Re: The Geolocation API must provide location data in terms of a pair of latitude and longitude coordinates.

For lay people (such as me) who until now have never heard the term
"geodetic system" before, perhaps the API can have the ability to return a
simple lat/long value but somewhere inside the spec there can be an
explanation of which geodetic system (or whatever the proper term is) is
used by default.

Jon




                                                                           
             "Alan McNamara"                                               
             <alan.mcnamara@ba                                             
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             n-request@w3.org                                              
                                                                   Subject 
                                       The Geolocation API must provide    
             06/25/08 06:09 AM         location data in terms of a pair    
                                       of latitude and longitude           
                                       coordinates.                        
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           





I am not a GIS expert, but my GIS friends constantly remind me that there
is no such thing as latitude and longitude.  Such numbers are dependent on
the geodetic system used.

Futher, the draft arbitarily uses wgs84 for altitude, so it may be that
this is also intended to be used for latitude and longitude.  This would
not be acceptable in Australia, for example.  In New South Wales, and
Australian state, all candastre (land) data is supplied in a couple of
Australian standard.  So wgs84 locations would not correctly show which
street you were standing.

I suggest the standard needs to require the inclusion of the geodetic
system.  The standard may need to propose a list of supported geodetic
systems.