Re: Draft XG Charter

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
> 
>

Received on Thursday, 9 August 2007 18:58:20 UTC