Re: [tm-pubsubj-comment] Fwd : On "prohibition" of XTM and URNs

[Eric Miller <em@w3.org>]

On Fri, 2002-08-16 at 08:43, Murray Altheim wrote:

> As for #2, my god, RDF is so *not* easy to grab that I can't
> imagine non-W3C people considering it for publishing PSI sets.
> RDF has not caught precisely because of its obtuse and confusing
> syntax. Publishing a set of PSIs as topics can be *extremely* easy:

Murray, If i may, please stop this line of argument. I think this
detracts from the more relevant issues that this group (at least as I
see it from an outsider) is trying to focus on.

>    <topicMap xmlns="http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/1.0";
>              xml:base="http://www.altheim.com/ceryle/psi/";>
>       <topic id="tnode"/>
>       <topic id="anode"/>
>       <topic id="snode"/>
>       <topic id="lnode"/>
>    </topicMap>

Change id to rdf:ID in the above, add the appropriate namespace and
you've got the a valid RDF/XML version.  In the above example the
namespace for the 'id' attribute is unknown [1]. I don't really expect
that you actually mean this.

And yes, non-W3C people are already using this for managing quite
effectively various kinds of faceted controlled vocabularies.
 
> My *actual* PSI set for TouchGraph graphs, used internally within
> Ceryle though still web-publishable (including URNs as subject
> identifiers) is thus:

... 
(very helpful example that i'd very much like to
discuss/compare/contrast with Murray on a chalk board removed for space)
...

> One can add links to documentation, etc. but the act of publishing
> the XHTML documentation is not what's at issue. The above topic map
> would *do* from a processing standpoint. Try that in RDF. It'll be

It's actually just as simple.

> I realize I have a completely different set of priorities than
> some, but if the topic map community doesn't have PSI publishing
> ability soon, there simply will never be the public sharing of
> topic maps within a reasonable amount of time, and people may
> move on to something else given no standards for participating.

RDF and TopicMaps are trying to solve very similar problems at different
levels of abstraction. In doing so, both of strengths and weaknesses
depending on the particulars of the application. 

If I may, I'd prefer to simply accept this limitation for the sake of
these discussions and focus on articulating 'best practices' for PSI
that include various social, organizational and technical
recommendations that this group agrees upon.

> I'd just like a PSI for "topic documentation." And a way to
> publish topic maps that I can point to as PSI sources. Given
> that my first crack at that (in the XTM 1.0 Specification)
> doesn't seem to stand up to time, I'm waiting for the alternative.

Suggested technical components for consideration for example might
include capabilities such as PURLs http://www.purl.org/ for persistent
URL identifiers and and RDDL http://www.rddl.org/ for providing a means
for binding various syntactic means of expressing the semantics
associated with various PSI's.

Thus in the minutes -
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tm-pubsubj/meetings/2002-08-10.htm

"# XTM is ruled out at that stage, could be introduced by Deliverable 2.
XHTML and RDF are still in."

one could start with XHTML and RDF/XML declarations and simple layer in
XTM for Deliverable 2 based on the same mechanisms.

A quick additional question... with respect the minute Recommendations
regarding Publisher and Dublin Core.  Was examples of how this would be
implemented discussed?

Would the following fruit PSI example satisfy these requirements? 
http://www.w3.org/2002/05/29-psi/fruit

ps: thanks for the minutes, they were very helpful....

-- 
eric miller                              http://www.w3.org/people/em/
semantic web activity lead               http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/
w3c world wide web consortium            http://www.w3.org/

[1] Namespace Myths Exploded
    http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2000/03/08/namespaces/index.html?page=2