RE: Rechartering the SDW-IG after December 2019

Good morning Rob – many thanks for the feedback. Both Linda and I are glad that SDW-IG has been helpful in progressing the WebVMT work! Jeremy

From: Rob Smith <rob.smith@awayteam.co.uk>
Sent: 22 July 2019 18:04
To: Tandy, Jeremy <jeremy.tandy@metoffice.gov.uk>; Linda van den Brink <l.vandenbrink@geonovum.nl>
Cc: public-sdwig@w3.org; Scott Simmons <ssimmons@opengeospatial.org>; Francois Daoust <fd@w3.org>; ted@w3.org
Subject: Re: Rechartering the SDW-IG after December 2019

Jeremy and Linda,

That sounds good to me, and two meetings per year seems about right.

Sorry I missed the rechartering discussion in Leuven, as I wanted to thank SDW for its support and guidance on WebVMT over the last 18 months and offer some feedback.

While I generally agree with your comments about “one-task, one-person” within the group, SDW’s domain knowledge has been instrumental in opening discussions with other relevant groups in W3C and OGC, including M&E IG, UxS DWG, EDM/LEAPS DWG, D&I DWG and Moving Features SWG. The W3C Lyon meeting in October 2018 sparked the WICG Datacue activity [1], in collaboration with the Media Timed Events Task Force (M&E IG), and the recent Leuven meeting started a video metadata discussion [2] with pilots in the OGC Innovation Program, which are a couple of concrete examples of wider involvement.

Hope this helps.

Rob Smith

Away Team
www.awayteam.co.uk<http://www.awayteam.co.uk>

[1] https://github.com/WICG/datacue

[2] https://github.com/w3c/sdw/issues/1130


On 12 Jul 2019, at 11:57, Tandy, Jeremy <jeremy.tandy@metoffice.gov.uk<mailto:jeremy.tandy@metoffice.gov.uk>> wrote:

Hello SDW-IG folks...

The Spatial Data on the Web Interest Group will expire on 31-Dec-2019 as per its Charter [1]

There positive impact of collaboration between OGC and W3C is well recognised. The SDW-IG has been successful over the last 2-years in coordinating between OGC and W3C, and connecting people with potential collaborators and stakeholders. However, experience shows that work items of the SDW-IG largely remain "one-task, one-person". Other than review, there has been very limited group-interaction on work items. We conclude that the format of SDW-IG isn't well suited to engage collaborators on work items. Existing mechanisms are available to generate critical mass to develop proposals and contribute to work items: W3C has Community Groups (which require a proposer plus 5 supporting members to establish); OGC has the Innovation Programme and Domain Working Groups.

Note that the policies of both OGC and W3C state that standards must be developed within a Standards Working Group (SWG) specifically chartered for that purpose. As such, the SDW-IG cannot develop standards itself; instead it can support the development of a proposal to the point where a Charter for a SWG is sufficiently mature and has adequate support.

So - should SDW-IG continue and, if so, what should it's terms of reference be? Linda and I have synthesised the conversation during the face-to-face meeting in Leuven - here's what we heard (plus some sensible additions) ...

We, as chairs of the SDW-IG, think the SDW-IG should be re-charted, and for it to remain as a separate group (i.e. not merged into another groups such as the OGC Geosemantics DWG). Draft terms of reference for the re-chartered group are provided below.

Please can we have feedback by end of July so that we can continue the discussion and iterate toward a suitable new Charter?

Many thanks and best regards, Jeremy & Linda.

---

SDW-IG will:
* coordinate between OGC and W3C on shared interests (i.e. geospatial Web standards) - monitoring and, where necessary, liaising between groups from OGC and W3C.
* identify areas where standards should be developed jointly by both W3C and OGC.
* respond requests from OGC Architecture Board (OAB) and W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG) to review materials relating to geospatial Web standards, and bring relevant matters to the attention of the OAB and TAG - [possibly via a quarterly slot on their agendas?].
* periodically review the OGC Innovation Programme ideas issue tracker [2] to identify and prioritise important ideas relating to the geospatial Web standards.
* periodically review the OGC Technology Trends [3].
* provide a forum where early ideas for geospatial Web standards can be shared in an open, public forum (e.g. as a GitHub issue) until they migrate into a Community Group, Domain Working Group or Testbed activity for further development (see below).
* provide introductions between originators of ideas for geospatial Web standards and potential collaborators and stakeholders in OGC and W3C.
* seek out existing forums (e.g. W3C Community Group, OGC Domain Working Group, OGC Testbed / Innovation Programme) where ideas for geospatial Web standards can be developed to the point where they are mature enough to Charter a SWG; where no existing forums are a good fit, SDW-IG will support establishment of the most appropriate forum in OGC or W3C (development of the idea will occur within the designated group where resources such as mailing lists and GitHub repositories will be provided).
* maintain references to the working resources of designated groups where ideas for geospatial Web standards are being developed, and track progress of development using the W3C's "strategy funnel" [4].
* provide support to develop SWG Charters and help determine whether the SWG should reside in OGC or W3C, or be a joint SWG.
* manage errata for: Spatial Data on the Web Best Practices, Time Ontology, SSN/SOSA Ontology, SSN/SOSA Extensions and any other documents published by the SDW-WG and SDW-IG.

SDW-IG will largely work by correspondence (e.g. via mailing list and GitHub issues), complemented by face-to-face meetings (e.g. 2 per year?) and ad-hoc teleconferences (e.g. to discuss / review new ideas for geospatial Web standards).
SDW-IG can publish OGC Discussion Papers, OGC White Papers, OGC Best Practices and W3C Notes - subject to the appropriate approvals processes.
SDW-IG will have a designated staff contact from both OGC and W3C.

[1]: https://www.w3.org/2017/sdwig/charter.html

[2]: https://github.com/opengeospatial/ideas/issues

[3]: https://github.com/opengeospatial/OGC-Technology-Trends/blob/master/README.md

[4]: https://github.com/w3c/strategy/labels/Geospatial