Standards

OSGeo is not a standards body itself but supports implementing and using standards where they are useful and make sense. Many OSGeo software projects support all kinds of standards and many developers involved in OSGeo actively contribute to the development and maintenance of standards.

OSGeo Wiki Pages related to Standards

All pages related to Standards should be tagged with the [[Category:Standards]]. This will help to organize this Wiki.

Communication

There is a mailing list dedicated to standards issues. It is open to discuss all kinds of standards regardless whether they are from the W3C, ISO or more specifically focused on spatial issues like from the OGC. Subscribe here:

• http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/standards
• INSPIRE is a focal point of interest for European government agencies, software developers and Service Providers.

Links between OSGeo and OGC

• Who are the OGC/OSGeo members?
  • There is a well maintained online list of OGC members
  • There is no comparably well maintained list of OSGeo members (because membership is not tied to a fee).
  • Some companies in the Service Provider Directory overlap with the OGC member list.

OGC Membership

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and OSGeo collaborate in many areas. A lot of this collaboration occurs informally due to overlapping membership of individuals. OGC has a corporate membership model that allows the participation of individuals from OGC member organizations. OSGeo is not a formal member of the OGC as this would not work due to its broad and informal membership approach. To bridge this gap OGC has kindly offered 10 seats of the Individual Membership category to OSGeo members. If you are interested in joining OGC meetings or want to contribute to evolving standards or need to get access to documents in development that are not yet publicly available, please get in contact with OSGeo through the above list. Until we have further formalized this process you can also contact User:Arnulf Christl directly.

References

• A primer on Issues with Standards by Jo Walsh.
• The OGC Open Standards list.
• Wikipedia Article on Standards
• INSPIRE - A European approach to merging standards into legally binding directives.