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Geographic JSON
charter-ietf-geojson-01

Document Charter Geographic JSON WG (geojson)
Title Geographic JSON
Last updated 2015-10-14
State Approved
WG State Concluded
IESG Responsible AD Adam Roach
Charter edit AD Alissa Cooper
Send notices to geopriv@ietf.org, dispatch@ietf.org, sean.gillies@gmail.com

charter-ietf-geojson-01

GeoJSON is a format for encoding data about geographic features using JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) [RFC7159]. Geographic features need not be physical things; any thing with properties that are bounded in space may be considered a feature. GeoJSON provides a means of representing both the properties and spatial extent of features.

The GeoJSON format specification was published at http://geojson.org in 2008. GeoJSON today plays an important and growing role in many spatial databases, web APIs, and open data platforms. Consequently the implementers increasingly demand formal standardization, improvements in the specification, guidance on extensibility, and the means to utilize larger GeoJSON datasets.

This WG will work on a GeoJSON Format RFC that specifies the format more precisely, serves as a better guide for implementers, and improves extensibility of the format. The work will start from an Internet-Draft written by the original GeoJSON authors: draft-butler-geojson [1].

This WG will work on GeoJSON mappings of 'geo' URIs, reinforcing the use of RFC 5870.

This WG will work on a format for a streamable sequence of GeoJSON texts based on RFC 7464 (JSON Text Sequences) to address the difficulties in serializing very large sequences of features or feature sequences of indeterminate length.

GeoJSON objects represent geographic features only and do not specify associations between geographic features and particular devices, users, or facilities. Any association with a particular device, user, or facility requires another protocol. When a GeoJSON object is used in a context where it identifies the location of a device, user, or facility, it becomes subject to the architectural, security, and privacy considerations in RFC 6280, An Architecture for Location and Location Privacy in Internet Applications. The application of those considerations is specific to protocols that make use of GeoJSON objects and is out of scope for the GeoJSON WG. Although the WG is chartered to improve the extensibility of the format, extensions that would allow GeoJSON objects to specify associations between geographic features and particular devices, users, or facilities are not expected to be defined in the WG. Should that be needed, re-chartering will be required.

Deliverables:

  • A GeoJSON format specification document including mappings of 'geo' URIs
  • A document describing a format for a streamable sequence of GeoJSON texts

[1] https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-butler-geojson