CGM Open is a non-profit, international Foundation of providers of products and services, dedicated to accelerating the further adoption, application, and implementation of the Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM), the international standard for open interchange of structured graphical objects and their associated attributes.
CGM Open provides its members with an open forum to discuss market needs and directions, and to develop and provide guidelines to enhance product interoperability. The Foundation receives, coordinates, and disseminates information describing CGM methodologies, technologies, and implementations.
The work of CGM Open complements that of standards bodies, focusing on making CGM easy to adopt, and CGM based products practical to use, in real-world, open system applications.
Because the CGM standard does not constrain the architecture and functionality of applications, great diversity can and does exist among applications and product implementations. CGM Open will establish guidelines for an implementation framework within which diverse products will be able to interoperate, without compromising the platform and product independence of CGM graphics or the potential for diversity, growth, and extensibility inherent in the standard.
The CGM Open Board of Directors consists of three Directors as follows:
CGM Open offers two categories of membership: Sponsor and Participant. Members may select the category which best fits their needs, desired benefits and commitment.
The Sponsor Membership is CGM Open's most comprehensive category, providing the complete range of business, marketing, and technical benefits and participation rights. Sponsor Membership is designed for organizations that are financially committed to CGM and expect to continue to invest based upon CGM Open work. Sponsors benefit from a high visibility profile within the industry and are the group most likely to be affected by the work of the technical committee. This category is particularly appealing for software vendors that offer CGM-compliant products and large user organizations.
Sponsor members are able to take advantage of all the benefits CGM Open has to offer, including:
The Participant Membership is designed for organizations that have invested in CGM, but have no need to obtain higher visibility within the industry. The Participant is most interested in the technical work that is done by CGM Open, either to help drive interoperability or to understand the directions taken by other members. This category is generally made up of organizations which do not actively sell a product or service to the CGM market.
CGM Open Participants will be eligible for the following benefits:
CGM is a broad enabling standard. The reasonable expectation of the growing CGM market is to be able to integrate multiple CGM products from multiple vendors. To meet these expectations and in order to improve current interoperability and ensure that new products can enter the marketplace, vendors must agree to collaborate in establishing pragmatic technical guidelines which assure interoperability without limiting the breadth of CGM.
Companies joining CGM Open agree to work together to improve interoperability in the market. We believe that as vendors and customers push toward common approaches, the market for CGM will grow exponentially.
By understanding how interoperability gaps occur, technical working groups will formulate guidelines for bridging those gaps and improving current practice. Documents produced by technical working groups will be submitted to a process of review and approval. These documents will provide critical information for vendors who supply products that will interoperate in a "framework" for CGM applications.
Perhaps most important, CGM Open will provide a forum in which vendors can discuss what exactly is and can be meant by "interoperability," a term that is used with various meanings throughout the vendor and customer communities. From this discussion will emerge definitions and documents, such as a CGM Open Profile, that can be used as the basis for software implementations.
CGM Open will expressly avoid duplicating the efforts of international standards committees. It will act as a forum for vendors to discuss submissions to the standards community, and to study the impact of the revision of existing and development of emerging standards.
Specific issues on the agenda will be determined by the membership. In addition to monitoring the activities of relevant standards committees. CGM Open's technical experts could form subcommittees to advise industry interchange language developers (in fields such as CALS, ATA-2100, J2008, Petro-Chemical etc.) to ensure consistent application behavior and implementation, while recognizing the individual structures and constituencies of those industries..
CGM Open will support the creation and implementation of conformance test procedures and processes which assure the interoperability of CGM based solutions.
Technical operations of CGM Open will be organized as a set of working groups made up of representatives from CGM Open member companies.
The marketing goal of CGM Open is to substantially increase CGM implementations in commercial businesses.
The Foundation's objectives are to:
The Foundation's target markets include:
CGM Open will accomplish these objectives through a variety of marketing programs, as determined by the Marketing Committees. These programs may include: