response.md

a core issue in implementing good policy, is a sound understanding of the problem to be solved. let me unpack that a bit. policy is good if it can solve a problem; it needs to address some issue which reasonable people collectively agree is worth solving. for exampe, lets say, building code is in place to ensure fire safety standards or to withstand environmental tragedy (say earthquake) or similar. most people would agree saving lives due to non-standard building implementations is a good thing. so in order to attack that problem, groups of people (non-profit/industry groups, industry, government, academics, etc) advocate, strategize, architect, pass and implement policy (standards, law, regulation, executive order etc) which solve the problems around standarization of building codes.

good policy stands the test of time, is robust to challenge, moves with opinion (popular, scientific and/or otherwise) and is high on the adoption curve; which is to say people generally want to adopt it. so for the sake of argument building codes solve a problem, most people want to adopt them, most people do adopt them, they address the problem, they can be measured against the problem, there is a problem, etc etc. sure there can be arguments made for how a particular clause or regulation in general has a negative influence (my good friend the libertarian has some argument here, which i can't articulate, but respect he has an opinion). the short, policy can be good, but fundamentally it requires a sound problem to be addressed.

recently this bill recently proposed intends to "To improve the coordination and use of geospatial data." again lets unpack that a little. the verb (infinitive) for this phrase (fwiw it isn't a complete thought since there is no proper subject and you understood is not applicable, so it shouldn't exactly need a period; lets just assume the they mean 'we' understood) is 'to improve'. the subject clause of the phrase is compund with two nouns 1) coordination and 2) use. these nouns are modified by the prepositional phrase 'of geospatial data'. lets simplify geospatial data and just say data for a minute, because geospatial data is an adjective, and really what we are talking about is data.

so lets put that back together, the primary goal of the proposed bill is to make better, 1) coordination and 2) use of data. make better coordination and use of data.

if this is the goal, then first one would expect substantial build up to there being problems surounding the concepts of 1) coordination and 2) use. second there would be measurable functions which address these problems. to cut to the chase, i see neither of these things in the bill language presented.

And I hate to beat a dead horse here, but section 10 seems particularly heavy-handed to be attached to otherwise-vague imperatives. It has the ring of something Sen. Hatch might show to his Tea Party constituents as a stand-in for "fiscal conservatism" when the next primary rolls around.

While this bill is clearly in response to the recent NSDI report card, and an attempt to address the shortcomings it identified; I agree, Mike, that there's very little that's measurable in the bill to address these things. Would that be a function of the bill itself or of the executive policies put in place to implement any resulting law? I guess my question is if you would want metrics which may change over time enshrined in the legislation?

Bill, I share your concern about Section 10, especially combined with section 7. The four year window, as others have pointed out, gives plenty of time for some of out favorite geoweb formats to go through the adoption process of a "voluntary standards organization." Of course, that four years could also be spent by entrenched interests stonewalling any such new formats. There are both opportunities and risks here. I think there are a myriad of formats (even beyond the Esri ones we like to name) that are in use but may not have been specifically certified as compliant with a spec of some kind.

Note that the "voluntary standards organization" has been left vague (and not included in the definitions). Unless further clarified by executive implementation guidance, that could mean just about anything (IETF, W3C, OGC, ISO, OSGEO, Fans of GeoJSON.org, or anything else). I suspect that will be tightened up by the FGDC or someone but it's a pretty wide road at this point.

Opportunity: The four year window represents a period during which the lead agencies could actually start collaborating and working toward cleaning up the mess that is federal geospatial.

Risk: Nothing really happens, entrenched interests dig in further, and we are left with the currently narrow list of specifications and compliant technologies. Innovations such as vector tiles and future formats that arise out of communities and industry are force through byzantine conformance tests, modified beyond recognition, and delayed.

Obviously, the world isn't binary and there are a lot of other opportunities and risks, but I'm dwelling on these two for a bit.

My $0.02