[topicmapmail] eXchangeable Faceted Metadata Language

[Murray Altheim]

Lars Marius Garshol wrote:
> * Conal Tuohy
> | 
> | I've only taken a brief look at it, and it's far too late at night
> | to be reading this kind of thing. It certainly owes a lot to topic
> | maps but it's clearly NOT a subset of XTM syntactically.
> 
> You may find this useful:
> 
>   <URL: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.text.xml.xfml/41 >
> 
> I thought there was more debate about this, but couldn't find it.
> Anyway, what I wrote about faceted classification, which Murray
> objected to, is definitely valid for XFML. (My conclusion was that
> XFML doesn't represent faceted classification as Murray understands
> the term, and possibly not as it is generally understood either.)

Well, I've been doing research into this for the last six months
or so, and one thing is for certain: there's no canonical definition
of "faceted classification". In lieu of such a thing, I've tried in
my own work to meld the concepts I thought most valuable from FC
within a Topic Map framework. There are elements of XFML I think are
cool, but then I think FC is pretty cool. My criticism of XFML is
basically that I think it's unnecessary, that you could do XFML in
a completely Topic Map-based framework (i.e., XTM based, if you like,
or ISO 13250 if you want a different syntax). If XFML were to become
ISO 13250 compliant, I'd probably write importers and exporters to it.
As it's (IMO) a weaker syntax than XTM, I can at least writer importers
for it, and probably will as it stabilizes (in usage).

> (We've never done anything with that XFML importer, though. It would
> be interesting to hear if there's any interest in such a thing, and
> whether people think a common PSI set for expressing XFML in topic
> maps would be useful. (Some of it could probably recycle Kal's faceted
> classification PSIs.))

I think it'd be useful if the XFML authors were to create that set,
rather than somebody outside of their group. Then we'd have a shot
at such interoperability. It would be a shame if such technological
brethren as we both represent didn't get along.

Murray

......................................................................
Murray Altheim                    http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK               .

   Tony Blair has said he "has absolutely no doubt" the intelligence
   about weapons of mass destruction he received in the run-up to the
   Iraq war was genuine. 25 Jan 2004. [1]

   US Secretary of State Colin Powell has conceded that Iraq may not
   have possessed any stocks of weapons of mass destruction before
   the war last year. 25 Jan 2004 [2]

   US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has admitted that the US had
   no fresh intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
   before going to war. 9 July 2003. [3]

   The head of the team searching for weapons of mass destruction in
   Iraq, David Kay, said he did not believe Iraq possessed large
   stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons. 24 Jan 2004 [4]

   The former UN chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, believes that
   Iraq destroyed most of its weapons of mass destruction 10 years
   ago, according to an interview broadcast yesterday. 18 Sep 2003 [5]

   Analysts at the CIA, DIA and State Department Intelligence Divi-
   sion said in different papers and at different times that they
   could find no evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and
   the al-Qaeda network, and were wary of claims being made over WMD.
   One official told the New York Times: 'As an employee of the
   Defence Intelligence Agency, I know this administration has lied to
   the public to get support for its attack on Iraq.' 8 June 2003 [6]

   International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with aston-
   ishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle
   conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal. 20 Nov 2003 [7]

   [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3427151.stm
   [2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3426703.stm
   [3] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3054423.stm
   [4] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3425429.stm
   [5] http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1044511,00.html
   [6] http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,972937,00.html
   [7] http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1089042,00.html