Standards Take Work

The blog Iconic Photos this week includes the shot at left of the International Meridian Conference, held in 1884 in Washington DC.

The very first resolution adopted by the Conference should seem familiar to those who work in GIS data standards:

...it is the opinion of this Congress that it is desirable to adopt a single prime meridian for all nations, in place of the multiplicity of initial meridians which now exist.

The Iconic Photos blog does a nice job of summarizing what the delegates went through to define 0° longitude. Maybe coming up with framework standards in my state won't be that bad.