[topicmapmail] Any PSI for the concept of topic map?

[Steve Pepper]

* Bernard Vatant:

| "Is there any available PSI for the *concept* of topic map - not the
| topicMap element in an XTM file?"

I'm sure there are several, but none that have been published very
widely, and none of that are particularly authoritative. For example,
Ontopia has used http://psi.ontopia.net/#topicmaps but we have not
got around to providing a useful subject indicator for this subject
identifier yet. (Too busy, I'm afraid.)

| My quick answer was that such a PSI would first require some
| consensus of what a topic map *is*.

Consensus of what a topic map *is* is the responsibility of
SC34, the ISO committee that is designing the standard. At the
moment such a consensus can be said to be found in several
places:

  * In ISO 13250:2003, the updated version of the Topic Maps
    standard that includes the XTM DTD, but not the prose of
    XTM

  * In the XTM 1.0 Specification which, while not official,
    arguably contains a more readable explication of Topic
    Maps that in many ways is closer to the ISO committee's
    consensus than ISO 13250 itself (since it was published
    a couple of years later than the standard).

  * In the current committee draft of the Topic Maps Data
    Model (TMDM) which was approved through international
    ballot just two months ago.

(In case anybody is wondering, there is as yet no consensus
regarding the Topic Maps Reference Model (TMRM), but we expect
to make major progress in this direction at the workshop to be
held in Montréal in August.)

As everyone on this list probably knows, the ISO standard is
currently being reformulated as a multipart standard. Several
parts are already very stable (this includes the Data Model,
the XML Syntax (XTM 1.1), and the Canonical XML Syntax (CXTM))
and these are expected to be finalized during the next 12
months. They are the ideal place for defining authoritative
PSIs, such as the one Bernard is asking about.

Bernard's posting prompts me to realize that the committee
should define PSIs for every concept and terms that is defined
in the glossaries of our various standards and include them as
part of the standards themselves.

I will raise this issue on the WG3 mailing list shortly.

Thanks for the input!

Steve

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