[sc34wg3] Re: Backwards Compatability WAS: Public Interest and ISO WAS: [topicmapmail] <mergeMap> questions

[Sam Hunting]

[kal ahmed]
> 2)... it is not fair to downplay the role of 
> implementations in the success of topic maps or to somehow suggest
> that implementations are not "in the public interest". Indeed, in my 
> own research for my paper for XML 2001 a large proportion of the 
> people I talked to felt that the lack of commercial tools was a major
> hurdle in getting topic maps adopted and accepted.

My position on this is (I hope) a little more nuanced. Obviously,
having implementations is in the public interest (assuming the absence
of various unlikely scenarios that would make something indeed worse
than nothing). Having topic maps that interoperate across
implementations is ITPI. Fixing broken aspects of the spec(s) or the
paradigm(s) is ITPI. Having a spec percieved as stable is IPTI. Making
sure the expressed requirements of users are attended to is ITPI.
Having public domain or free tools is IPTI. Having profitable ITPI
toolmakers is IPTI. Having IPTI consultants and authors is important.
And so on and so on. All of these seem to me to unexceptional examples
of things that are In The Public Interest. 

(I guess the operational definition of "public interest" in all my
examples is that they make the topic map "pie" larger. None of them
imply a zero sum game.)

The difficulty comes in actual cases, where all the interests are in
play --I don't see any alternative to balancing issues case by case.
Nor do I see any alternative to some public interest test for helping
to strike the balance. I mean, if ALL that we do in these threads is
wear signs that say "My naked self interest shall prevail", why waste
the time? We can't have a conversation with no give and take.

I like what Patrick says on backward compatibility very much. He
writes:

   Existing implementations should inform the process of formulating a
   public standard, not define its limits. Prior font standards (and
   implementations) at least defined failing strategies for the
eventual
   Unicode/10646 standard. 

Can you agree with this?

S.





Existing implementations should inform the process of formulating a
public standard, not define its limits. Prior font standards (and
implementations) at least defined failing strategies for the eventual
Unicode/10646 standard. 



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