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Subject: Re: [geolang-comment] FW: TC geoLang



Hello Thomas, and welcome to the TC!

* Thomas Bandholtz
| 
| We had developed GEIN in 1999 using XML anywhere. So I was thinking
| about a XML Topic Map right from the beginning.  I was somehow
| disappointed when I read XTM 1.0, as I would have preferred a XML
| Schema with closer definitions using complex data types,
| inheritance, and extensibility on the schema (not the data) level.
 
I think this is an interesting opinion, but that this list is the
wrong place to discuss it. If you want to discuss this, please feel
encouraged to post to one of the topic map mailing lists about it.
(TOPICMAPMAIL, run by InfoLoom, is perhaps the best choice.)

| Today I am PM of an R&D project that "converts" the GEIN taxonomy
| into a Topic Map.  We store and process this Topic Map using
| KnowledgeTaxi, the (almost) grown-up results of our early TM-engine
| experiments. [...] I will present this work at XMLEurope 2002 (same
| track with Kal Ahmed, Steven R. Newcomb, and Michel Biezunksi).

This sounds very interesting. I hope I'll be able to attend this talk.
 
| I see a gap between the "Recommendations for published subjects
| documentation" (Bernard Vatant) and solely building XTM-Topic Maps
| for PS.  Shall these TM contain "published subjects documentation
| sets" (Bernard) or should there be a different - or even free -
| format for the documentation? 

The plan is that the PSI sets published by this TC will follow the
recommendations laid down by the PubSubj TC. So at the moment it seems
that we will publish a human-readable HTML document and a
machine-readable XTM file for each PSI set.

| Any kind of UDDI-like registry for them?

I'm not sure what you have in mind here. There will be an XTM
document.  What would UDDI add to this, in your opinion?

| One of the greatest challenges of my project work today is to
| transform the GEIN  national gazetteer into a Topic Map where each
| Topic is a published subject itself, or it references a subject
| published somewhere else.  These are some 50.000 Topics, so it will
| be hard to keep track for each of them.

I am not sure what you mean here. Do you mean that the problem is
correlating your topics with the published subjects published by
others? If so I fully agree that you have a challenging task.

| A Technical Committee should concentrate on the protocols and the
| publishing process, less on the selection of the final content to be
| published.

I am not sure what you are referring to here. The division of work
between the topic map TCs is that the PubSubj TC defines the
guidelines for the publishing of published subjects, while XMLvoc and
GeoLang deal with particular subject areas.

Personally I think it makes great sense for a TC to sit down and
define actual published subjects. The GeoLang TC is somewhat special
in this regard, as it is only recycling existing code sets, but it is
still performing a useful task. For there to be published subjects,
someone must define them. And key subjects like those defined by the
GeoLang TC should really be defined by some central organization.

| Remember that "In the most generic sense, a subject is anything
| whatsoever, regardless of whether it exists or has any other
| specific characteristics, about which anything whatsoever may be
| asserted by any means whatsoever." (ISO 13250). IMO any of these
| whatsoever subjects may get published. The question to be answered
| by the TC is: how?

I agree that any subject can be published. The question of how to
publish them is to be answered by the PubSubj TC, and not by the
GeoLang TC.
 
| I would prefer UN Location Codes as a first use case - simple but
| not too simple. 

Actually, we are thinking of doing ISO 639 and ISO 3166-1 first,
primarily because these have already been done by TopicMaps.Org in its
previous incarnation and are in need of updating.

Currently, the proposed order of work is:

 ISO 639
 ISO 3166
 ISO 3166-2
 UN/M49
 UN/LOCODE
 ISO 15924
 IANA charset registry

If you'd like to see that changed I'd be happy to hear your arguments.

| On the other hand,  there are some Global Gazetteers on-line that
| provide much of what Bernard proposes as PS documentation set. One
| of these may be the source of a first complete working sample.
 
I am not sure what you mean by this. What are these Global Gazetteers,
and what would they provide for a PSI set? (This may well be a stupid
question; I have no idea what these things are.)

-- 
Lars Marius Garshol, Ontopian         <URL: http://www.ontopia.net >
ISO SC34/WG3, OASIS GeoLang TC        <URL: http://www.garshol.priv.no >



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