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Subject: Re: [xtm-wg] Promotion of Conceptual Model
> > [Kal Ahmed:] > > > Anyway, what is wrong with a separate Conceptual Model document ? > > > It speaks to a different audience and serves a different purpose > > [Steve Newcomb:] > > > > The stated purpose of Topicmaps.Org is to serve the public interest. > > Let's actually serve the public interest [Sam Hunting:] > It seems the desire is for 1.0 to be as ubiquitous as HTML and as > exhaustively specified as HyTime. Which one served the public interest > better? (I'm inclined to answer HTML, though I don't know how this will > net out over time.) > > Life is full of compromises. I'd be inclined to go with Kal. "At the > end of the day," only the perception of simplicity leads to adoption, > and only adoption leads to ubiquity. The potential benefit to the public from XTM is that the standard allows everyone to interchange and recombine instances of the kind of information that XTM is all about. As far as I know, no other significant benefit to the public is expected to result from the existence of the XTM Spec. The basic purpose of the XTM Spec is to facilitate the public's ability to interchange "finding" information. Widespread adoption is vital, but we must not let the siren song of ubiquity distract our attention from the primary importance of actually benefitting the adopters. We've seen far too much of the "adoption is primary" kind of standardization logic in recent years, with very mixed results that are plainly visible everywhere. Adoption cannot be our primary goal because adoption actually works *against* the public interest, if adoption does not actually provide the anticipated benefits to the adopter. If, when interchange fails, the finger of blame cannot be pointed at the software whose nonconforming behavior interfered with interchange, an interchange standard provides no benefit. Instead, it causes losses, confusion, and harm. Regarding HyTime, let me just say, "Ouch." I'm certainly not proposing that XTM repeats the disappointing performance of HyTime in the arena of public adoption. I'm not proposing a 400 page XTM Spec, nor anything like the breadth of scope that HyTime assays (it's really about a dozen major standards in one monstrously complex megastandard), nor anything remotely resembling the impenetrability of HyTime's prose. Since you bring up HTML, Sam, let me point out that the history of the implementation and adoption of HTML is a cautionary tale that actually makes *both* your point and mine very convincingly. Fortunately for the public interest, HTML document instances are not usually very expensive, valuable, or long-lived. XTM documents, on the other hand, will frequently be very expensive, valuable, and, we hope, long-lived. Our primary job is to establish an arena for competition between the owners/maintainers of XTM documents in their efforts to serve the public's need to make information findable. That arena must be fortified against the depredations of technology vendors. Either the XTM Spec will be that fortification, or there will be no arena. It is not enough to provide conformance criteria only for the syntax of XTM instances. It is equally important to provide conformance criteria for the information carried by XTM instances. If we don't have everything we'd like to have in the Spec about the fundamental nature of XTM information, that's not good, but it would be even worse to provide nothing at all. It would be indefensible to withhold what we have about the Conceptual Model, or to bury it in an annex, simply because it's not as fully developed as we'd like it to be, or because we think that it will make some people (such as those who are allergic to UML) less likely to adopt XTM. XTM's Conceptual Model is just as vital for establishing the criteria of conformance as is its DTD. They must be given equal structural weight in the Spec, and they must both be normative. That's all I'm saying. -Steve -- Steven R. Newcomb, Consultant srn@coolheads.com voice: +1 972 359 8160 fax: +1 972 359 0270 405 Flagler Court Allen, Texas 75013-2821 USA -------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~> eLerts It's Easy. It's Fun. Best of All, it's Free! http://click.egroups.com/1/9699/1/_/337252/_/974418770/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> To Post a message, send it to: xtm-wg@eGroups.com To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: xtm-wg-unsubscribe@eGroups.com
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