RE: [xtm-wg] The Future of TopicMaps.Org

["Mason, James David (MXM) " <mxm@ornl.gov>]

I want to second most of the things Steve has said.

SC34 will be meeting in Berlin along with the conference, and Steve will be
chairing the sessions of WG3, which is responsible for ISO 13250. All three
editors of the ISO standard will be in Berlin, at least two of them (the
onew who worked most on XTM) for the whole time. The US has submitted a
position to SC34 that as much as possible of XTM (starting with the DTD,
which almost everyone seems to like) be folded into the ISO standard. SC34
has two newly approved work items dealing with TM models that we have to
decide how to deal with. The chairman of JTC1 (the parent body of SC34) has
suggested that SC34 contact the W3C because such contacts between JTC1
bodies and the W3C have been fruitful in the past.

ISUG will also have its business meeting in Berlin, and one of the topics I
plan to discuss is how ISUG can help to pick up the pieces from
TopicMaps.org.

I, too, have an appointment with Scott Mcgrath of OASIS in Berlin, to talk
about how both SC34 and ISUG can work with them.

I think I'm hearing much the same sorts of things from a lot of directions.
There are lots of people who want this work to be preserved and improved,
even if some of us haven't been communicating as well as we ought. I think
we can bring it off.

Jim Mason

Chairman, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34
President, ISUG

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Steve Pepper [SMTP:pepper@ontopia.net]
> Sent:	Friday, May 11, 2001 10:30 AM
> To:	xtm-wg@yahoogroups.com
> Subject:	Re: [xtm-wg] The Future of TopicMaps.Org
> 
> At 07:23 11.05.2001 -0400, Patrick Durusau wrote:
> >It seems like the discussion has trickled off on your suggestion and I
> >am wondering if there is any sense of a consensus on how the XTM effort
> >(as opposed to TM.Org in particular) should proceed?
> 
> My impression is that OASIS is seen as a favourable solution, by
> most (if not all), especially if that solution can be synergistic
> with continuing work in ISO (SC34) and initiatives within the W3C
> (SM and RDF).
> 
> OASIS has a concept of "member sections". CGM-Open is one, I
> believe. TopicMaps.Org would fit the bill quite nicely. OASIS
> also have technical committees that could do work on things
> like interoperability, conformance, and applications (e.g.
> standardizing templates for carefully defined classes of topic
> maps, such as the ISO and ANSI standards for thesauri).
> 
> To continue as a member of TopicMaps.Org one would have to join
> OASIS, but this can be done relatively cheaply (at least for
> individuals) through the International SGML/XML Users' Group.
> (And most of the companies that have sponsored TopicMaps.Org
> are already members of OASIS.)
> 
> Inside OASIS we would also be able to leverage that organization's
> networking and marketing resources and experience. That is very
> important as far as building the community and the market is
> concerned.
> 
> Regarding further standardization, other than the kind of
> vertical or horizontal applications mentioned above, I think
> SC34 is the right forum. Liaisons could be established with
> OASIS and some people, I am sure, would work in both. We just
> got news that two new topic map projects have received ISO
> approval (sTMQL - Standard Topic Map Query Language) and a
> Technical Report on the conceptual model (which could in
> theory be extended to cover the processing model). At the
> SC34 meeting in Berlin we will be appointing editors for each
> of these.
> 
> I am a little less certain about the best way to go forward
> with the W3C. Eric Freese and I had a good talk with Dan Conolly
> and Eric Miller in Austin, but the furore surrounding the exeunt
> (right) of the former editors of XTM from TopicMaps.Org, and
> their refusal to engage in constructive discussion, prevented
> us from taking that further. I'm hoping that heads and tempers
> will have cooled by XML Europe in two weeks time, and that we
> might be able to get a dialogue going again.
> 
> We still need to understand the details of how an OASIS member
> section would function. Eric F. and I will be having meetings
> with representatives of OASIS in Berlin. Following that, the
> TopicMaps.Org Authoring Group (and some of its subgroups) will
> hold their own meetings to discuss this and other matters. I
> think you can expect a proposal to be put forward for balloting
> by the AG shortly afterwards.
> 
> I believe our key goals should be to:
> 
> 1. Be able to guarantee the stability of XTM
> 2. Reunite the topic map community
> 3. Build the market
> 
> TopicMaps.Org was, at best, (let's be honest) a self-appointed
> group of techies on a mission, a SWAT team whose goal was to adapt
> topic maps as defined in ISO 13250 for the Web. We did that. We
> did it very openly, and in such a way that anyone who was prepared
> to put in the effort could come along. And it worked. (True, tempers
> flared towards the end of the process. But that's normal.)
> 
> Now we need to build credibility and do everything we can to avoid
> a situation in which new self-appointed groups, organizations, or
> (worst of all) *vendors* (spit) set themselves up as the custodians
> of topic mapping.
> 
> See y'all in Berlin!
> 
> Steve
> 
> --
> Steve Pepper, Chief Technology Officer <pepper@ontopia.net>
> Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34/WG3  Editor, XTM (XML Topic Maps)
> Ontopia AS, Waldemar Thranes gt. 98, N-0175 Oslo, Norway.
> http://www.ontopia.net/ phone: +47-23233080 GSM: +47-90827246
> 
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