanks for support of OGC standards. Perhaps - to help make life a
bit easier for those implementing OGC standards, we have just released
(not even announced yet) a new community resource called OGCNetwork.
Anyone can register and participate. The Network vision is to help solve
the issues you have so correctly identified. www.ogcnetwork.net . Check
it out. It is fledgling but collaboration is already beginning.
Cheers
Carl
> Carl,
>
> I am not arguing against you or the need for better standards. We, in
> the DM program are using OGC standards for Web Map services. We are
> also committed to building to the standards of both the EM-TC and NIEM.
> And we are not just "compliant." I.e., using three tags, and claiming
> compliance. We are trying to build real interoperability. But real
> interoperability takes more than a mandate. It takes real acceptance of
> that mandate. And no matter who is running the show, developer
> acceptance will be required for real acceptance. It is all a matter of
> morale. Just like in the military, where Generals run the show, but
> troop morale and the fit of the equipment to the capability and training
> of the troops is a major factor in success.
>
> Top down mandates can work, but only if they are CLEARLY EXPLAINED and
> marketed effectively. And then, they must actually work as advertised
> and not be so complicated that long-term costs are actually increased.
> Commercial firms use internal standards because they keep costs down.
> They use external standards if they can make more money by doing so. If
> the government mandates a standard, one of two conditions are required
> before the firm will start implementation:
>
> 1. They can bill cost plus. Even if it does not work, they make money.
> This is the normal practice of the Federal integrators. For them,
> failure is no big problem, since real success in Federal systems usually
> about a 50-50 situation anyway (and often that success has less do with
> the technology than politics, so technology risk is often ignored). As a
> result, there has been a lot of money frittered away (I am thinking
> personally of a couple of programs for the Army Reserve, but there are
> lots of others. Think of all of the systems that "built" using the DoD
> data model.)
>
> 2. They think they can sell more of their packaged software because
> standards compliance can expand their marketplace. In this case a
> mandate can motivate a vendor into doing standards to maintain or
> increase market share or enter new markets, so long as complications
> from the standard do not increase costs or competition to the point that
> profits are reduced in spite of the mandate.
>
> So, my mission is to keep the costs of interoperability down in order to
> widen the playing field and encourage more and more vendor
> participation. For that reason, anything that appears complicated
> scares me a bit. That said, the world is complicated, and many of our
> systems are complicated. So, many of our system-to-system communication
> has to be complicated. But, the more complicated it is, or even appears
> to be, the slower true interoperability will happen. If we do not keep
> that fact in mind as we go about our work, we will be far less
> successful than we could otherwise be. I know I sound like a broken
> record on this issue. But, since my talents are closer to yours than the
> people you actually need to convince, I sincerely think that my "simple
> solution first" approach has merit. I am not against complication, I am
> just against starting with it.
>
> That said, I have no quarrel GML. I am going to take a couple of the
> GML examples you sent me in the document and work them into content
> object in the DE as illustrations of how it can be done. (I already have
> a GML point example, but need to do some documentation.)
>
>
> Gary A. Ham
> Senior Research Scientist
> Battelle Memorial Institute
> 540-288-5611 (office)
> 703-869-6241 (cell)
> "You would be surprised what you can accomplish when you do not care who
> gets the credit." - Harry S. Truman
>
>