[Geowanking] WFS misgivings etc

[Rob Hranac]

Jo,

Hmmm, as a big WFS fan and the person who first wrote
the aspiration of GeoServer to be the "Apache of GIS,"
perhaps I should comment.

> saying 'the Web will
> allow all this to work as long as everyone buys into
> HTML and HTTP', and

The web does work because everyone buys into HTML and
HTTP.  Same for W*S.  The geo-spatial web will work as
long as everyone buys into some universal geospatial
standards.  Nothing absurd about it!

> running Apache can be a pretty technical job, and
> while one doesn't need
> to know the details of HTML and HTTP to make pretty
> complex websites,

The main goals of GeoServer are standards compliance
and simplicity.  It is very hard to administer these
servers and we are trying hard to make it simpler.  We
have more work to do.

> in this post-networked era, we don't need a
> geocities of GIS, but
> something like an incubator for a thousand. 

You couldn't be more correct! This is exactly what is
needed.  There have been some efforts to do this. 
Anyone want to start one?  Our non-profit owns the
geo-x.net domain name with the hope of someday turning
it into a geographic data exchange like this. But we
can't do it alone - it is a very hard problem.

Cheers,
Rob