[okfn-discuss] Todo, and what's next, for Open Geodata at OKFN

[Jo Walsh]

dear all,

It's been an interesting year since the start of the OKFN-supported 
Public Peodata campaign. A sea changing in public geodata policy, and 
an INSPIRE directive lean on meat but not poisonous to access either.

I have a todo list as long as my arm. I write it down here both for 
tracking purposes and in hopes we may be able to raise offers of help.

1. Closing the public geodata petition

- We are still getting requests to sign and to add Romania and Bulgaria
  to the list. (The Romanian open source GIS/open geodata scene is kicking)
  As the petition is specific to INSPIRE which will irrevocably become law,
  it needs to be closed and these things should happen first.

2. Replacing the signup system / UI for the original 'Open Geodata Manifesto',
   with either phpPetition or something better, setting up a redirect. 
   - This involves a bit of php and css hacking. The setup work is done.

3. Updating the publicgeodata.org wiki to reflect the current state of INSPIRE.
   - Roger wrote a really nice piece on EGIP about what public authorities 
   INSPIRE will affect, i dumped this into the wiki but never linked it. 

4. Moving the current handwritten-html, dated pages at http://okfn.org/geo/
   into the OKFN wiki, and setting up redirects.

5. Emailing the 8000 people who signed the petition, thanking them for their
   support and pointing them at the wiki.
   - Some of these people will want a way to help. What's there to do?

These are my thoughts about "what next" for Public Geodata and OKFN/geo 
for the rest of this year.

6. I want to slowly turn publicgeodata.org into an open geodata index and 
search service (somewhat like what they call a 'GeoPortal'). 
- In the short term we can have wiki links per country page to available
  local and regional and specialist sources 
- In the longer term it can become a 'facet' of a distributed data repository
  with metadata from GeoNetwork, as INSPIRE picks up speed and we get 
  better access to geographic metadata.

7. I want to carry on the process of open analysis of, and response to, the 
Implementing Rules drafts and the work of the Spatial Data Theme volunteer 
groups. I'm coordinating an open source GIS community response to the 
Metadata IR draft through OSGeo. The deadline for this is a month's time.
Metadata is the only area in which I feel Very Certain Of My Opinions And 
Keen to Express Them.
- I can do a goodish amount of writing but could really use an editor
- I'd love someone else to volunteer to be contact point for the FOSS SDIC.

8. I want to connect the dots more with the CKAN (CPAN for open data) project
that sits alongside Kforge, with Rufus' work on a very lightweight 
implementation thereof. OAI-PMH... 'mass market metadata' extensions to 
Dublin Core using GeoRSS... all this sort of thing. 
 

That's it for now. It's amazing that we've managed to do what we have with 
so little time and resources available. Arresting the decay in the online 
presence, adding a bit of spit and polish, we could be actually proud of it.


jo

 
--