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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&#x40;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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