[xtm-wg] From the chair of TopicMaps.Org

["Eric Freese" <efreese@sprynet.com>]

An open letter to the topic map community:

First of all, this message has been cross-posted, my apologies if you
receive this message more than once.

TopicMaps.Org has remained pretty much silent on these lists following the
tumult which has occurred over the past few weeks. On my part, this has been
due to other pressing matters as well as taking the time to think through an
appropriate response to some of the statements that have been made. It is my
hope that cooler heads will prevail in the future.

I believe now is an appropriate time to make a statement.  Any statements
made here are my own as a participating member but are given from the point
of view of my role as chair of TopicMaps.Org.

I wish to thank both Steve Newcomb and Michel Biezunski for all the work
they have done to bring topic maps to fruition. They have both given
immeasurable amounts of time, finances, brainpower, blood, sweat, and tears
to make topic maps a reality. ALL of us in the topic map community, and
perhaps in the greater knowledge management community, owe them a great deal
and I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge their work. Thank
you gentlemen!

I think it is fair to say the TopicMaps.Org itself would not exist if it
were not for the efforts of Steve and Michel. The fact that we were able to
organize AND publish a spec in less than 12 months is astounding, even in
the age of the Web. The existence of TopicMaps.Org is an example of Steve
and Michel's vision and its continued work will hopefully be a lasting
legacy to their efforts. I believe we can continue to fight a worthy battle
after their departure from our ranks.

I am very pleased to see that they are continuing their work on the
processing model which was delivered in draft along with the AG Review draft
of the XTM specification. Due to time and resource constraints, the
processing model has not gotten the attention the specification proper
received, but we are working to remedy that situation and plan to have some
exciting announcements in the near future.

The email snippets below are from Michel's email message dated March 21,
2001 with which Steve later agreed.

> > - At the January Meeting of the XTM Authoring Group, there were
> >   disagreements coming from the Group and Steve and I were denied
> >   authority to continue the work as editors, in a normal way. Any
> >   change that we would ever want to introduce for the sake of
> >   consistency had to be submitted to the group for vote. Since this
> >   process was going to delay the work of the group, I have preferred
> >   resigning as editor in favor of those who were able to perform this
> >   task with more authority. To me, the most important was to have the
> >   specification be published as quickly as possible, while the windows
> >   of opportunity were still open.

The TopicMaps.Org process is stated in the charter. A publication becomes
final when it is approved by 2/3 of the participating members. As chair
(acting) at the Paris meeting, I ruled that a qualifying vote did not occur
at the Dallas meeting (not enough members present) or at any time prior to
December 4 or at any time before the Paris meeting.

The process that is in place is the result of work done in the first three
meetings of the group. Steve and Michel deserve a great deal of the credit
for putting such a revolutionary charter and process into place. Over the
months, we have tweaked it a little, but the basic core has served us well
thus far.

> > - My resignation had an unexpected result that the process went
> >   quicker and the work for publishing the full version of XTM 1.0 was
> >   completed. The new editors have worked very hard to
> >   make it possible. The decision to transfer the editorship to a new
> >   team should therefore be considered positive in all respects.

Yes, there were disagreements although I believe that by the end of the
meeting there was a clear vision as to how to continue forward. Steve and
Michel's resignations jolted the rest of the committee into considering that
we might have to carry the banner. Fortunately other people were willing to
step up and fill the void left by the resignations. This is one area where
the group has been blessed. We met our timeline and produced a quality
product.

> > - Unfortunately, several errors appear to have been made. The names of
> >   the original editors and co-editors have been replaced by the names
> >   of the newly appointed editors, causing confusion among the
> >   community. The published subject indicator list which was announced
> >   in December as dependable, and not subject to changes that might
> >   cause referencing documents to lose their value was shortened and
> >   most of them were removed. The Processing Model, published as a draft
> >   as part of the December 4 deliverables, was removed and replaced by
> >   an annex F, "Processing Requirements", which was incompatible and is
> >   judged misleading by the previous editors, because it emphasizes
> >   syntactical aspects without telling anything about the actual
> >   meaning of the specification and how applications are supposed to
> >   understand it. Furthermore, annex F is presented as "informative",
> >   while the conformance clause has been changed in such a way as to
> >   require all XTM applications and topic maps to conform to annex F.

When the spec was published in February it was decided that the names of the
editors at the time of publication should be listed on the specification.
This will be the practice into the future. This was not done in order to
steal anyone's thunder but rather to identify the points of contact for
technical questions or comments. The spec is a publication of TopicMaps.Org
as an organization, and thus is not owned by a select group of people.

When I published the result of the ratification vote I only provided the
voting results, not who voted which way.  However, looking in the mail list
archives will show that the lone dissenting vote was from Murray Altheim.
Every other participating member at the time voted for the specification,
including Steve and Michel. If there are errors in the spec, we all share
equal blame. I certainly hope that all the participating members reviewed
the document as closely as I did before casting their "YES" votes. That
being said - if there are perceived errors in the spec, I would very much
appreciate it if those errors were identified so that they can be resolved.

