[Sigia-l] Distributed thesaurus?

[PeterV]

>  If I were you I would seriously consider adding at least an 
>  optional attribute for giving each topic a URI. Then people 
>  can do it if they like and skip it if they don't.

But every topic already has the URI http://domain.com/map.xml#topicid
Wouldn't that suffice? Topicmaps could use that as psi.

>  I noticed that ability, but why not remove that allow you to 
>  point to a third party (a subject indicator) instead, since 
>  that gives you much greater leverage. With this approach, 
>  you are essentially stuck within the XFML world, since you 
>  can never point out of XFML.

Yes, good point, you can only link topics to other topics in XFML maps.
As for the relationship between topicmaps and XFML: I feel that XFML
should be completely simple, even to code for. If someone wants to code
a simple XFML export or import module, that should be easy. That's why I
defined a new format, if not I might as well have staid with XTM, but
the problem is that it's complex and hard to code for and understand... 

>  It maps quite nicely as follows: [...]

Indeed, but someone has to define a way that everyone then can follow.

>  Of course, all you have now is a thesaurus in topic map 
>  form, but even so it is quite useful since you can now make 
>  relations across thesauri, and you can even relate your 
>  simple thesaurus to something that is stronger on 
>  ontological commitment allowing you to break out of the 
>  thesaurus straightjacket.

Yes :)

>  Actually, there's no need to subset topic maps, because that 
>  would effectively mean going back to thesauri, and we 
>  already have those, so there's little point in reinventing 
>  them. What you need is a way to express your thesaurus as a 
>  topic map, so that you can break out of the inherent 
>  limitations of the thesaurus model.

Yes, that's what I meant actually. (I should be more clear) 
Cheers,
Peter