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Hi Steve et al, Just wanted to chime in here:
I'm afraid that this statement over-simplifies the situation. Our European colleagues ARE (emphatically) part of our community. But many of them feel that they are mandated to use only OGC-accepted solutions.
It's certainly true that there's a feeling amongst many people that OGC=interoperability and therefore any OGC-accepted solution is politically correct. But I don't think that WCS is yet mandated by INSPIRE (someone correct me if I'm wrong) and it might never be. The Draft Implementing Rules mandate WMS1.3.0 for visualization, but otherwise the guidelines are vaguer than this. For example, a number of European projects have used OPeNDAP extensively, and still others are adopting it. (The main use is still within oceanography, but it is seeing increasing use in atmospheric science and the satellite data community.) There is no sign whatsoever (that I can discern) that suggests that Europe is shying away from OPeNDAP. So we shouldn't necessarily assume that European partners will definitely go down the WCS route, although I agree it's likely if WCS can sort itself out into a workable specification. I hope that INSPIRE will wait for WCS to settle and produce high-quality interoperable implementations before mandating it. (Maybe WCS will have to be an ISO standard first?) Perhaps someone with a better knowledge of INSPIRE than me could clarify what the rules and expectations are here? Cheers, Jon
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