[sc34wg3] SAM-issue term-scope-def

[Marc de Graauw]

[Bernard Vatant]

> I've missed two or three occasions to answer Marc and Jan.
> But there is something I would like to stress again.
>
> Marc wrote several times sentences like:
>
> "Assertion A is valid when scope S = {S1, S2, ...} applies"
>

I do not think this is what I wrote, and it certainly is not what I meant.
Originally I wrote:

> The basic idea behind it is clear though. In some way a scoping topic
applies
> within a certain context, and the topic characteristic assignment is valid
> when that scoping topic applies. So if we have topic X with name Y which
is
> scoped by topic A, then Y is a valid name whenever A applies.

So scopes do not 'apply' or not, scoping topics do. Admittedly, later things
got sloppy and quite often I wrote: {Dutch} applies, when I should have
written: Dutch applies. That was a mistake. I also wrote:

> What 'applies' really means is not relevant, this is basically up to the
> application (or user) of the Topic Map. However, if an application wants
to do
> something useful with scope it has to decide whether a scoping topic
'applies'
> or not - at least I can see not other way to do anything with scope.

The idea: an application (eventually a user, through the application) has a
function 'applies', and for each of the scoping topics in a scope, the
application is able to return whether this scoping topics applies or not
(i.e. the user decides whether we are talking about 'dutch' or 'science' or
both etc.). Then the application can decide whether the topic characteristic
assignment is valid or not. To give an example:

topic X has basename N in scope {a, b}

then X is valid when: applies(a) and applies(b)

That is, when we take the current all-subjects view of the SAM.
So I never meant to say that a scope applies.

> I think all the debate is useless until we formally clear out the meaning
of several
> things:
>
> 1. What does "A is valid" mean?
> 2. What does "S applies" mean?
> 3. What is the logical status of "when"?
>

Agreed.
I took a quick look at the rest of your proposal, which looks good. I'll
come back to that.

Marc