Re: [emergency] Groups - EDIT of emergency-CAPv-1.1

[Art Botterell <acb@incident.com>]

At 8:44 PM -0800 3/7/05, Kon Wilms wrote:
>You don't have to agree, but you do have to give me a good answer why
>you think it won't work and/or is a bad idea.

Well, strictly speaking I don't... the burden of persuasion is on the 
proponent.  However, I've tried to explain why I don't think this 
change is necessary or appropriate at this time.  Whether or not you 
consider mine to be a "good" answer is up to you.

Anyway, now that this has been recast as a 2.0 issue we can consider 
it in the context of EDXL and at a more appropriate time.

>'Things will not interoperate' doesn't qualify as a valid
>answer (or excuse).

Excuse me?  If interoperability isn't a good answer/excuse, what is 
it we're doing here?

Maybe we need to review the purpose of the "category" element: it's 
to provide a simple and predictable taxonomy of events that automated 
systems can use to select an appropriate response to receipt of a 
particular message.  CAP also provides the "event" element to permit 
free-form descriptions, but those aren't predictable enough for many 
implementions to rely on.

>This is right up there with accusing me of using this to push an
>implementation issue to the standards level. What's up with this?

This pattern of casting a professional discussion in personal terms 
is one I've seen increasingly in this TC, and I think it's really 
regrettable.  Personally, I think we'll all enjoy this process a lot 
more, and do a better job to boot, to the extent that we can separate 
our egos from our ideas.  (Heaven knows, if I took personally every 
idea of mine that got dismissed, criticized or just deferred in the 
TC process I'd have slit my wrists long since.)

>I'm constantly amazed at how the concept of lookup table usage is
>equated to allowing people to insert random categories into their
>messages and creating some sort of interop disaster.

No such general equation is suggested.... but your previous note 
struck me, at least, as suggesting pretty clearly that anyone would 
be able to add values whenever they were ready and that only "if Dave 
needs to be interoperable" would such additions be submitted to the 
standards process.  If I misunderstood you, I apologize, but if I 
have that right then, yes, I believe it could lead to a significant 
loss of interoperability.

>I have to ask - are you intentionally muddying the water because you
>don't like this proposal, or is there a solid technical reason for this
>being a bad approach to solving this problem?

Neither.  I'm just not yet persuaded that there's a substantial 
problem here in the first place.  And philosophically I'm concerned 
about the potential water-muddying consequences of making unnecessary 
changes.

- Art