Subject: PaceEquivalents

From: Mark Pilgrim <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 10:55:49 -0400

Several of the "equivalencies" listed in PaceEquivalents have been
hotly contested in recent weeks, for example all of the date
equivalencies.  At a minimum, I think those 3 (issued, created,
modified) should be removed from the list.

I suspect that if we tried hard enough, we could argue the rest of
these "equivalencies" into oblivion as well.  No two terms mean
exactly the same thing (sorry SemWeb fans).  Instead of arguing them
into oblivion, can someone give a good reason why to include any of
them at all?  What does this buy us?

-- 
Cheers,
-Mark

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From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 10:04:46 -0700

It is a very bad idea for a stable standard (which is what we intend 
for Atom) the equivalents to a document that is not finished (the 
FOAF work).

It is also not clear why this should go in the Atom base spec. It 
would probably be much better if someone wanted to do a separate 
informational document on equivalents. In fact, this should be a set 
of documents, one for each external spec that is being pointed to. 
Getting Informational RFCs published is not that difficult.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium

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From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 20:04:51 -0700

>for Atom) the equivalents to a document that is not finished (the 

Whoops, I muffed a word or two there. That should have read:

It is a very bad idea for a stable standard (which is what we intend 
for Atom) to make equivalents to a document that is not finished (the 
FOAF work).

--Paul Hoffman, Director

---

From: Danny Ayers <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 14:15:36 +0200

> >for Atom) [to make] equivalents to a document that is not finished (the
> >FOAF work).

True, although perhaps you have that the wrong way around - the core
terms in FOAF haven't changed in  3+ years, DC has been around forever
and Atom isn't finished. But in any case, this is why the word
"suggested" is used repeatedly in the Pace. People *will* want to use
Atom terms alongside other vocabularies and the intention of the Pace
was to "help in the definition of such mappings", not to define the
equivalences. Just informative.

If, as Mark says, the definitions of terms such as issued, created and
modified are going to be significantly different from their DC
namesakes then perhaps what is needed is a PaceNotEquivalents to
prevent people from assuming that things with same (local) names used
in the syndication space have the same meaning. Oh, the joys of
reinvention...

Cheers,
Danny.

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From: Mark Pilgrim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 09:11:23 -0400

On Wed, 25 Aug 2004 14:15:36 +0200, Danny Ayers <[email-masked]> wrote:
> terms in FOAF haven't changed in  3+ years

Quoting from <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/>:

FOAF Vocabulary Specification
Namespace Document 1 May 2004

Latest version:
    http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/ 
Last update:
    $Date: 2004/08/18 00:31:33 $
Revision:
    $Revision: 1.64 $

...

Status of This Document

NOTE:This specification is an evolving document. The bulk of this
document is now generated by combining the RDFS/OWL machine-readable
FOAF ontology with a set of per-term documents. The remaining sections
require serious attention; we are well aware that better examples and
tighter intro text are needed.

> in the syndication space have the same meaning. Oh, the joys of

IIRC, most of the contention centered around the vagueness of the DC
terms.  Does "issued" mean "first-issued" or "most-recently-issued"? 
Can it mean "re-issued"?  Does "modified" mean any modification, or
just "significant" modification?

Oh, the joys of selective memory...

-- 
Cheers,
-Mark

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From: Danny Ayers <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 20:16:15 +0200

> Quoting from <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/>:
[snip]

See also:
http://web.archive.org/web/20010605211618/http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/

> just "significant" modification?

The proposal is to provide additional information to developers that
may help them work with Atom, for example refactoring their RSS 1.0
feeds. So ok, perhaps what is needed is a note to say that the Atom
terms are specializations of the corresponding DC terms, so that
inappropriate mappings aren't made.

Cheers,
Danny.

---

From: Robert Sayre <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 16:01:54 -0400

Mark Pilgrim wrote:

> equivalencies. 

I think we should mark this as "revisit". In principle, I'm fine with a 
non-normative appendix stating this stuff. The Pace author has promised 
to refactor the proposal to be an appendix.

I'd rather not revisit this issue until we're close to done.

Robert Sayre