[IGS-DCWG-109] IGS XML effort

[Fran Boler]

Dear Colleagues-

Thank you to all who took the time to express your wishes on the ballot. 
With a simple color coding scheme, the results of the balloting are 
shown in this document:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L0lM05fBodsSteJ2r2N0kSqwNdj74BG8_O8QhiyC-2I/edit?usp=sharing

We have unanimous agreement on almost half of the questions, which is 
fabulous.

We have clear majorities on quite a few of the remaining questions, but 
I suggest that the viewpoints of those in the minority need to be 
further explored. This can be accomplished if the one or two voices in 
the minority would add a comment to the document, expressing your 
rationale for your position, as was done by Nick Brown and Gary Mize for 
a few questions in the original ballot. Alternatively if you are OK to 
go along with the majority, please state that in your comment. Please do 
this by the April 30.

Following the comment period described above, to keep moving ahead, a 
telecon will be very useful for reviewing and deciding on the questions 
that will remain. In particular, I would like to have our colleague from 
Australia, Nick Brown, explain the advantages and impacts of using 
geodesyML from the start (question 1). Also, we are not in agreement on 
some of the other fine tuning of elements to be added or dropped. We 
will add to these issues any others that arise from this next comment 
period to create an agenda of remaining questions for the telecon. Watch 
for a doodle poll to select a date/time for this telecon.

Please hold the dates August 10-12, 2015 as it does look like there will 
be a GGOS metadata workshop coming up this summer in Boulder. There will 
be time for focussed discussion of our particular IGS XML effort, so  
this would be a great opportunity for those who can come (or participate 
by WebEx) to work together on remaining schema details and 
implementation planning.

Once again thank you for participating in this effort. We are really 
making progress!

Best regards,
Fran