Re: Draft XG Charter

Chamindra

Just to be clear Olli's statement is  not contrasting mine, but reinforcing it

 It is well understood - I think - that our work is 'non political' -
Ollie reinforces this, and I think we all agree -  it is also true
that our 'users' are (often) constrained by politics when making their
emergency technology choices.

The question that follows is: how can that 'aspect of reality', as
well as the need for neutrality, be reflected in our work, and it what
measure ?

I know its a difficult one, and we should not necessarily find an
answer, rather keep it as
a 'reminder' of an aspect of our model that may beed some clever engineering :-)


pdm



On 8/10/07, Chamindra de Silva <chamindra@opensource.lk> wrote:
> I think Olle and Paola are talking at different levels of this issue. I
> agree with both, but in a different context on each point.
>
> (1) In agreement with Olle: Interop standards should certainly be
> apolitical and agnostic of any particular organizational sensitivities
> and play to the lowest common denominator as much as possible. We have
> to! otherwise it is not a standard which we can depend on and encode
> into our systems to allow them to exchange data electronically.
>
> (2) In agreement with Paola: Terminology for end users and systems will
> need to be configured to meet the target user group and organization,
> national sensitivities. Certainly we can keep that terminology out of
> this group, but it would still serve as a valuable standard and input to
> forge the interop framework. I think saying there is political influence
> is a bit strong, as it is more about creating ontologies that people can
> use in common especially in sharing disaster information (human to
> human) effectively (without ambiguity) across nationalities and
> organizations.
>
> paola.dimaio@gmail.com wrote:
> >> So, what I am saying is that (1) I would like to keep all issues
> >> originating in political structures out of the XG, and at the same time
> >> (2) the work of the XG must be defined with an awareness of the
> >> political issues in the field, so that important parties see the XG as
> >> an opportunity, not a threat.
> >
> > HI Olle
> >
> > I am sure most of us will agree -  thing is that our 'users' must move
> > within political constraints and its the politics that prevents
> > cooperation (more than the technology at times)
> >
> > therefore we should design accordingly  - if we simply  'avoid
> > acknowledging' the issue,
> > we may produce something that is not easily usable from that viewpoint
> >
> >  How do you think such 'awareness'  and 'neutrality' should be
> > reflected in our work?
> >
> > pdm
> >
> >
>


-- 
Paola Di Maio
School of IT
www.mfu.ac.th
*********************************************

Received on Friday, 10 August 2007 03:41:31 UTC