[sc34wg3] N0429: Topic Maps Reference Model: Requirements

[Steve Pepper]

Steve N. wrote:

| A draft of "Topic Maps Reference Model: Requirements" is
| available for review at
| http://www.isotopicmaps.org/tmrm/RMREQ-1.8/N0429.html

I finally got around to having my first look at this. (My
apologies for not having done so sooner.) Now that it is clear
that I will not be attending the Montreal meeting, I would like
to offer some comments.

I think this will be a useful document, but to be honest it is
not the one I was hoping for. (I realise now that we were not
precise enough with the wording in N423 when we instructed the
editors of the RM to prepare a "User Requirements document"...)

The thing I (at any rate) was looking for was something more
along the lines of what is called "Purpose and justification" in
New Work Item proposals.

Basically, I need to know what the RM is *for* - what is its
*business case*?

N429 takes the RM as a given. It kind of assumes the need for a
RM and proceeds from there. I would like to see a document that
starts out without any assumptions at all, and that simply
describes a clearly recognizable business problem, in terms that
a non-technical user would understand, *without mentioning*
either the RM or even Topic Maps in general. It should then show
why Topic Maps as currently defined in 13250 (i.e., SAM/TAO/XTM
Topic Maps) does not adequately address the problem in question.

Having done both of those things the document will have stated a
requirement for something that goes beyond 13250. The committee
can then discuss the requirement. If the committee agrees that
the requirement really does exist, it can then proceed to show
what the "something that goes beyond 13250" might look like...
and how it might still reasonably be called Topic Maps.

If the proponents of the RM can present a compelling business
case in these kinds of terms, I think it will help tremendously
in getting us all on the same page - and in explaining to the
rest of the world what we are doing and why.

Steve

--
Steve Pepper <pepper@ontopia.net>
Chief Executive Officer, Ontopia
Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3
Editor, XTM (XML Topic Maps 1.0)