VO-DML specification document

[Gerard Lemson]

Dear data modelers

After urging from the DM chairs, I would like to direct your attention to
the VO-DML page on the IVOA wiki:
http://wiki.ivoa.net/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/VODML

There you will find links to the VO-DML specification document and the
associated technical xml schema  and schematron files.
Notice that the document is one of the three documents that came from the
UTYPEs Tiger Team. This one, in particular, describes how to express Data
Models in a standard, machine-readable way.
Please read the comment at the start of the spec file for info which parts
are not quite done (mainly some paragraphs in intro have to still be added).

The core part can be commented on freely.

The wiki page needs some updating with links to, and descriptions of, some
reference implementations.
Much code has been available since Heidelberg (and before) as part of the
prototyping effort mandated after that Interop. Stable code includes a bunch
of XSLT scripts for validatioon, java code generation, and hypertext
documentation generation which includes DM figures and cross-references
between elements. For two UML tools (Magic Draw CE 12..1 and Modelio) there
are also scripts available to generate VO-DML documents from a properly
designed UML representation. Pointers to the code and to the documentation
is or will be available on the aforementioned wiki pageasap.

Implementations related to the mapping of VO-DML to VOTable, like the
"VO-DML Mapper" (http://gavo.mpa-garching.mpg.de/dev/vodml-mapper/) created
for helping users and data providers through a point-and-click interface and
the photometry service prototype presented in Hawaii are not included, since
they target a different document. But the vo-dml mapper in particular shows
how one can make use of the machine readable DM documents at runtime and
might be seen as another proof of concept implementation also for this
specification.

We thank those that, in the past year, have sent comments to the editors
directly, but we would urge members to address comments directly to the dm
mailing list.

Best regards

Gerard Lemson