Requirements
Updated: 16 April 2002, H. Holger Rath

Version: 0.1
Status: Draft with comments

1. Introduction

This document sets down the requirements that will guide the work of the XMLvoc TC. These requirements document the intentions of the TC. The purpose of this document is to make it clear what can be expected to come out of the TC's work, and to encourage the user community to make their needs known to the TC.

The following key words are used to indicate the degree of certainty associated with each particular requirement:

Shall

Means that the requirement is absolute.

Should

Means that the requirement is a goal.

May

Means that the requirement is considered important, but that it is not yet clear whether the TC's work should conform to it or not.

2. Requirements in brief

1. The XMLvoc TC shall deliver - besides this requirements document:
   1. a core vocabulary with Published Subjects for XML standards and technologies,
   2. examples how to apply the vocabulary, and
   3. recommendations for the definition of further Published Subjects for XML standards and technologies.
2. The core vocabulary shall be limited to the scope of core XML standards and technologies.
   COMMENT Patrick: List all standards and technologies explicitly: CSS (?) DOM MathML Non-W3C schema formalisms (RelaxNG, Schematron) RDF SAX SGML SMIL SOAP SVG XForms XHTML(?) XLink XML 1.0 XML Base XML Encryption XForms XML Fragment Interchange XML Inclusions XML Information Set XML Key Management XML Namespaces XML Query XML Schema (parts 0, 1, 2) XML Signature XPath XPointer XSL XSLT XTM (as part of ISO 13250)
   COMMENT Lars Marius on Patrick's comment: It would probably be more useful to say "all specifications defined by the W3C, and ISO's SC34". We could then add others explicitly, if needed.
   COMMENT Scott: just adopt W3C's terminology in the naming of their working groups. For example, there are at least two working groups with the word "core" in their names, i.e., XML Core (http://www.w3.org/XML/Group/Core) and RDF Core (http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/RDFCore/). (Following this approach, we could probably define what XTM Core should be)
   COMMENT Lars Marius: could perhaps be clarified somewhat: - core standards - standards built on core standards - tools - standards organizations - tool implementors
   COMMENT Lars Marius: I would like to see a statement along the lines of "the vocabulary will only define classes and scopes, no instances". If we find we do want to define instance subjects that should be a separate deliverable, and its scope should be clearly defined. I'd be much happier for all instances to live in examples, though.
   COMMENT Lars Marius: If we are going to cover instances, why would we do such a thing? What's the point of creating a PSI set that will be out of date before it is even published and that we *know* we can't keep up to date?
   COMMENT Patrick on Lars Marius' comment: Can you clarify what you mean by "instances?" BTW, I like the tools ontology but isn't "standard" a little broad to be useful in a topic map of "core XML standards?" Unless the intent is to build an ontology that can then be used by others to apply build topic maps for XML 1.0 or DOM 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 (drafts)? Assuming for the moment that "instances" = "ontologies found in XML standards," where does one start to derive an ontology for the Cover pages? Could start with the current categories (a fairly large number) but that seems (to me) to lose the opportunity to provide a more detailed ontology for navigation of XML standards and resources.
3. The core vocabulary shall be defined following the recommendations of the PubSubj TC.
4. The core vocabulary shall be documented in XHTML and should be documented in XTM.
   COMMENT Patrick: The core vocabulary shall be documented in XTM and may appear in other formats.
   COMMENT Lars Marius: I'd be happier to see shall for both XTHML and XTM
5. The example shall be a topic map in XTM format, but also an RDF example may be considered.
6. The example shall show the typical use of the topics, topic classes, and association classes defined by the core vocabulary.
7. The recommendations shall describe how third parties can extend the core vocabulary with their own topics, topic types, and association types.
8. The recommendations should contain an example of such an extension. The extension example should be provided in XHTML format and may be provided in XTM format.
   COMMENT Patrick: The recommendations should contain an example of such an extension. The extension example should be provided in XTM format and may be provided in other formats.
   COMMENT Lars Marius: I'd prefer to see XHTML and XTM switched. We are, after all, making recommendations for topic map ontologies. If we want to aim broader we could replace XHTML by RDF.
9. The target market for the results of the XMLvoc TC shall be all subject-based applications about core XML standards and technologies.

3. Requirements in detail

TBD

4. Non-requirements

1. The core vocabulary shall not cover topics, topic classes, and association classes of XML standards and technologies of vertical industry applications of the core XML standards.
   COMMENT Lars Marius: I disagree with this one. We should definitely do this, as it is a very important area of XML. If we don't do this we will make our work a lot less useful. Note also that many W3C specs are of the same order as these, so the complexity ontology is not much affected. (And we're not doing instances, right?)
2. The target market for the results of the XMLvoc TC shall not be limited to topic map applications.