A decision that was made in Paris was that the processing model would not be
ready for publication given the timeline presented. This included dropping
templates from the specification and PSI documents. The changes to the PSI
list were made in accordance with that decision since it seemed reasonable
to drop PSIs which were not going to be covered in that version of the spec.
It has been said that to do so makes the current XTM spec incomplete. I
would maintain that it no less complete than the ISO standard, which does
not have any PSIs declared for it.

The PSI list on December 4 Core document also was missing some very
necessary PSIs including PSIs for "topic", "association", and "occurrence".
I don't think there is any debate as to whether these subjects are also
required. So to say that the Dec. 4 deliverable was not subject to change
is, in my view, an inaccurate statement.

Annex F was added in order to define the requirements for how topic map
applications would handle specific rules and cases within topic map
processing. I don't believe that it was meant to replace the process model
at all. I will ask the current editors to look into the statements about the
status of annex F and the conformance clause to determine whether there are
any inconsistencies.

The Dec. 4 processing model is still posted on the TopicMaps.Org web site in
draft form. As far as I know it has always been there.

> >   I decided to resign altogether when I learned that a plan had been
> >   put in motion whereby the processing model for the XTM syntax would
> >   not be developed independently by the XTM group, but rather by an
> >   ISO-based group, under ISO rules, beginning with a requirements
> >   analysis and ending at some indefinite future date with an ISO
> >   standard query language for topic maps. My understanding of the
> >   mission of the XTM group was inconsistent with this plan: to publish
> >   a Web-oriented specification for topic maps, and to do it more
> >   quickly than any other standardization process could do it, mostly
> >   by relying heavily on work already done over the past several
> >   years.

The statement about the processing model being controlled by ISO is entirely
inaccurate and I wish to clear this up once and for all. At our meeting in
Austin, we had in attendance some invited guests (approved by the
membership). The work on TMQL, on both the ISO and XTM sides, is to be based
on the XTM processing model, since there isn't one for the ISO standard.
During the meeting we were looking for requirements and use cases for TMQL
that were in addition to the requirements that would come from the
processing model. At one point in the meeting, the question was raised as to
the nature of the meeting. I stated that it was a joint discussion of TMQL.
Perhaps this was an inaccurate statement or had ramifications of which I was
not aware. At no time did TopicMaps.Org hand control of the processing model
over to the ISO process, nor did it ever intend to. From what I know of the
ISO process, I can't see that we ever will. The people in attendance were
not there under the auspices of ISO except in a liaison capacity. If there
was a problem in their being there, it should have been brought to my
attention in a manner that would allow me to resolve the situation. It would
have been a simple matter to ask them to leave - other meeting facilities
were available for them to use.

> >   All these factors prevented me from having any clear vision on how
> >   to go further. Topic Maps have been receiving quite a bit of
> >   interest lately and there is a strong desire to harmonize with the
> >   W3C's RDF recommendation. I remain convinced that if all people
> >   involved in the process recognize the interest of agreeing on a
> >   single way of understanding of what an interchangeable topic map
> >   really means (this might take some time), all opinions should be
> >   expressed. Steve Newcomb and I are continuing to contribute the
> >   discussion in several ways. We are proposing a graph-based
> >   processing model (see http://www.topicmaps.net) a study on RDF and
> >   Topic Maps, and other relevant work.

TopicMaps.Org will continue to work with W3C in some fashion to work toward
the XTM/RDF harmonization demanded in Montreal last summer. I am working
closely with Eric Miller (now of W3C) to determine the best way to do just
that. The graph-based model being worked on by Steve and Michel will be
useful in that process. My hope is that this graph-based model works not
only for topic maps but also for RDF and other knowledge interchange models.
I can't think of a better way to begin the process of building globally
interchangeable knowledge.

> >   Although the current situation is far from ideal, it can also be
> >   interpreted as a sign of good health that many initiatives, coming
> >   from different people, are out there, everybody trying to convince
> >   others of the interest of his/her approach to topic maps. The
> >   discussions I have been having recently make me optimistic about a
> >   positive outcome. It looks like there are many people who are
> >   looking for improving consistency between the various approaches.

I wholeheartedly agree that the current situation is not ideal. It is also
not the end of the world. It has caused confusion among the topic map
community and I'm willing to guess, will for some time in the future.
TopicMaps.Org is continuing to work to meet the goals set forth in the
charter and will be looking for ways to build the topic map community in the
future.

> >   I intend to continue participating in the discussion.

I welcome and encourage this from Steve, Michel and anyone else who is
willing to keep this effort moving forward.

I would also welcome Steve and Michel back into the TopicMaps.Org fold.
Perhaps things have not gone as anticipated, but there is still a lot of
work to be done and I continue to believe that a reunified force would be
something to be reckoned with. However, I also respect their decision and
look forward to seeing their work continue in whatever form and forum.

Thanks for listening/reading.

If you have any questions feel free to contact me at eric@isogen.com.

Sincerely,
Eric Freese
Chair - TopicMaps.Org


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