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Subject: [tm-pubsubj] Publishing PSIs
Let me digress from the technical for a moment to discuss an important topic that we've to my knowledge not yet brought to the table. The recent message from Mary brought up for me a number of touchy issues that perhaps she is not aware of, issues that come from some of the history of the TopicMaps.Org Authoring Group. Following on from my development of the language.xtm and country.xtm topic maps (published as part of the XTM 1.0 Specification) I went ahead and developed a number of other topic maps I felt might be useful within the community. The reasons these haven't been published have to do with both the IP issues of me working at Sun (though this isn't a real barrier unless I make it one), the lack of a publishing authority (given that TopicMaps.Org disappeared from the scene), and finally what I consider the poor record of what I'd consider fair attribution in our group's history. As Steve Newcomb will attest, my feelings regarding people getting proper and fair credit for work accomplished are very strong, as well as people making unauthorized edits or changes to what is not their intellectual property, changes made without even asking the author. Sometimes this is a legal matter, sometimes just a courtesy, but in either case it's good practice. I honestly bristled at Mary having modified these files as well as duplicating work I'd done last year, just as if someone had modified any work I'd put substantial effort into without asking or beforehand establishing any relationship to myself or the work. As a number of people receiving this message are well aware, there was a major scrape over the removal of four names from both the XTM specification and the XTM DTD, which has never been remedied. You still don't see Steve and Michel's name on the XTM Spec, despite an agreement within the Authoring Group that this should occur. We really don't need to rehash this history, suffice it to say that the issue is still within the community, dormant and hot like smouldering leaves. I don't want to bang on Mary's head about this particularly, but if there's a hot button for me in this group, she has inadvertently pushed it. To put it more bluntly, until there is some understanding between the parties about what processes and responsibilities are to be established surrounding the work of this group, I'll not be releasing *any* of my work to this group. As many could tell you, this is not due to any lack of generosity on my part. I'm quite willing to provide these materials to the group once these relationships have been established. But I don't want the kinds of issues that we've seen in the past surfacing again. Otherwise I'll be publishing my work under a very different copyright, one that would not allow anyone to make any changes to the document without my permission. I don't imagine this will be necessary, but I want to be very clear that IP issues must be resolved before we move forward. Murray ........................................................................... Murray Altheim <mailto:murray.altheim@sun.com> XML Technology Center, Java and XML Software Sun Microsystems, Inc., MS MPK17-102, 1601 Willow Rd., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Corporations do not have human rights.
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