What brought about the formation of OGC?
Therefore, in 1993, leaders of the GRASS (Geographic Resources Analysis Support System) community started the Open Grass Foundation Project. The OGF preceded the formal launch of the current OGC and had a vision of diverse geoprocessing systems communicating directly over networks by means of a set of open interfaces based on the "Open Geodata Interoperability Specification (OGIS).” The OGIS term has been retired, in favor of "OpenGIS® Specifications. In a short time, the OGF (with support from a number of sources) evolved into the Open GIS Consortium. Since then, the Open GIS Consortium membership has grown from 20 member organizations to more than 260 from 31 countries today. The success of a newly evolved fast track method of developing, testing, and validating specifications led to the formation of the OGC Interoperability Programme.

Thus, the consortium now uses two closely coordinated programmes to encourage, grow and adopt new specifications. The specification programme, uses a formal member specification approval process, while the interoperability programme, allows sponsors to pick specific interoperability problems to be addressed in a "hands on" way by OGC member participants.

How much of OGC standards have actually been implemented for use by different software or service vendors today?
To the best of our knowledge, there are hundreds of implementations of OpenGIS Specifications. If one goes to the website - http://www.opengis.org/resources/?page=products, there is a detailed list of implementations that have been registered. However, this is by no means a complete list. There are many more implementations, especially in Europe and Australia. The Web Map Service (WMS) Interface Specification is the most widely implemented OpenGIS Specification. Other key OpenGIS specifications, especially in terms of portal implementations, are the Web Feature Service (WFS) Interface specification, the Geography Markup Language (GML), and the Catalog Interface Specification.

Is the OGC about compatible file formats or common identification parameters for features? Or both?
This is a real misconception regarding the work of the OGC. We do not work on content standards, file formats, or defining common identifiers for features. Instead, the OGC membership works collaboratively to define, test, document and approve specifications for common software interfaces and encodings that enable the industry to maximize the value of past and future investments in geoprocessing systems and data. Put another way, the use of OpenGIS specifications, such as WMS, allows applications to access and share spatial data stored in multiple, distributed spatial data repositories that are network accessible. These repositories may be stored in in any number of formats.

The OGC uses global consensus process that results in approved interface and encoding specifications that enable interoperability among and between diverse geospatial data stores, services, and applications. In the OGC, geospatial technology users work with technology providers.

Our membership is international and includes universities, national government agencies, local government agencies, earth imaging vendors, content providers, database software vendors, integrators, computing platform vendors and other technology providers to reach agreement on OpenGIS Specifications for interfaces, schemas and architectures. OGC standards provide essential infrastructure for application such as a National Spatial Data Infrastructure, a network of geospatial resources that is integrated into Web.

To what extent does OGC respect proprietary identities of its member organisations?
No OGC member is ever required to provide confidential or proprietary information. Further, whatever information an OGC member does provide in the open forum of the OGC consensus process is available to all members. What information is shared in this manner is entirely up to each individual member organization.

It is important to remember that by using a common agreed upon interface that proprietary algorithms can run unseen in a "black box" server side component whose public face is the open interface. Some server components will outperform others and/or offer capabilities not offered by others. In an interoperable environment, competition among vendors is based on such differences in capabilities and performance, and is not based on which format the user's data is stored in.

Do OGC standards find a place in international advocacy organisations like GSDI or ISCGM?
As part of our ongoing consensus and outreach activities, the OGC works with many other international standards and coordination organizations. For example, we have a very close working relationship with ISO TC 211.

We have joint working groups that facilitate the adoption of OpenGIS Specifications as ISO standards. In turn, the OGC has adopted a number of key ISO documents, such as ISO 19115, Metadata, as part of the OGC Abstract Specification. We also work closely with the W3C, OASIS, OMG, the Open Group, and other organzations that deal with standards and specifications issues in the larger information technology domain. We also work with user oriented advocacy groups such as GITA, GSDI, the FGDC. We need to have this collaboration to ensure that the needs of the end users are met.

Open GIS Consortium (OGC)

The Open GIS Consortium, Inc. (OGC) is a member-driven, non-profit international trade association, leading the development of geoprocessing interoperability computing standards. It is an international industry consortium of 254 companies, government agencies and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available interface specifications. For more information: Open GIS Consortium, Inc. Headquarters 35 Main Street, Suite 5 Wayland, MA 01778-5037 USA http://www.opengis.org