[xtm-wg] Binding topic maps without merging

["Bernard Vatant" <universimmedia@wanadoo.fr>]

One thing I'm still uneasy with : merging seems the only way to interchange
information between topic maps.
Either in the specification or in the debates going on about
interoperability, no other process for interoperating TM seems to be
addressed. Though merging is fundamental to insure inner consistency, it
may not be the killer approach for binding independently managed and
continuously updated topic maps.

What do I mean by "binding"?  Suppose you have TM1 and TM2 developed in
different but somehow overlapping contexts.
Some identical subjects are represented in both maps, identified as such by
identical names and/or PSI, out of some query process and/or some human
ontological agreement between TM1 and TM2 authors. The corresponding topics
would be merged if we were to build TM3 as a reunion of TM1 and TM2. But we
don't want and don't need that TM3 at all, because the contexts of TM1 and
TM2 are really different in many points, the reunion of these contexts
would not really make sense, and maybe we would have hard time to keep
non-merged some topics we would not want to, and get rid of vocabulary
ambiguities.

But we would like to somehow bind these two TM through their common
subjects. Let's say the subject X is represented in TM1 by topic T1 and in
TM2 by topic T2. T1 is hence a good Subject Indicator for T2 in TM2, and
the other way round. What would be the correct XTM syntax for such a
binding ? I suppose <topicRef> would not be correct since T1 and T2 are not
in the same Map, so it could not be anything else that
<subjectIndicatorRef> - My hunch is that is a weird recursive thing, bound
to induce strange things in a query process !

Whatever the syntax - and I guess you markup wizz will find out - such
bindings, that I in fact tend to call synapses, will be IMO much more
interesting than "universal blind merging" when applied to a set of
numerous TM. Networks of relatively small but very ontology-consistent and
manageable not to mention human-browsable TM, that search engines could
spider through binding points is certainly a more exciting and sustainable
perspective than building VLTM with all the problems of ontology
leveraging.

That's how I'd like eventually to bind the Semantopic Map to other existing
or to-be TM in overlapping contexts. We have for example a reflection about
it with Eric at XML.fr at the present time. More to come I hope !

Thoughts ?

Bernard

---------------------------------------
Bernard Vatant
www.universimmedia.com
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