[sc34wg3] Question on TNC / Montreal minutes

[Steve Pepper]

At 12:30 18/09/02 +0200, Marc de Graauw wrote:
>Lars Marius:
>| Backwards compatibility is definitely an issue, but I've started to
>| realize that it affects us less than we think. The problem arises when
>| you have (a) a topic map that relies on the TNC and (b) a topic map
>| implementation which is not going to apply it.
>|
>| If you have a tool that can read in a topic map and export a version
>| of the topic map where TNC mergings have been applied, the problem
>| goes away. Just preprocess your topic map before you use it.
>
>Smart thinking. (It could become a selling point for TM vendors who have the
>preprocessor built into their engine :-))

Alternatively, SAM could specify the rules for one form of name-based
merging, i.e. the TNC - which is left up to the application - and there
could be a conformance clause stating that conforming applications have
to support it. That would solve the backwards compatibility issue.

Steve

--
Steve Pepper, Chief Executive Officer <pepper@ontopia.net>
Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34/WG3  Editor, XTM (XML Topic Maps)
Ontopia AS, Waldemar Thranes gt. 98, N-0175 Oslo, Norway.
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