ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34N0483
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34
Information Technology --
Document Description and Processing Languages
| TITLE: | Summary of Voting on JTC 1/SC 34 N459 CD of ISO 13250-2: Topic Maps -- Data Model |
| SOURCE: | SC34 Secretariat |
| PROJECT: | CD 13250-2: Information Technology -- Topic Maps -- Data Model |
| PROJECT EDITOR: | Mr. Lars Marius Garshol; Mr. Graham Moore |
| STATUS: | Voting summary |
| ACTION: | According to the JTC 1 Directives, the ballot passes; the editors and all national bodies are directed to consider all of the comments |
| DATE: | 2004-02-06 |
| DISTRIBUTION: | SC34 and Liaisons |
| REFER TO: | N0459 - 2003-12-01 - Ballot Due 2004-01-23 for CD of ISO 13250-2: Topic Maps -- Data Model |
| REPLY TO: |
Dr. James David Mason (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34 Secretariat - Standards Council of Canada) Crane Softwrights Ltd. Box 266, Kars, ON K0A-2E0 CANADA Telephone: +1 613 489-0999 Facsimile: +1 613 489-0995 Network: [email protected] http://www.jtc1sc34.org |
| P-Member | APPROVAL OF THE DRAFT AS PRESENTED | APPROVAL OF THE DRAFT WITH COMMENTS AS GIVEN ON THE ATTACHED | DISAPPROVAL OF THE DRAFT FOR REASONS ON THE ATTACHED | Acceptance of these reasons and appropriate changes in the text will change our vote to approval | ABSTENTION (For Reasons Below) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | X | ||||
| China | |||||
| Italy | X | ||||
| Japan | X technical/editorial | ||||
| Korea, Republic of | X | ||||
| Netherlands | X | ||||
| Norway | X | ||||
| United Kingdom | X | ||||
| United States | X |
Japan Comments
1. Technical
The descriptions on HyTime should be deleted, in accordance with the WG3 Recommendation 6 approved in the Philadelphia meeting.
2. Editorial
(1) 2 Normative references
"The Unicode Standard, Version 3.0" should be replaced with "The Unicode Standard, Version 4.0", which is the latest version.
ISO/IEC 10646 should be added as a Normative reference.
(2) 3 Terms and definitions
Only the data-model specific terms should be defined in this clause. Generic terms of ISO/IEC 13250 should be defined in "3 Terms and definitions" of Part 1.
In 3.7, "fundamental types" should be "fundamental type", since a term should be defined as singular.
In 3.26, the sentence "The topic thus ... of the topic." should be described as a NOTE of 3.26.
(3) Figures
All the figures should be accompanied with their numbers and captions.
(4) 6.7 Merging association role items
Clarify the procedure more comprehensibly.
(5) 7 Published subjects
The clause "7 Published subjects" should be moved to Part 1 of ISO/IEC 13250, since the clause specifies generic issues of ISO/IEC 13250.
US Comments
1. Introduction
The U.S. National Body voted not to approve the promotion of the Topic Maps -- Data Model (13250-2).
2. Major Technical Issues
The following issues were deemed major technical issues by the U.S. National Body and must be corrected before the document can be promoted to CD status:
The US National Body has previously stated that no part of the current restatement of ISO 13250 should progress beyond CD until the Topic Maps Reference Model is also at CD status (see N477). The motivation for this position is to ensure that the different parts of this multi-model standard are coordinated. In furtherance of the goal of consistency, we feel that the data model should not progress to CD before the other parts. The US National Body therefore votes against progressing the current draft of ISO 13250-2 to CD.
Note that there are two other rather severe defects in the proposal:
1. The most telling is the lack of any means of documenting an extension to the data model for additional merging rules. While the data model allows additional merging rules, the proposal provides no means for documenting such extensions. As a result, different implementations may treat the same data completely differently. Even more pernicious is that this unpredictability locks users into a particular vendor's software after a merger since in general the merging rules cannot be deduced after the fact
2. The other defect is a limitation of subject identity to potentially network-accessible resources. This limitation does not exist in the current ISO 13250 standard and should not be introduced now.