Diane said:
> > I think we're well down that road, and I don't see it as a
particular
> > problem--what we're using of those elements is the definition, not
the
> > data model they come from. [snip]
Tom said:
> I agree with Diane here. DCMI, MARC21, and IEEE/LOM all
> signed the CORES Resolution, which starts off with the shared
> understanding that "our metadata standards have 'elements'
> -- units of meaning comparable and mappable to elements of
> other standards" [1].
[snip]
> Borrowing "units of meaning" from vocabularies associated
> with other underlying data models and using them outside
> their original context seems like a natural and somehow
> inevitable development -- a bit like English borrowing the
> word "tofu" even though Chinese has a different grammar. We
> could try to keep the boundaries neat by insisting that each
> particular grammar have its own, non-overlapping vocabulary,
> but as Diane says, this would most likely just create alot of
> confusion.
Tom,
Rather briefly (I'll try to respond more fully later)...
I'm not opposed to the "borrowing" of "units of meaning" and their reuse
in new contexts with other "units of meaning" from other sources.
But I do think that when we do this, we have to be very careful and very
clear about what it is we are borrowing (and yes, I am worried about
some of the "borrowings" that I see appearing in "Application
Profiles").
Roland made the points the other day
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0309&L=dc-architecture&T=
0&F=&S=&P=3907
that we _must_ _not_ confuse an XML element and an RDF property, and
that we _must_ take care in how we interpret the conventions used in an
arbitrary XML encoding.
I'm a bit concerned about both of these areas.
Pete
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