On 04/22/2016 04:13 AM, Alexander Johannesen wrote:
> <nut:upper name="object">
> <smic:middle name="passive">
> <core:object>
> ... properties ...
> </core:object>
> </smic:middle>
> <smic:middle name="active" /> <!-- parsed as original -->
> </nut:upper>
>
> I "speak" the NUT and SMIC ontologies fluently, so when I create the
> core ontology (core namespace), I wrap them up like this. Then I can
> try out various versions to find out how it affects the various
> properties of the resulting ontology. For each domain there's a
> generic stylesheet for parsing, and one for version rules.
I love a purely academic discussion, and it is often said that the only
causes worth fighting for are the lost ones. My *technical* question
for you, Alexander, is: "Absent the annoying and unhelpful cruft that
has accumulated on all markup tools and in many petabytes of marked-up
data over the years since a conspiracy in restraint of trade overwhelmed
an existing international standard designed to serve the public interest...
...Why couldn't all of your *technical* requirements have been *better*
satisfied with something like 'architectural form attributes' as
described in HyTime?"
Having been impaled on this "RDF needs colonified names" windmill many
years ago, I find myself largely in agreement with Arjun, but I also
find the discussion of "How do we get out of this mess" a bit, uh,
quixotic. The technical mess that Michael Kay summarized so compactly
is rooted in the de-facto supremacy of private interests over public
ones. It is rooted specifically in a private consortium's temporary
hegemony over data representation standards, in this particular case
demonstrably to the detriment of the public interest. As a matter of
fact, there is still a better solution on the ISO books (10744:1997),
and as of this moment it is still being ignored. As a matter of
history, the HyTime solution came first, it was loudly deprecated and
misrepresented by W3C leaders, and it was effectively scuttled in the
marketplace. Were they right to take that approach? Who cares? They
won, didn't they?
Maybe now it's becoming OK to discuss this. Maybe now W3C will even
explain its summary judgment of architectural forms as "too ugly". Or,
maybe not.
Steve Newcomb
