[topicmapmail] German Topic Map Engine developers wanted

[Murray Altheim]

Thomas Schwotzer wrote:
[...]
> Technical basis of this project will be - of
> course - a Topic Map Engine. We plan to use
> an open source implementation. That's a challenge.
> 
> There are a number open source TM engines in the
> field. My impression is - and correct me if I'm wrong -
> there are just a few active developers in each
> project. Moreover, the number of OS platforms seems
> to increase, e.g. at last TMRA workshop in Leipzig
> I saw yet another new Java based platform beside TM4J.
> At the end of this workshop we briefly discussed
> the lack of a stable, well documented and de facto
> standard open source implementation with a broad and
> active developer community. Even commercial providers
> like Ontopia agreed that this gap should be closed.
> 
> Thus, we plan to acquire a budget for a developer team
> that joins an existing OS project like TM4J to make
> it stable enough for our applications.

Thomas,

Following discussions with Kal Ahmed, Conal Tuohy and I
have recently agreed to co-lead further development of
the TM4J Topic Map engine, with emphasis on finishing up
support for XTM 1.0, bug fixes, with Conal possibly adding
a higher performance SQL backend that was developed for
an earlier project. Neither of us have plans to go beyond
XTM 1.0 at this point (in either the engine nor in our
Topic Map documents), so TM4J (for us) would be a product
that supports XTM 1.0 only. Finishing it up and getting
that accomplished, we'd declare victory. Our interest is
in stability and adherence to the XTM 1.0 Specification.

As with any project, both Conal and I are somewhat
limited in time to devote to TM4J given that it's unpaid
work and we are both heavily involved in other activities.
That said, we're both using TM4J in projects for our paid
work, so we both have interest in its functionality and
stability. I am using TM4J as the engine in my Ceryle
project (both as a standalone application and as the
engine backing a wiki), so I'm bound pretty tightly in
continuing to use it.

If you were interested in developing support within TM4J
for post-XTM 1.0 Topic Maps, I would suggest that we
create a distinct branch of the code for that effort. But
if it's considered that Topic Map processing differs too
radically between XTM 1.0 and more recent versions it's
probably better to start a new project rather than build
onto TM4J. Both Conal and I (and I believe Kal) want to
maintain TM4J as fully supporting XTM 1.0, which we
consider fully functional for our current purposes and
plan to use for the indefinite future.

If you're interested in discussing this further, we can
certainly take it offline (cc'ing Conal of course) to go
into more detail.

Cheers,

Murray

...........................................................................
Murray Altheim <murray06 at altheim.com>                              ===  = =
http://www.altheim.com/murray/                                     = =  ===
SGML Grease Monkey, Banjo Player, Wantanabe Zen Monk               = =  = =

        In the evening
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