[sc34wg3] Comments on N884 (Dublin Core in TMs)

[Lars Marius Garshol]

I think this is already pretty close to what we want, and what  
remains is mostly tweaking. Below are some initial comments based on  
the first reading. The purpose is mainly to raise points for  
discussion in Montréal, but if we can settle some of them before  
that, that would of course be good.

---Datatypes

Should we give concrete datatype URIs for the DC terms which have  
datatypes, such as dc:type? I notice that DC does not actually commit  
itself this far, but perhaps we should?

---Subtyping

In Dublin Core some of the terms are "refinements" of other terms.  
For example, dc:abstract subtypes dc:description. Doesn't that mean  
that we should also model this in the mapping by subtyping?

I take the refinement to say that every abstract is also a  
description. That matches the semantics of subtyping perfectly, as  
far as I can tell.

There is a discussion of some of the issues involved here:
   http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/115.html

---Specific mappings

Is dc:type really the same as tmdm:type-instance?

Should dc:title really be represented using the default name type?  
I'm asking because it seems reasonable to assume that the title is  
the default name.

--- The type vocabulary

This reads like a list of topic types to me. Having looked through  
the DB specs it seems like these are intended as the values for the  
dc:type property. Should we make this more explicit? Should we state  
something about how these are intended to be used? Of course, this  
depends on how dc:type is mapped, but still...

--- The encoding schemes

The same questions apply here, really. These are topics in Topic  
Maps, which sounds fine, but how are the topics to be used? Shouldn't  
we say something about that?

---Editorial

Scope: would it be better if we just called Dublin Core "...a  
vocabulary for expressing document metadata..."?

3.1: Last sentence: is "reifying topic" better than "resulting topic"?

--Lars M.