[sc34wg3] a new name for the Reference Model

[Michel Biezunski]

Jim Mason wrote:

> Let's look at what the military would call "the facts on the ground." The
> facts are simple. We have a published standard, ISO/IEC 13250. That's the
> one really certain fact. We also have approved projects for
> several related
> things. We have some texts under discussion. Those are much less certain.

Yes.

> The primary fact is the existence of 13250. We can't say that the RM is
> something that 13250 must conform to. That's a logical impossibility since
> 13250 has existed for several years and the RM is just a draft. It's the
> other way around.
>
> Either the RM conforms to 13250, or it's talking about something else that
> can't be called TMs.

Yes.

> We might wish we had started with a better understanding of what
> TMs are and
> written 13250 later, but we can't change the past. 13250 defines TMs.
> Period. We can explain it and we can support it. We can extend the
> interchange syntaxes (e.g., to RDF, etc.). But 13250 remains the
> definition
> of TMs until we withdraw it or amend it out of utility, in which case we
> should withdraw it. And if we withdraw 13250, we'll have to go
> from talking
> about Topic Maps to talking about topic maps.

I don't think it would be appropriate to withdraw 13250.
There are a number of applications and software that rely
on it. We need to support them and consider our task is
to give them stronger support rather than anything else.

> I say this without consideration of the technical content of
> either 13250 or
> the RM. I am aware of the limitations of what we have in 13250. I am aware
> of what the RM and the SAM are trying to do to elucidate 13250.
> But we can't
> have an ISO/IEC standard in existence for some period of time, with people
> building software to support it and generating data to be
> interchanged/processed by that software, and then come back and say that
> there's something else that defines the standard. It's retrogression that
> will make us look like idiots.

Approved.

> The RM and the SAM are valuable. But we need to get clear what
> they are, and
> we need to get them done. Quite frankly, we need to send them out
> for final
> ballot very soon. As a TM user (as opposed to a committee
> officer), I'd like
> to see these things done by the May meeting.

I understand we need something done. But I'd rather allow
enough time to clarify the issues and to allow us to become
convinced that what is being proposed is the right thing
to do rather than have something published very quickly and
be criticized afterwards. One thing we learned with XTM is
that on one way it's good to be able to process quickly, but
it also has some serious drawbacks one of them being not
having everybody on board at the same time because the
process went too fast. It's possible that we actually will
be able to get the necessary consensus built for the next
meeting. I hope so. Let's really go to the bottom of these
issues before we decide when is the next deadline.

It took us 10 years to go from the early topic map design
to an accepted standard. We didn't waste time. This period
is what enabled us to get a (fairly) wide acceptance because
the concepts have been there for long enough when they
became available for public consumption. We can't expect
having something like SAM or the RM not completely finished
or not entirely convincing and have the whole world adopt it
just like that. We need to feel secure about what we are
doing before going for the next final deadline. Otherwise
the various pieces will never fit together harmoniously.


Michel
===================================
Michel Biezunski
Coolheads Consulting
402 85th Street #5C
Brooklyn, New York 11209
Email:mb@coolheads.com
Web  :http://www.coolheads.com
Voice: (718) 921-0901
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