[sc34wg3] a new name for the Reference Model

[Lars Marius Garshol]

* Lars Marius Garshol
|
| I have to say I agree. If we are to stick more than just "topic
| maps" and "metamodel" in there we should have some idea about what
| those extra words are going to do. Apart from giving us a
| pronounceable acronym I don't see that "Information Aggregation"
| gives us anything much.

* Steve Pepper
|
| Saying what the thing is *for* doesn't give us anything much????

If that were the only thing it was for it would, but of course
Information Aggregation is not the only thing the RM is for. This
would be like calling XML "Simplified Web Document Description
Language". That's what it was for when it was created, but...
 
| But (despite the way we sometimes behave) I think we would all
| genuinely like "topic maps" to succeed in the market place. Having a
| name that immediately conveys some impression of the kind of
| business problems we address is one way to market our product.

I think we should be careful with that, lest we create a name that
makes people assume there are certain things the standard does *not*
do. 
 
| On the other hand, I recognize (and share) Steve N's concern that
| this could imply that the "SAM" (whatever name *it* ends up with)
| doesn't do information aggregation...

Which would be utterly false.
 
| The more I think about it, the more I like the simplicity of the
| following:
| 
| RM:   Topic Maps Metamodel
| SAM:  Topic Maps Information Set

It works, though I don't really see why we couldn't have the even
simpler: 

  RM:   Topic Map Metamodel
  SAM:  Topic Map Model
 
| OK, so the acronyms are unpronounceable. But who's ever going to
| need them?  Us, perhaps, especially during development. But we can
| just talk about "the metamodel" and "the information set" once the
| topic map context has been established (which is the default in our
| discussions anyway...):

Sure.
 
| All those in favour?

Too early. :)
 
| P.S. How about changing the name of WG3 from "Information
| Association" to "Information Aggregation"? Doesn't that better
| describe the business we are in?)

So long as we are also doing HyTime and HTML I would say not.

-- 
Lars Marius Garshol, Ontopian         <URL: http://www.ontopia.net >
ISO SC34/WG3, OASIS GeoLang TC        <URL: http://www.garshol.priv.no >