Reinvigoration?

Dear all,

Two weeks ago was W3C's TPAC conference in Lyon, France. If you were there
and I missed you, I apologize, it would have been lovely to connect in
person.

Talking with Angel and Adam Soroka of the Smithsonian, it was suggested
that setting at least an interim chair would be a great way to start to
reinvigorate the group again. As such, I am happy to try to shake the
bushes a little bit and see what we can make happen.

My own travels took me then to Cyprus to a Digital Cultural Heritage
concept. The discussions there revolved around standards and collaboration,
but only very rarely in the context of the web architecture. The topics
ranged from Linked Open Data and documentation standards, through to large
scale 3d digitization and publication of models.  Institutions came from
Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, with a smaller contingent of
North Americans, which was a lovely reminder that via the web, we are truly
a global society with enduring and engaging local cultures that deserve to
be recognized and understood.

A chilling reminder of the dangers of centralization and delegation of our
responsibilities as cultural organizations then came with the announcement
from flickr's new owners that they will limit free accounts to 1000
photographs and simply delete the rest after a relatively short grace
period to pay up. It's not known how many organizations contribute to
Flickr Commons via free accounts with more than 1000 photos, but it's clear
that we must not rely on the indefinite goodwill of such platforms to give
us free lunches.

We see the beginnings of this in the 3d domain. Various corporations are
vying for the position that flickr had in its early days for hosting and
publishing 3d models, in their own proprietary formats. We must learn from
history and instead work together to come to agreement as a community
around standards that can be implemented independently and interoperably,
resulting in a marketplace of solutions both open source and commercial
rather than a monopoly for the few first movers.

I would like to propose that a valuable starting point for discussions
would be an analysis of current web-oriented standards for the description,
digitization and dissemination of 2d and 3d objects of cultural
significance.  This can be wide ranging, as we focus in on what our joint
interests and expertise would make it productive to actually work on.

I hope you will share your experiences, opinions and technologies with the
group to further our mutual aims!

Rob Sanderson

-- 
Rob Sanderson
Semantic Architect
The Getty Trust
Los Angeles, CA 90049