RE: [xtm-wg] The Future of TopicMaps.Org

[Steve Pepper <pepper@ontopia.net>]

Adrian,

Thank you for your thoughtful contribution. Your expression of
skepticism to TopicMaps.Org as a standards-making body confirms
my feeling that we ought to find a more authoritative home for
XTM. I find it interesting that you have held this position all
along and that it is not a result of the divisions that arose
during the run-in to publishing XTM 1.0.

My view, in retrospect, is that TM.Org should been seen to have
been a SWAT team of dedicated individuals that has done its job
(and nearly destroyed itself in the process). The time has now
come to move on.

At 16:53 20.04.2001 +0100, you wrote:
>As a colleague of a member of the AG (Daniel Rivers-Moore), and as a Director of an organization (RivCom) that is keen to see the effective and widespread use of Topic Maps, I understood that TopicMaps.org was established to “fast track” the development of XTM. I have always been uncomfortable with this rational for an independent and separate organization to develop XTM. There are a number of bodies whose core business is producing standards, and they have invested in the development of policies, procedures and mechanisms for their production. While I want my company to contribute to the development of an XTM standard that is technically excellent, I have no desire to contribute to the overhead of running yet another standards body (we are already members of OASIS and W3C).
>
>In addition, I want XTM to be seen by users and vendors as a standard that has substantial and long-term support. Surely this is much more likely if XTM was under the auspices of an established and respected standards body.
>
>I know that I have been on the sidelines and my view will not carry much weight

Nonsense! XTM is too important to be left to those that have had
the opportunity to participate actively up to now. I encourage more
of the lurkers on this list to express their opinions and help us
make the right choice for the future of topic mapping.

> – but my feeling is that Steve is right to “tend toward” option 3.

Which, to remind everyone, was to find an appropriate existing
organization that we can join, and to which we can transfer the
rights to XTM. OASIS has now been mentioned several more times.
Does anyone want to propose serious alternatives to OASIS?
(Eric Freese, the chair of TM.Org, and I were charged at the
Austin meeting with investigating alternatives, so please tell
us if you have other candidates.)

For the record, I don't see SC34 as being a really suitable
*alternative* to OASIS, but rather a very interesting and
important complement.

Steve

--
Steve Pepper, Chief Technology Officer <pepper@ontopia.net>
Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34/WG3  Editor, XTM (XML Topic Maps)
Ontopia AS, Waldemar Thranes gt. 98, N-0175 Oslo, Norway.
http://www.ontopia.net/ phone: +47-23233080 GSM: +47-90827246


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