[okfn-discuss] Open Data proposals for XTech

Mon Dec 18 00:35:30 UTC 2006

dear all,

Remember the revised deadline for submissions is Monday 18th eg today:
http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/cfp

Below i include an 'atomization' proposal cobbled together from Saul
and Rufus' outlines. Perhaps it could be more technically specific.
Included afterwards is another proposal i am submitting, which is just
me ranting on about the distanced culture and glacial development pace 
of "open" standards for geographic data. There's no "open standard
definition", and the current definition of the term "open" allows for
licensing fees!

Edd Dumbill, the conference chair of XTech is suggesting an "Open Data Summit" 
at one end of the conference and also that OKF could be involved in this. 
http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/cfp

Rufus, i would hope to hold off submitting this til tomorrow afternoon
/ evening and it would be just great if you in partic could offer
feedback on the first one, as i think it needs an extra something but
am too tired to give it real attention. :/ you may want to add more 
in the way of examples, or expand the narrative a bit - it's just 
cobbled together from your blog entries. From all, random rewrites welcome.

Atomization: the Fourth Principle of Open Data Development
==========================================================

[[this title suggested by Saul is meant to bring a self-improvement,
"Celestine Prophecy" tone to the proceedings]]
[[i am not sure 'atomization' or 'atomisation' i think the first
looks better and do we actually need to be consistent?]]

Consider the way software has evolved to be highly atomized into
packages/libraries. Doing this allows one to "divide and
conquer" the organizational and conceptual problems of highly
complex systems. Even more importantly it allows for greatly increased
levels of reuse.  

A request to install a single given package can result in the
automatic discovery and installation of all packages on which that one
depends. The result may be a list of tens  or even hundreds of
packages in a graphic demonstration of the way in which computer
programs have been broken down into interdependent components.

Atomization on a large scale (such as in the Debian apt packaging
system) has allowed large software projects to employ an amazing
degree of decentralised, collaborative and incremental development.
But what other kinds of knowledge can be atomised? What are the
opportunities and problems of this approach for forms of knowledge
other than Software?

Atomization also holds a key to commercial opportunity: unrestricted
access to an ever-changing, atomised landscape of knowledge creates
commercial opportunities that are not available with proprietary
approaches. What examples are there of commercial systems that
function with Open Knowledge, and how can those systems be shared?

OKFN is supporting software allowing the incremental, decentralised,
collaborative and atomised production of open data. KnowledgeForge is
one Open Knowledge Foundation project to provide a platform for
collaborative data development and distribution. The "Open
Shakespeare" project is a prototype distribution of public domain
information with utilities for annotating and cross-referencing it.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Letter from Geospatial: Open Standards, Open Data, Open Source
==============================================================

The "open standards, open data, open source" mantra is not unique to
the geospatial community, but is core to it. Due to our high degree of
specialisation, socialisation and closeness to data, the open source
geospatial community has "incubated" some concerns that are coming to
be apparent in domains where software, knowledge and scientists are
not yet so close together.

Our standards consortium is like a networking club for proprietary
interests; its recent specifications are baggy monsters, filled with
extensions largely concerning access rights, limits and payment
mechanisms. Their older, core standards for RESTful web services *are*
widely used, and have helped the geospatial community to a new level
of "interoperability", as it is still quaintly known.

The new wave of web-based "neogeography" drove the development of
community-based specifications for the simple exchange of geographic
information have become de facto standards. There has been an
implementation-driven focus from open source projects seeking to make
it easier to contribute, distribute and maintain open licensed
geographic information. Now our standards organisation has the bright
idea of a "mass market", "lightweight" standards programme to harness
the energy in this activity. Their established membership, with a lot
of time vested in the matter, are not happy with this. 

In the decision-making bodies following the advice of traditional
domain experts, much issue is made of "discovery", "catalog services"
and "service discovery services". Among the "grassroots" at the nexus
of open source, open standards and open data there is a call for a
"geospatial web" approach, re-using as much as possible existing
distribution mechanisms and toolkits, RSS/Atom in particular. 

ISO standards for information exchange are not solving the problems
faced by the geospatial community. Yet they are being embedded in
international law; "risk management" and disaster recovery provide a
big political drive for exchanging more geographic information.
Through the Open Source Geospatial Foundation, the community is
attempting to influence decision-making bodies through the strength of
the open source / open data approach. "Open" standards are a gateway
to this, and it is a sad day when our official specification for
metadata exchange is an "add to my shopping basket" page.

There's always a lack of emphasis on contribution; transaction and
feedback are an afterthought. The traditional theory of "Public
Participation GIS" comes closer to implementable reality.
"Collaborative mapping" projects producing open licensed data are
becoming the stuff of business plans. The ISO moves in glacial time;
it would be of benefit to shorten the circuit.

How can we bring good status to "complementary specifications"?
Can we use open source software to influence decision-makers?  
Can we help provide a good data licensing precedent for others?
Do our distributed storage and query problems look like yours?