[sc34wg3] what's the most basic issue?

[Lars Marius Garshol]

* Steven R. Newcomb
| 
| Instead of volunteering what *I* think (something I have probably
| done too much), I'd like to ask a problem-solving, consensus-seeking
| question:
| 
| "What's the most *basic* issue that divides us?"

Good call, I'd say. We've been discussing several things that depend
on the issue of what the role of the RM is, but I feel we haven't
settled that.  As far as I can tell, *that* is the most basic issue.

What I wrote to Jim also applies:

  At the moment we have one group of people who want to continue
  working on the conceptual foundation, and we have another group of
  people who want to continue working towards providing the features
  (QL, CL, ...)  that people will need to actually use this.
  
  That doesn't need to be a problem, so long as those two groups can
  come to a common understanding about where and how their efforts
  interface. I believe we can do this, but it does require us to
  actually have a debate about it.

One version I've heard is that the RM is just a conceptual/analytical
tool for better understanding what topic maps do, and in the process
providing a better way to connect them with other knowledge
technologies. That view I have no problems with, but not everything
that has been said is consistent with that view.

If this truly is what the RM is I think this is the only set of
relationships between the pieces we currently have that makes any
sense:
<URL: http://www.y12.doe.gov/sgml/sc34/document/0323_files/roadmap.png >

We can either agree on that, and then work out which standards/parts
to put the various pieces in, or we can sit down and work out what the
RM actually is and how it is actually to be used.

That's how I see it, anyway.

-- 
Lars Marius Garshol, Ontopian         <URL: http://www.ontopia.net >
GSM: +47 98 21 55 50                  <URL: http://www.garshol.priv.no >