FW: [topicmapmail] Reference to Topic Maps / topicmaps.com

[Steve Pepper]

* Markus Ueberall
| 
| Steve Pepper:
| > [...] The plan is to use [topicmaps.com] for community building
| > activities, including the promotion of Topic Maps-related conferences.
| > We are looking for volunteers to help with this, and would welcome a
| > discussion of what the exact content should be, what technology we
| > should use, etc.
| 
| Well, maybe one of the ideas/prototypes mentioned above may even serve as
| a starting point for the topicmaps.com site...  ;)

I would be delighted if that could happen. It has earlier been suggested
that topicmaps.com might be based on ZTM (the content management system
based on Topic Maps and Zope). Bouvet, the company which recently acquired
Ontopia, has been the primary user and developer of ZTM, but it was always
their intention that ZTM should be Open Source, and there is in fact a
SourceForge project for it.

At present ZTM does not have any wiki capabilities (as far as I know -
correct me if I'm wrong, Arnar), which is a pity. I'm not familiar with
CeryleWiki or Topincs, so I don't know how they compare - or whether they
could be easily integrated with ZTM. Are there other systems?

What I would like to see is for someone to take the initiative and come up
with a proposal for a Topic Maps infrastructure suitable for a community web
site that includes content, discussion, and more. I would like to see a
proposal that lets us get up and running fairly quickly with the basic
functionality, but that also includes specific plans for extensions of that
functionality within a reasonable timeframe. I'm thinking a couple of months
to get up and running and a development plan for at least 12 months into the
future.

Once we have such a proposal, we can have a much more focused discussion in
this forum before recommending a course of action to the ISO committee that
has to take the final decision. If that discussion were to take place
quickly, WG3 might be able to sanction a specific proposal at its meeting in
early August.

At the very least, I promise to follow up in SC34 and in relation to Topic
Maps 2008 and topicmaps.com if someone is willing to take the lead in
writing a proposal and leading the discussion.

Any takers?

Steve

--
Steve Pepper
Conference Chair, Topic Maps 2008
Emeritus Convenor, SC34/WG3