Re-charter W3C/OGC working group

[dr-shorthair]

In order to publish the new edition of SSN Ontology and the associated artefacts in the w3.org domain, an active working group in W3C is required. The charter for the current SDW Working Group expires 2024-04-04.

SDW was a joint effort between W3C and the OGC's Geosemantics Domain Working Group, whihc covered several deliverables. The scope of the planned work - maintenance of SSN - is much reduced from the old SDW, so it may be desirable for the re-charter to be more focused, and for the liaison group in OGC to be OMS SWG rather than Geosemantics DWG.

I have prepared a draft charter here: https://github.com/w3c/sdw-sosa-ssn/blob/new-charter/charter/index.html which can be previewed at https://acesse.dev/ogc-ssn-charter (redirect to https://raw.githack.com/w3c/sdw-sosa-ssn/new-charter/charter/index.html )

This was discussed briefly in the f2f meeting of the Geosemantics DWG in Delft today.

[PeterParslow]

[Sadly OS's Microsoft Defender classifies https://acesse.dev/ogc-ssn-charter as malicious, so I've been reading raw HTML]

Is there any appetite to also look at:

• remaining open issues on Spatial Data on the Web Best Practice, for example the paper on tiling which came in just too late https://github.com/w3c/sdw/issues/1288
• time - in particular any impact if OGC adopts their new OGC 23-049r2 Abstract Conceptual Model for Time

Perhaps three sub-groups under the SDWWG - or is this charter actually for a "new" SSN Ontology WG?

[dr-shorthair]

'Appetite' is very much the concern.

We have 11.5 regular contributors in the SSN/SOSA update telecons (Bert Bos from W3C is helping with process but not content). I'm not aware of active engagement of anyone in any of the other topics on the SDW charter.

We have a very advanced draft of the new edition of SSN [1], so I would prefer not to risk delay while we try to recruit people to work on the other topics. A narrowly scoped WG would allow us to move forward more quickly I think. The proposed charter does not exclude adding more topics, but does not promise it either.

[1] https://w3c.github.io/sdw-sosa-ssn/ssn/

[dr-shorthair]

(full URL https://raw.githack.com/w3c/sdw-sosa-ssn/new-charter/charter/index.html to preview the draft)

[PeterParslow]

"I'm not aware of active engagement of anyone in any of the other topics on the SDW charter." - that's because the three of us working on SDWBP to the end ran out of steam....

I can well understand not wanting to delay SSN. I am not intending to do that - perhaps Bert could advise whether the SDWWG could be chartered with the wider spec & then get on with your SSN item whilst canvassing for volunteers for the other two. Or whether the SDWIG should spawn different WGs to handle the different subjects?

[dr-shorthair]

@ogcscotts @lvdbrink @KathiSchleidt @bert-github we will need your assistance to progress this

[ogcscotts]

@dr-shorthair I definitely support the charter, but I am not all that familiar with the W3C process for the actual chartering. On the OGC side, the most efficient path is to add a Task to the OMS SWG Charter.

[bert-github]

I made a rough draft of a new charter:

https://w3c.github.io/charter-drafts/2024/sdw-wg.html

This currently contains everything the SDW WG has worked on. Please, propose changes, including things to drop. (The conclusions of the last SOSA update meeting are not yet reflected in this draft.)

Next steps: When we think we have a reasonable charter, I'll inform the W3C membership that a rechartering is expected, and I'll request horizontal review of the draft.

[dr-shorthair]

Thanks Bert. I'd already started one here https://raw.githack.com/w3c/sdw-sosa-ssn/new-charter/charter/index.html

Cheers - Simon

[sgrellet]

Yes, we added the one you started to the discussion during the last webconf

Sylvain

[bert-github]

I updated https://w3c.github.io/charter-drafts/2024/sdw-wg.html with elements from Simon's draft. This version:

• keeps the name SDW,
• keeps the wide scope of the SDW, but
• only has one deliverable (SSN),
• lists all other specs as specs that the group wil maintain.

To discuss:

• Are the co-chairs confirmed?
• Which todo item (in red) can be removed?

[lvdbrink]

Here are some review comments from me:

• in 2.0 Scope I would remove at least the last bullet point and perhaps also the others except the first and second. That makes the scope much more concrete and focused, as I think is the current aim.
• in 5.1 W3C Groups, add the Web of Things working group and/or interest group. At least one of their specs, Thing Description, mentions SSN. We have had joint meetings with them in the past.

[dr-shorthair]

Thanks @lvdbrink . Yes, my initial draft was tightly focussed on SSN update and omitted everything else. This reflects the current activity, which is limited to SSN, for which we have weekly meetings. It meant that the OGC home was strictly the OMS SWG. This was the basis for proposing that the co-chairs of the OMS SWG act as the chairs of the joint working group. In the draft we also mention

• Connected Systems SWG
• SensorThings SWG
• GeoPose SWG

which are all directly linked to sensors.

OTOH the merged draft broadens the scope to accommodate a lot more. There is clearly some potential and interest in more collaboration between W3C and OGC relating to spatial and location data, but how to arrange that is the question.

From the OGC side, a broader scope is bigger than the remit of the OMS SWG.

