The comments provided are my own and do not represent my employer.We should commend
SRI for having the technical understanding, business model, and vision to develop
and advance the .geo proposal. This effort provides the framework for a spatial knowledge
ecology open to everyone and where communities of interest can develop, grow, and
be enriched by an "open" approach which is not owned by any particular company, industry,
government, or individual. Clearly while the objective of the proposal is to have
a viable business model which responds to the marketplace and commercial drivers
the another objective is also to meet the "spirit of public good." Not acting in
a responsible manner which marries these objectives would damage and discredit the
effort -- not in the best interests of SRI.
Until I read SRI's proposal my "world
view" of how spatial services behaved on the Internet was more myopic and parochial
than now. Already as a potential user of the spatial products and services from this
framework and a professional working in this field for over two decades my thinking
and understanding have been stretched. Location Services, a hot topic and field,
which is growing rapidly presents us with a picture of commodity services available
to and of interest to millions of people either directly through mobile applications
and data to cellular phone users or as part of "yellow pages" services that locates
a business for us and provides directions. Industry in response to this commercial
opportunity will build new applications and data providing new knowledge rich environments.
As a result of this commercial investment, government and public services will benefit
from these additions and will be able to exercise opportunistic leveraging of the
technology, data, and services to improve their "public service" delivery capabilities.
Efforts like National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI), the Global Spatial Data
Infrastructure (GSDI), and Digital Earth should benefit greatly.
Like any project
which represents such a large domain space and impacts the global community many
questions exist. The logistics of coordinating such an effort presents SRI with many
challenges. Reaching all the potential stakeholders and getting consensus with all
of them is an impossible and unrealistic task when the range of stakeholders stretches
from individuals to commercial service providers like travel agencies and telecommunications
companies to software developers like geographic information systems companies to
local, regional, and national government service providers like city and regional
planning agencies and national mapping agencies, and finally to global public services
providers like the United Nations.
If we approach this proposal, which is an incredible
opportunity, with a spirit of trust and respect and follow an approach which offers
understanding and requests an open dialogue with SRI directed at a reasonable consensus/inclusionary
process, I believe that this effort is a win-win for everyone. By recognizing that
as a community we can work together to solve both the policy and technical issues
which the various implementations will encompass we will be stronger and the benefits
achieved by the global community will be significant and richer. The other
option is to crush the effort, tossing it aside, with the knowledge that we will
not know when next we might have such an opportunity.
I choose to recognize the
"vision" and opportunity presented by this proposal and work with SRI to provide
the best spatial framework for the global community. Let's go do this together.
VR,
Larry
Stephens
Booz-Allen and Hamilton, Inc.