On Tue, 28 Aug 2007, Alasdair Allan wrote:
> Lets not make the same mistake the professional GIS community made with Google
> Earth, they complained continuously about the poor geo-retification inside
> Google Earth. But it doesn't really matter, that wasn't what people cared
> about.
Which people - the scientific GIS community, or the public which uses Google Earth instead of something like the open source World Wind visualization tool, or the many other GIS visualization tools out there? I suspect that products like Google Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth will rule where public outreach is concerned, but open source tools based on open standards will rule where serious scientific visualization is concerned. The public-oriented tools are unlikely to ever address all the issues important to either GIS or astronomical science applications.
Regarding KML, it appears to be pretty much a Google thing at the moment, however I see that it is being submitted by Google to OpenGIS for development of KML 3.0 as an open GIS standard. It is oriented towards driving GIS-style visualization, and is very different from something like VOTable. I doubt if KML itself would address something like coordinate systems, rather this would be something the client app and server would need to negotiate and support.