• GeoDCAT SWG

is a Geospatial application of a W3C standard, so is clearly on the table. We could add

• OGC Temporal DWG

for OWL-Time.

(Note to W3C people: the Geosemantics DWG was the previous OGC home for the SDW-WG, but this is a Domain Working Group which is like a W3C Interest Group, rather than a W3C Working Group.)

On the W3C side a broader scope could include

• Web of Things WG
• Devices and Sensors WG
• Dataset Exchange Working Group

Can we do all of this under one charter? And particularly, who would chair and drive this?

@ogcscotts @lvdbrink @bert-github ??

[lvdbrink]

OTOH the merged draft broadens the scope to accommodate a lot more. There is clearly some potential and interest in more collaboration between W3C and OGC relating to spatial and location data, but how to arrange that is the question.

While I'm sure there is potential and interest, in the past few years it has been hard to attract people to this working group, except lately on the topic of SSN. On the other topics you mention, there is maybe potential, but no clear need for a joint standardization effort and no people with active interest (as far as I'm aware) who would be willing to lead. As a lone chair (Jeremy has stepped down 6 months ago) it is not possible for me to really drive this.

More concretely about the current draft charter: As long as it says 'we will publish a new version of SSN and do maintenance on the previous documents this group created', I think that's fine. If maintenance work on one of the docs comes up, the group could always do that as a side activity, I could still try to help there.

Only the wording under Scope is too broad, in my opinion. It describes how the group will engage in various ways with developments in W3C and OGC and will actively try to connect them. That requires a driving chair with a broader view than just SSN.

[ldesousa]

@lvdbrink Thank you for this perspective. From my stand point there looks to be some momentum to work on the Semantic Web, at least from the side of the OGC. I am involved in the effort towards a CRS web ontology and registry, plus the SWG on the Agriculture Information Model (AIM). Afterwards I would like to see GloSIS (my baby) going through standardisation too. As discussed in the last meeting, there are advantages in keeping the W3C group engaged with these and other developments (e.g. GeoDCAT). But good to reflect further on this.

[dr-shorthair]

I've made some proposed changes in a fork here: https://github.com/dr-shorthair/w3c-charter-drafts/blob/gh-pages/2024/sdw-wg.html

preview here: https://raw.githack.com/dr-shorthair/w3c-charter-drafts/gh-pages/2024/sdw-wg.html

[rob-metalinkage]

point 4 -

"Maintain a list of OGC specifications and resources describing current practices in order to publicise these to the W3C audience."

somewhere in mechanisms would be a submission process and a review mechanism

[rob-metalinkage]

propose change "the relevant OGC standards Working Group" to "relevant OGC Working Groups"

[KathiSchleidt]

Update point 3 of 2.Scope to read:

• Develop, maintain and promote geospatial Web standards and geospatial profiles of more general Web standards as resources and interest permit.

[sgrellet]

could we add ObservableProperty topic in the charter ? Especially having in mind work done under I-ADOPT

[KathiSchleidt]

@dr-shorthair thoughts on adding I-ADOPT to the scope? We're just discussing bringing I-ADOPT into OMS and STA, this would help us to bridge all the way to SOSA-I-ADOPT aspects

[dr-shorthair]

Fine by me, provided there are people with capacity to work on it in this context.

I will focus on the SSN/SOSA Ontology work for the forseeable future before moving onto other work items.

[rob-metalinkage]

Will be willing to work on it - but I expect it to be a flexible model whereby different models can be used. I'm particularly concerned that we'll need both very simple models and procedures that handle spatio-temportal statistical and dimensional operations. Getting procedure/property definitions in sync will be important - so as long as scope does not implicitly or strictly limit to I-Adopt its good.

[chris-little]

@dr-shorthair I do not see much need for any Time Ontology work other than maintenance. The OGC Abstract Conceptual Model for Time is awaiting publication. Any future OGC temporal activity is likely to be focussed around ISO (TC154 rather than TC211, with extra parts for ISO8601, temporal vocabulary ISO34000 and perhaps calendar tags ) or even IETF (RFC3339 revamp, and a format for time zone info)

[mabablue]

@dr-shorthair I am willing to contribute to the I-ADOPT integration work also because I am becoming an official OGC member. I have now the capacity to do so and I find it important to connect the developments. Please let me know how I can be of help and contribute in your group.

[dr-shorthair]

@mabablue the proposed WG chairs are @ldesousa and @rob-metalinkage so I would refer you to them. I am (currently) chairing the SSN Ontology update work-item only.

[dr-shorthair]

@chris-little The one thing that we might want to do is merge https://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-owl-time-rel/ into https://www.w3.org/TR/owl-time/

I also was notified this week of a paper submitted to Semantic Web Journal that does a SHACL implementation of Time, based on OWL-Time, but limited to the xsd:dateTime encodings for temporal position. The author reached out to me for comment and also asked me to alert you.

[mabablue]

Dear WG chairs, @ldesousa and @rob-metalinkage, what do you think, can you include the integration of the I-ADOPT framework /ontology (https://i-adopt.github.io/) or its mapping in the charter? I am becoming an OGC member and as such I am willing also to collaborate with this WG.