Proposal to merge with openpermit.org

[mmartin78]

We have been working for a while on a spec along the same lines as permitdata.org at openpermit.org. So far we have focused more on operational data rather than just static data with the goal of standardizing epermitting systems from multiple jurisdictions. There is a lot of interest in the South Florida region and Code for Miami and Miami-Dade County have also been involved in the discussions with more partners to come.

So far we have focused mostly on the API contract side of things and permit requirements. We were going to start looking into the actual data formats to return from our permit APIs next. As it turns out, permitdata.org is very complementary to what we are doing and we see it counter productive to have two separate communities and specifications.

Mark and I have already discussed and agreed, so I propose to start discussions to merge these two specifications into one that has data schemas and delivery formats.

Delivery formats being possibly as both some derivative of our API definitions and maybe some CSV format. As our API covers some transactional (POST) methods and other additional items, Mark suggested that those be labeled optional in the final spec and only the methods that match the data definitions in permitdata.org should be required.

We are also working on a reference implementation for jurisdictions to quickly get the spec running alongside their permitting systems and client libraries for the APIs. These will be Open for contributions soon.

We would like feedback, comment and suggestions on this topics.