Re: [uddi-dev] ebXML registry and UDDI comparisons

[Paul Denning <pauld@mitre.org>]

At 10:54 AM 2005-06-22, Farrukh Najmi wrote:
>As far as I know, adding new taxonomies (complete with taxonomy values) is 
>quite vendor specific in UDDI 3. Also there is no standard way to extend 
>values for standard/checked taxonomies for domain specific profiles.

Adding a taxonomy (without its taxons or value-set) is very common in 
UDDI.  Simply create a tModel and put the following in its categoryBag

<categoryBag>
     <keyedReference tModelKey="uddi:uddi.org:categorization:types" 
keyName="Categorization system" keyValue="categorization"/>
</categoryBag>

Having this in the categoryBag makes the a "taxonomy tModel".

(This is UDDI v3, but there is also a v2 tModelKey.)

As far as extending the values, this would be something that would be done 
as a technical note or best practice, similar to the profiles for ebXML 
Registry.

Although it is often stated that taxonomies lack semantics, it only lacks 
them in terms of a syntax for expressing the semantics.  Certainly there is 
a meaning for each taxon of a taxonomy.  For example, NAICS code 111110 is 
understood to mean Soybean Farming.

Maybe you want to extend the Soybean Farming branch of NAICS with your own 
taxonomy; perhaps there are different types of soybeans (go with me here ;-)
Perhaps "American Soybean Farming" and "Asian Soybean Farming".

You could create a tModel for this new taxonomy.  Its categoryBag would 
look like this

<categoryBag>
     <keyedReference tModelKey="uddi:uddi.org:categorization:types" 
keyName="Categorization system" keyValue="categorization"/>
     <keyedReference tModeKey="uddi:uddi.org:ubr:taxonomy:naics" 
keyName="Soybean Farming" keyValue="111110"/>
</categoryBag>

If you have a business that you want to categorize as "American Soybean 
Farming", you would use the new taxonomy in its categoryBag.  You could 
also use the NAICS 111110 in it categoryBag.  There is an implied "is a" 
relationship between the business and its categoryBag.  This business is an 
American Soybean Farming business.  It is also a Soybean Farming business.

This would be one way to extend NAICS in UDDI.  There may be other ways.

The people using the taxonomies would understand the semantics, even though 
all that is put in UDDI is a keyValue.

The philosphy was to keep UDDI simple and extensible.  Similar to the 
philosphy around SOAP: keep it simple and provide well understood 
mechanisms for extending it (e.g., SOAP headers).

I need to research how ebRIM/ebRS specify how to extend values for a 
standard/checked taxonomy.

Anyway, taxonomies are old news; give me folksonomy!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy

(Mapping Folksonomy tags to UDDI could be yet another (pseudo)taxonomy 
tModel where the (unchecked) keyValues are the tags.)

Paul