[sc34wg3] N0391-0394: New SAM/XTM documents

[Lars Marius Garshol]

* Michel Biezunski
| 
| I want to understand why topic maps are the way
| they are and how many layers (not models) there
| are, how they fit together, and what's needed
| for what kind of application, either existing
| or future. And I want to be able to address
| some "exotic" kinds of knowledge, where things
| appear to be much more complex than what most
| of us think. I also want to be able to provide
| simple, straightforward, immediately implementable
| solutions. And guess what, I want all of that
| to be interchangeable and interoperable. Pretty
| ambitious? Yes. Doable? Yes. Ready to fly? Don't
| think so.

I don't disagee with any of this. The problem is that we need
something now. We can't wait another year or two.
 
* Michel Biezunski
|
| You continue not understanding what I'm saying.
| It's not necessary to continue at that level.
| I am interested by the foundations on which this
| is built, I believe they have to be as strong as
| possible. You are mentioning some details which
| I believe have been properly handled. I don't have
| any thing specific to add on those. I trust the
| people who are discussing them. To make things perfectly
| clearly, I am not doing a rant because there are things
| I have not discussed when it was time, I am trying
| to address new, current, and future issues.

I think I catch your meaning. You don't think it's necessary for you
personally to contribute directly to the SAM work beyond what you do
at F2F meetings, and you want the whole group to work on SAM-RM
unification, and to do it the upcoming F2F meetings. Did I understand
that correctly?

I'll assume I did, to save time.

It seems clear to me that the present RM is not yet near finalization,
and straightening it out will take quite a while yet. And even if it
were to do what you suggest would freeze the whole topic map process
for a prolonged period of time; a year at the least, but probably
more. During this time there would be no progress on TMQL, no progress
on TMCL, no progress on XTM, no progress on HyTM, no progress on
canonicalization, it would be difficult to progress the published
subjects work, and so on.

I am not willing to accept that. We have a roadmap; I am satisfied
with that roadmap, and I want to move forward according to it.

If you could present concrete technical proposals or input to this
process I would be willing to consider that (how could I not?), but I
am not going to stop all the other standards work I am doing to work
on this.



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* Michel Biezunski
|
| It has to fit with the other pieces, and we need to see if the
| connection with the TMM works fine or not.  
 
* Lars Marius Garshol
|
| We're waiting for SRN on that one, and he has yet to deliver. That
| delay is holding up other work, and please don't try to pretend that
| you don't know that.
 
* Michel Biezunski
|
| Don't blame others please. 

I'm not blaming him. It's a difficult thing to do, so for it to take
time is not a cause for blame. However, if we are to wait for the
results of the RM-SAM mapping work the result will be delay. That's a
fact, and there is no judgement of individuals to say that it is so.

| Instead, I think that SRN as you put it, Steve Newcomb
| to be more explicit, deserves the credit for having
| invented topic maps at the first place, and continuing
| to do so now. The model on which the SAM is based is
| Steve Newcomb's baby.

I've never said otherwise. In fact, I've said the same thing publicly
on a number of occasions. It has no relevance to what we are
discussing, however.

-- 
Lars Marius Garshol, Ontopian         <URL: http://www.ontopia.net >
GSM: +47 98 21 55 50                  <URL: http://www.garshol.priv.no >