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Re "Isn't it just a way to get an OGC stamp of approval on legacy systems", the value may be more obvious if we reword that question as "Will it be useful for the NetCDF specification(s) to be approved and managed by a formal standards body such as OGC?" (Every time I see "legacy system" I feel like NetCDF is being called a dusty relic, or something more unattractive.)
I think if NetCDF advocates and OGC do it right, this could help both quite a bit, and the community as well. (NetCDF through external review and clarifications, and OGC by embracing and associating with a larger set of geo-enabled specifications. For example.) It might even increase the rate at which integrative capabilities are developed and communities are connected.
Of course, it could go the other way too. I hope the expectations and processes are made clear at the beginning of the process, so everyone goes in with their eyes open.
John On Aug 26, 2009, at 9:06 AM, Robin, Alexandre wrote:
Hello,IMHO it makes complete sense to bring CF semantics to OGC as this part hasn't been completely addressed anyway, plus it is probably reusable with other encodings such as GML application profiles and SWE Common.I fail to see however why it is necessary to bring the NetCDF binary format and API to OGC just to work on it. I am not sure I understand what everybody gains in bringing this to the OGC. Isn't NetCDF already a standard in its own communities? Why do these communities need OGC? Isn't it just a way to get an OGC stamp of approval on legacy systems?One can also see the NetCDF API as just another API like GDAL, geotools, JAI, etc... I think enabling the NetCDF API to make use of OGC encodings and web interfaces (in addition to NetCDF and DAP for instance) would bridge a HUGE gap without requiring NetCDF to become an OGC standard itself.I know integrating read/write capabilities to/from SWE Common could be done 100% transparently for existing users of software relying on the NetCDF API. Integrating some aspects of remote access via WCS or SOS could also be done pretty nicely I believe.Regards, ------------------------------------------------- Alexandre Robin Spot Image, Web and E-Business Tel: +33 (0)5 62 19 43 62 Fax: +33 (0)5 62 19 43 43 http://www.spotimage.com Before printing, think about the environment-----Message d'origine----- De : wcs-2.0.swg- bounces+alexandre.robin=spotimage.fr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:wcs-2.0.swg-bounces +alexandre.robin=spotimage.fr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] Dela part de John Caron Envoyé : mardi 25 août 2009 20:16 Cc : Unidata GALEON; wcs-2.0.swg Objet : Re: [WCS-2.0.swg] [galeon] CF-netCDF standards initiatives Robin, Alexandre wrote:Hi Steven, I understand that you don't have time to spend in OGC however if non of the major players are involved in the process and keep pushingtheir own legacy formats instead then for sure our standards are doomed...You know NetCDF is not the only one. The military has NITF and a bunch of STANAG standards, meteorology people have their own, navigation has NMEA, etc... All of them are heavily used throughout their community and required great investments. Some of them actually deal with coverages, ocean or atmospheric data so they do overlap with NetCDF earth sciencefocus. So which ones do we pick?Its true that NetCDF is just another legacy file format. But its alsotrue that NetCDF is a *general-purpose* scientific data format, that isnot specific to meteorology, climate research, or any earth sciencediscipline. In this sense it is different from NITF or NMEA, or GRIB orBUFR, or any domain specific format. This is an important distinction which is both a strength and weakness for transporting binary data.(BTW, the file format hadnt changed in 15 years, when a few years ago weadded one variation to allow sizes to exceed 2 Gb. So there are nowexactly two variations of the "netCDF classic file format". Note that imnot talking about netCDF-4/HDF5 format, which has many variants.)None of this is all that important, as Bryan rightly point out. The hardstuff is the semantics. _______________________________________________ WCS-2.0.swg mailing list WCS-2.0.swg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://lists.opengeospatial.org/mailman/listinfo/wcs-2.0.swg_______________________________________________ galeon mailing list galeon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx For list information, to unsubscribe, visit: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/mailing_lists/
--------------- John Graybeal Marine Metadata Interoperability Project: http://marinemetadata.org graybeal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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