[tmcl-wg] TMCL Discussion on IRC and 2nd meeting today: Mar 28!

[Bernard Vatant]

I had promised to explain myself off-line about the "mystifying" remark I
made yesterday
http://www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/irc/irclog/2003-03-27.html#t14:11:30

Topic maps have always pretended to be ontology-neutral, which means not
only being able to live with any ontology expressed in any given
representation system or language (e.g. any OWL ontology), but any *system*
for ontology representation. But all operational applications that I know
of have turned out to incorporate specific, I would say "classical" types
of ontologies, using the class-subclass-instance paradigm, with its
specific constraints, e.g. the clear distinction between topics that are
allowed to be used as classes, and those who are only instances of the
former.

What I understood during yesterday conversation is that TMCL would require
that distinction, which means it would not support   topic maps that would
not make it. Somehow, it would mean that TMCL would be less
"ontology-neutral" that ISO 13250 is, in the sense that it would not
support some "exotic" types of topic maps that do not want to make classes
and instances "a priori" distinct types, and stand on more "fuzzy", or less
formal, ontologies.

I'm not sure now (after a night of reflection) if that is what new bullet
points decided for 1.1.2.4 mean. What I wanted to express was, if they mean
actually that, "I can live with it", since I've not met so far effective
operational implementation of topic maps that are not grounded on that
class/instance distinction.

Hope that clarifies.

Bernard


-----Message d'origine-----
De : tmcl-wg-admin@isotopicmaps.org
[mailto:tmcl-wg-admin@isotopicmaps.org]De la part de Mary Nishikawa
Envoye : vendredi 28 mars 2003 01:58
A : sc34wg3@isotopicmaps.org; tmcl-wg@isotopicmaps.org
Objet : [tmcl-wg] TMCL Discussion on IRC and 2nd meeting today: Mar 28!


Hi,

Thanks for a great discussion.

  For anyone who could not make it to the meeting the log of the
discussion is here.
http://www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/irc/irclog/2003-03-27.html#t13:10:00

Please comment on this list if you have anything to add to the above
discussion on all sections up to 1.1.2.9
in  http://www.isotopicmaps.org/tmcl/requirements.html.

Discussion will continue today Friday March 28 starting at 12 GMT on
#topicmaps@irc.freenode.net. Hope to see you there.

We will continue from 1.1.2.10
in  http://www.isotopicmaps.org/tmcl/requirements.html

Cheers,
Mary

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