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Subject: Re: [tm-pubsubj] Re: Country.xtm PSI; also proposed region.xtm PSI


Lars Marius Garshol wrote:
> 
> * Steve Pepper
> |
> | To my mind, these PSI sets should simply express what is in the
> | corresponding ISO standards (3166 and 639) in a form usable by topic
> | map applications and DO NO MORE THAN THAT!
> 
> I disagree. There are a number of related code sets which I believe
> this TC could usefully tackle. I see no reason why particular parts of
> these standards should be PSI-ed, but not other relevant code sets.
> I guess this is in part why you don't want a new TC: you consider the
> task to be much more limited than the rest of us do.
> 
> | [...] there should be no mappings (for example) from ISO codes to
> | other controlled vocabularies or natural languages. All that kind of
> | stuff is fraught with difficulties and contention, and we should
> | steer clear of it.
> 
> I fully agree. This is best left for third parties.

Unless the mappings already exist within the code sets, which is all
that I've done so far. I didn't map name to name, only use these existing
maps (which were done out of necessity by the governing bodies). Obviously
we shouldn't insert ourselves into this, as you say.
 
> * Murray Altheim
> |
> | There is continued maintenance of the code sets by ISO, by different
> | groups of people. A correct maintenance of the language and country
> | topic maps must include liaison with the relevant ISO committees to
> | understand their issues, their delivery schedules, with planned
> | updates based on updates to the code sets.
> 
> I'm not sure we need a formal liaison, but we will need some mechanism
> in order to ensure that the PSI sets remain up to date. This, of
> course, will enable us to have some interesting discussions about what
> to do about codes that go out of use...

Agreed. Perhaps not a formal liaison, but at least a formal contact and
some understanding between the parties of what's going on. Something
official, not just Murray-contacts-UN-via-email as it's been.

> | I (Murray) developed the country.xtm and language.xtm topic maps in
> | active coordination with contacts from ISO, MARC, and the UN. It's
> | inappropriate that I (Murray) should continue in this role, or that
> | any other person should do this. It should be handled by a formal
> | liaison role within a TC.
> 
> If formal liaison is indeed necessary then yes. What is beyond doubt
> is that no individual should have this role.

My point exactly.
 
> | Uh, I (Murray) have already done it. I'm not sure where the desire
> | to rewrite these from scratch comes from, but it's unnecessary.
> | They were published with the XTM 1.0 Specification, and I believe
> | all we're talking about is bug fixes, not a complete rewrite. If you
> | believe otherwise, please explain the rationale.
> 
> I think we should not dive into this discussion now. Let's agree on
> the TC charter first, and have it accepted, then Murray can put his
> current files on the table, and we can consider whether we think any
> further modifications to them are necessary.
> 
> Most likely there will have to be modifications in order to comply
> with the PubSubj TC guidelines, but let's not start to argue now about
> things that we may have to redo later when the guidelines start to
> take form.

Agreed. We've all jumped into technical discussions before there was
a proper process in place to handle it. The issues will all come out
at the proper time.

> | We'd in Dallas (I believe) agreed to include PSIs for everything in
> | XTM, then backed down. We need to revisit this.
> 
> I believe that SRN and MB intend to do this as part of their work on
> the topic map reference model, and that is where these PSIs truly
> belong, if indeed they belong anywhere at all. They have no meaning
> outside the context of the topic map models (reference and standard
> application), so for this (or any other OASIS) TC to define them would
> be inappropriate.

This is the first time I'd heard of this, and I'm curious as to how
this conclusion was arrived at. The whole core vs. non-core division
between ISO and OASIS I've always believed problematic, and the lines
between blurry. I am speaking specifically of enumerating the components
in XTM, not in topic maps generally, since the application space I'm
talking about only XTM, speaks only XTM. I would certainly want members
of the ISO committee to review our work (as I'm certain they would too),
but it's always possible to map the topic map reference model (which 
might not even be in XTM syntax) to the PSIs using our very own mapping
technology. 

Maybe this seems more complicated than it is:  I'm only talking about
having a PSI for each language component in XTM, one for each element,
one for each attribute. This would allow a named mapping from XTM to,
say, RDF while preserving the semantics via PSIs.
 
> | Also, with topic map association templates and the issues
> | surrounding use of XTM as its own schema, there may be minor changes
> | to the existing set (in terms of language) or major changes (if
> | templates are to become part of core).
> 
> Again, this is ISO territory, to be thrashed out by SC34/WG3.

It is insofar as the models and core work. How this is mapped out to
a set of PSIs, and how PSI modules (such as I described) work together
certainly seems within our charter. 

Murray

...........................................................................
Murray Altheim, Staff Engineer          <mailto:murray.altheim&#64;sun.com>
Java and XML Software
Sun Microsystems, 1601 Willow Rd., MS UMPK17-102, Menlo Park, CA 94025

       Ernst Martin comments in 1949, "A certain degree of noise in 
       writing is required for confidence. Without such noise, the 
       writer would not know whether the type was actually printing 
       or not, so he would lose control."


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