Re: [topicmaps-comment] RE: OASIS vs W3C

[Tony.Coates@reuters.com]

On 21/09/2001 01:07:47 altheim wrote:

>This is the one I've had a problem with all along. Either there is
>a misunderstanding (from not just you but many people) about the
>essential nature of RDF and XTM or people are simply trying to
>get rid of one or the other. They're apples and oranges, no, they're
>apples and meatball pie, or apples and eyeglasses. What harmonization
>can there be between RDF (graphs-in-XML) and XTM (subject-based
>mapping technology)? Certainly it's possible to create an RDF-based
>syntax for XTM, but you could also create any number of other syntax
>representations. There could be a binary TM standard for all we know
>(which might be valuable for passing around very large or pre-processed
>topic maps).

Murray, you are right in theory, but wrong in practice.  And Scott Tsao is very right to have harped on this point.  While I'm sure you have crystal clarity about where you might personally use topic maps vs. RDF, in the "view from 30 000 feet" (or 10 000m) that technology guys like Scott and I have to sell to business people (i.e. the ones who control the budgets), there is no such clear separation about when you might use one or the other.  For many problems, you can see how you could use either (and believe me, we have done this exercise).  Nobody wants to tool up and train to use two different technologies if they can avoid it.  Nobody can afford to use every different technology in every different niche in which it may be the "best of breed".  Often the best practical solutions are build around using a not-quite-best-of-breed technology that you already have experience with.

I see (or believe) that you are trying to suggest that XTM is "just" a serialisation syntax for topic maps, one of many which are possible, and so what is the big issue, it can't be harmonised itself, but some other serialisation might provide the harmonisation.  However, those without your clarity see XTM and topics maps as rather synonymous, which is hardly surprising.  Really, the issue that (I believe) Scott is referring to is not XTM per se, as tightly focussed as you like to define it, but rather the problem that large enterprises don't want to deal with their information assets as topic maps if RDF is going to become the dominant standard, and vice-versa.  If the tools support both somewhat equally, then it doesn't become an issue, but if they don't, then it is a *big* issue.

Both RDF & topic maps have useful and desirable features, and neither has a set of available tools which is convincingly better than the other's.  This makes it a hard choice, which means the choice is often not being made, just being left on the backburner.  The more topic maps and RDF can converge, so that the available tools can converge and support both, the easier it will be to get business buy-in, because the situation won't appear so fragmented (and hence immature).

I haven't even mentioned DAML+OIL, but similar comments apply.

     Cheers,
          Tony.
========
Anthony B. Coates
(1) Content Distribution Architect - Project Gazelle
(2) Leader of XML Architecture & Design - Chief Technology Office
Reuters Plc, London.
Tony.Coates@reuters.com
========



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