[Geowanking] SDI - time for a new name?

[Allan Doyle]

SDI is meant to evoke the sense of an interrelationship between data  
suppliers and data users that is characterized by quality standards,  
semantic interoperability, fitness for purpose, interchange standards,  
data management practices, etc.

In the same sense, the "Web" has come to mean the interrelationships  
between content suppliers and content users that is characterized by  
similar criteria.

The difference is that the web emerged and evolved more or less  
organically and is mediated by "looser" mechanisms, whereas large  
entities (governments, generally) are trying to build the SDI from  
first principles with fairly tight control.

The neo-geo "movement" has effectively begun to show that SDI-like  
filaments can be spun out of newly emerging components and thus are  
effectively providing an organic growth of a neo-SDI.

The problem is, I suspect, that the true-SDI camp does not believe  
that the neo-SDI can turn into a true-SDI.

If instead, the true-SDI folks would try to gently nurture the neo-SDI  
growth (a little more water here, some more sun there...), I think  
there is every chance that the neo-SDI could become a good-enough-SDI  
for them. It might just look a bit different than the ideal-SDI being  
sought.

The neo-geo folks, in the meantime, are mostly oblivious of all the  
SDI angst because the neo-geo people are focusing on scratching their  
own itches in the time-honored tradition and are not really aware of  
the bigger picture because they are largely finding it's possible to  
scratch the itches.

Perhaps the most obvious watering and fertilizing of the neo-SDI bits  
would be in the area of freeing up more data for the neo-geo "kids" to  
play with.

	Allan

On Dec 28, 2007, at 13:39 , Jeremy Irish wrote:

> I'd strike the word "Web" entirely.
>
> Geospatial Technology is, I suppose, the general term we use, though  
> we're more into neosurveying or locative media/gaming.  
> Neogeographers for me tend to be the people writing the code (GIS  
> types) while neosurveyors are the participants who are submitting  
> their own content to maps.
>
> Jeremy
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: geowanking-bounces at lists.burri.to [mailto:geowanking-bounces at lists.burri.to 
> ] On Behalf Of Sean Gillies
> Sent: Friday, December 28, 2007 10:29 AM
> To: geowanking at lists.burri.to
> Subject: Re: [Geowanking] SDI - time for a new name?
>
> Chris,
>
> The GeoWeb term has been bogus in its own way. It's supposed to be  
> an analogy to WWW or Semantic Web, right? But what's the defining  
> characteristic of these webs? Links, computationally actionable links.
> Geospatial architectures have always been sparsely linked, at least  
> until Google Earth and KML hit the mainstream.
>
> Cheers,
> Sean
>
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-- 
Allan Doyle
Director of Technology
MIT Museum
+1.617.452.2111