[sc34wg3] Removing added scope from <mergeMap>

[Murray Altheim]

Mason, James David (MXM) wrote:
> I'm with Kal and Steve on this. 
> 
> There are times when I use <mergemap> as a simple file include like the troff
> ".so" directive, when I am trying to do something with my file
> modularization. Then the results of merging probably don't need to know where
> they came from.
> 
> But one of the original goals of developing TMs was merging indices. Then
> it's of critical importance to know where things came from. It's all part of
> scholarly accountability to know the provenance of concepts. So if merging
> destroys that, it destroys one of the main reasons for having TMs in the
> first place.
> 
> (If you don't think knowing the sources for things is important, go look at
> the recent controversy over the lies inserted into the Wikipedia article on
> John Siegenthaler. I've known John since back in the '60s, and I knew those
> things were wrong, but lots of people couldn't have known that someone had
> been messing with his bio.)
> 
> Jim Mason

I believe I also responded to this issue earlier as regards
requirements for modularization (which to head off any
remarks, has *nothing* to do with authoring and all to do
with distribution of interchange files). Scope on merging
is an important requirement for modularization for reasons
very similar to those cited by Jim above, i.e., being able
to merge components of a working ontology but be able to
separate those components following an edit (such as being
able to extract the core and middle ontologies after editing
a lower ontology, where in order to even load the lower the
rest must be loaded).

Murray

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

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