[sc34wg3] www.topicmaps.com (and topicmaps.org)

[Murray Altheim]

Robert Barta wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 13, 2005 at 12:02:51AM +0100, Murray Altheim wrote:
> 
>>Steve Pepper wrote:
>>
>>>* Murray
>>>| 
>>>| You're quite welcome. I would of course be willing to work
>>>| under the full direction of WG3, and would simply appreciate
>>>| the committee agreeing beforehand to a means by which I
>>>| would take such direction, so to avoid any confusion.
>>>
>>>Fine by me. Let's see what Michel has to say.
>>
>>He has indicated to me in private mail that he's willing to
>>move this forward so long as I'm in charge of the site. As
>>you might imagine, the matter is rather sensitive, so I'm
>>going to be handling it with kid gloves.
> 
> 
> Murray,
> 
> While I am happy to support your efforts where I can, for the records
> I would like to state that am strongly against this plan.

I'm sorry to hear that. But it doesn't change my plans, which look
to be moving forward without any difficulties.

> First, I am not sure why a matter of a .org domain is a "sensitive
> issue". For me this appears as simple cybersquatting, not nuclear
> disarmament. I do not think that a community which suffers from this
> should reward this kind of behavior.

In what way this "rewards this kind of behaviour" I don't follow
at all. Since you weren't been around for the history that caused
this problem to begin with you might not perceive why things have
turned out as they have, so your idea of this of "cybersquatting"
is understandable.

> Then the fact, that topicmaps.org is in the XML namespace is
> completely irrelevant. We all know that an XML namespace URI not
> necessarily must be referenceable.

No, we do not all "know" this, or at least agree with it. The
domain is important for all sorts of reasons, the XML Namespace
included.

> And lastly, what happens if Michel changes his mind? Then we are at
> field zero again. Brittle strategy.

The plan as we have outlined it will work fine, so long as it is
not abused. The groundwork that has been laid out is not to either
myself or Michel contentious, and I see no difficulty implementing
it. At this point, the only matter is my finding the time to get
the site up and running, then we switch the domain over. I still
haven't received the materials from Steve Pepper, but assuming he
is still willing to send them, the versions that he and Graham
were responsible for editing will be included as well.

>>............................................. I need to satisfy
>>everyone, and I'm going to try.
> 
> I always thought this is a recipee to make everyone unhappy ;-)

If you have an alternative that works, I'm all ears. For the last
five years nothing else has. This is the first potentially
successful opportunity to move this effort forward, and I would
much rather have people's support, or constructive criticism,
rather than snarking about the progress that has been made. As I
said, I'm all ears for alternatives. This looks to be working out.

Murray

......................................................................
Murray Altheim                          http://www.altheim.com/murray/
Strategic Services Development Manager
The Open University Library and Learning Resources Centre
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK               .

     All you have to do is spend any time around any scientists or
     academics to discover that they all disagree with each other
     and believe that their way of doing it is the only right and
     true way and that nobody else knows anything. -- Neil Gaiman