Re: [topicmaps-comment] back to the lists

[Sam Hunting <shunting@etopicality.com>]

> I noticed some pessimism in terms of adoption.
> Are there any implementations of XTM by big players? 

Does the US Internal Revenue Service count as a big player?

> During the last UDDI meeting we discussed an option of using external
> representation of taxonomies (it's a UDDI thing) and someone suggested
> to look into XTM. This is the primary reason for me to contact you and
> seek your cooperation.

Certainly topic maps can be used for such purposes. I have done a topic
map that integrates North American Industrial Classifiction System
(NAICS) and Standard Industrial Code (SIC) taxonomies; Kal Ahmed has done
done a similar project for UNSPEC.

> Personally, I think that XTM is a good standard, but I wish I had a
> schema for it! :)

I have the project of a Reealx NG Schema on my plate -- would that help
you out?

> 
> Cheers,
> Max Voskob
> 
>   ----- Original Message ----- 
>   From: Bandholtz, Thomas 
>   To: topicmaps-comment@lists.oasis-open.org 
>   Cc: 'topicmapmail@infoloom.com' 
>   Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 1:32 AM
>   Subject: [topicmaps-comment] back to the lists
> 
> 
>   "Dear Oasis TM community" 
> 
>   as a silent-for-months member of TC pubsubj and TC geolang, I feel that I owe you a statement about my (dis-) appearance.
> 
>   Shortly after XML Europe last May, I had to focus (to earn my living) on finishing an R&D project "Semantic Network Services (SNS)" and on some company-internal work on KM and metadata. I followed the TM discussion, at least kept track of the topics, and sometimes I was making up for a posting, but - I still was somehow undecided ("mixed feelings", 2002) about some basic issues, and I did not find a clear position fast enough.
> 
>   Now, SNS has been completed (at least more or less), and I start to look over the surface again (...is this German lingo? ...)
> 
>   Last week I attended the "Open Forum 2003 on Metadata Registries" (http://metadata-stds.org/OpenForum2003/) in Santa Fe, arranged by ISO/IEC JTC1 SC32 WG2 (http://metadata-stds.org/). I followed and presented-in the "Terminology and Ontology" track, and this gave me the final inspiration to re-enter the discussion.
> 
>   In (relatively) short: 
>   ++++++++++++ 1. Generally, discussion of TM should be more in the context of what's happing outside in the world of metadata, ontology, etc. As I have been confirmed once more in Santa Fe, there are many contiguous applications for TM fitting into open ends of related standards like ISO 11179, ebXML, UDDI, and Semantic Web - but people don't really know about us - though most of them are curious about our possible contribution to the game.
> 
>   On the other hand, there are several approaches out there that might be adopted for open issues of our own world, like OWL, or the Extensible Resource Identifier (XRI).
> 
>   ++++++++++++ 2. PSI 
>   Every metadata initiative in the world is highly interested in a well defined terminology for values, which PSI can provide. The most important thing is that there really need to be unique and persistent URI for any of the controlled terms. I think it is of less importance, to what these URI really point. All the variants mentioned in http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tm-pubsubj/docs/recommendations/general.htm must be supported, as they are real.
> 
>   The most important pre-requisite for PSI to go live are: organizations that maintain them, in whatsoever form. ISBN work sufficiently (when did you order a book last time?), as there is a strong and sustainable organization behind them.
> 
>   It has been clearly agreed that we will not maintain PSI-sets ourselves as a service. So, what is our contribution? 
>   To my opinion, machine-readable PSI will play the strategic role in the future (no problem for a machine to convert e.g. XTM into human-readable HTML).
> 
>   There are (at least) two related approaches that we should include into our considerations, if we don't want to finally find ourselves in a maverick position ("small boats" are not necessarily faster, Robert :-):
> 
>   a) The handling of taxonomies in ebXML and UDDI (google for "taxonomy" and one of the organization acronyms). We must fit into that and find our "added value".
> 
>   (I am sure there is ... the concept of Topic Map is a valid template in the vague world of Ontology ...). 
>   b) OASIS Extensible Resource Identifier (XRI) Technical Committee. http://xml.coverpages.org/ni2003-01-08-a.html - why aren't we in this boat? XRI is closely related to PSI, and we should get into this discussion.
> 
>   Karl Best had a very generic talk at the Open Forum (not yet on-line today). He did not mention TM at all. But he was presenting a new cross-organization standards registry initiative (kind of extended xml.org - his slides will be on-line soon ...), and there was a slide showing something that looked like a topic map. Why didn't he propose it to be one? Diplomacy? Or doesn't he take us as a serious option? (see the related OASIS RFP at http://www.oasis-open.org/documents/registry_rfp.pdf).
> 
>   ++++++++++++ 3. What interests me most, currently, is OWL (http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-owl-guide-20021104/). In my project work over the last two years I found serious deficits in the XMLization of the topic map concept.
> 
>   One simpler thing is that there is no normative XML Schema for topic maps. If you want to use TM in a context like web services, any of these today require an XML Schema to be integrated. It's easy to load the XTM DTD into XMLSpy (or something) and convert it - needs some human cosmetics to get it to work, but not too much - but that's not normative! There have been lots of discussions about a TM Schema that I don't want to rehash - would be enough to make it semantically as equivalent to the DTD as possible -agreed, and "official".
> 
>   What's more crucial is the lack of a serialized formal definition of the typology and constraints of a given topic map instance, such as which topic types may play which role in which association in this domain (natural lingo: "A string quartet consists of exactly 4 bowed string musicians: typically 1st and 2nd violin, viola, and cello"). Something like this was announced (http://www.y12.doe.gov/sgml/sc34/document/0323.htm) to be addressed in "ISO 19756: Topic Maps Constraint Language (TMCL)". Public discussion of further work has finally started one week ago at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tmcl-wg/. Great!
> 
>   Reading the Web Ontology Language (OWL) development  at http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/, I highly suspect that TM schema definitions can be completely written in OWL by defining classes like <tm:topic> as a subclass of <owl:thing>, and so provide the TM concept as an implemented OWL "library" schema that can be incorporated into any work of the Web Ontology movement. (May be integrate OWL-Wine and TM-Beer ... who'll be doing the non-alcoholics ?).
> 
>   Regards, 
> 
> 

Sam Hunting
eTopicality, Inc.

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