Re: [emergency] GJXDM vs EDXL Distribution isses

[Art Botterell <acb@incident.com>]

Michael, it's not my intent to disturb you.  However, I assume you'd 
agree that there's also a risk in trying to force what may prove to 
be unlike concepts into like boxes just for short-term convenience.

We need to look carefully at the realities of the real-world 
applications and processes before reflexively adopting prior art just 
because "it was there first."  I'm sure you're not suggesting the 
latter approach.  Nor have I ever objected to reuse where it's 
appropriate.

- Art


At 4:04 PM -0500 12/29/04, Daconta, Michael wrote:
>This email thread is disturbing... I would hope this TC can avoid 
>the "not invented here syndrome" and focus on reusing schema 
>elements where the concepts are equivalent or can be aligned.
>--------------------------
>Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Art Botterell <acb@incident.com>
>To: emergency@lists.oasis-open.org <emergency@lists.oasis-open.org>
>Sent: Wed Dec 29 15:43:52 2004
>Subject: Re: [emergency] GJXDM vs EDXL Distribution isses
>
>At 9:34 AM -0500 12/29/04, Ham, Gary A wrote:
>>To be GJXDM compliant we would probably have to change the "eventType"
>>to something more akin to "EmergencyEventTypeCode"...
>
>I'm not sure whether "compliant" is the right criterion.  Our
>functional goal is "compatible"... framing it in terms of compliance
>transforms a technical issue into a political one.  I'm not sure
>that's either necessary or wise.
>
>Not necessary because we have the mechanism of namespaces to allow
>domain-specific element design choices to be made "close to the
>ground," nearer to functional concerns and farther from bureaucratic
>ones.  It gives us a viable alternative to the
>grand-unified-data-model-of-everything approach, which I'm afraid may
>be self-defeating in its scope.
>
>And not wise for several reasons:
>
>1) Adopting a stance of "compliance" to one user group... in this
>case, the justice community... necessarily distances us a bit from
>others... fire, transportation, health, etc.  While I realize that
>Justice is ascendant in post-9/11 America, we're part of an
>international standards organization and those of us who've been at
>this for awhile have seen these trends shift back and forth over the
>decades.
>
>2) There's a learning curve here.  As Gary points out, just because
>the GJXDM was the earliest and largest doesn't mean it got everything
>right.  We need to leave the door open for learning and improvement.
>(After all, the US had the first color television standard in the
>world... and as a result spent the next forty years looking at the
>worst color tv pictures in the world.)
>
>3) As mentioned above, the wider the scope of a data model, the more
>technical and political inertia it accumulates.  Keeping a degree of
>compartmentalization lends flexibility, so long as there's a
>mechanism (e.g., namespaces) for preventing collisions.
>
>Now I'm not arguing against adopting an ISO 11179-based naming
>scheme.  I'm just suggesting that we ought to think carefully and
>explicitly before slipping into an assumption that we're somehow
>obliged to comply with some other group's scheme.
>
>- Art
>--
>Art Botterell
>Common Alerting Protocol Program Manager
>Partnership for Public Warning
>www.PartnershipForPublicWarning.org
>(707) 750-1006
>
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