[versioning-3] Re: Votes? [was: Vocabularies issues]

[Norman Gray]

Rick, hello.

On 2008 Feb 4, at 21:24, Frederic Hessman wrote:

>>> 2. Format of the published vocabularies:
>>> 	_X_ XML or Turtle (let Darwin decide, assuming that the unproven  
>>> assertion that XML alone isn't good enough is true)
>>> 	___ XML
>>
>> I'll make sure to include detailed rationale in the document.  I  
>> don't think this is an assertion that can be proved in advance one  
>> way or the other.  The discussion is only about the weight of  
>> anticipated problems and benefits of either option.
>
> Aha - so you're going to let me change my vote, now that you're not  
> quite so certain? :-)

Oh, I'm not uncertain!  It's just not an absolutely provable thing.

>> Catching a redirection can't possibly be the way of determining the  
>> version of a vocabulary.  If there's no Dublin-core-style way of  
>> documenting versioning, then we need to stipulate explicit  
>> versioning (not very pretty) or mandate the inclusion of an  
>> official versioning element like
>
> 	<ivoa:vocabularyVersion>1.1</ivoa:vocabularyVersion>
>
> even if it isn't standard (it's not our fault that our non- 
> astronomical colleagues are careless).  This way, http://myvocab.org/myvocab#mytoken 
>  looks like it's long-term, but a glance at the internal  
> documentation can be made to double-check if necessary.

The DCMI metadata terms <http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/>  
include hasVersion and isVersionOf, but one very direct way of  
indicating the version would (potentially) be in the namespace URL.

Hmm.  I think I need to find out more about exactly how versioning  
works in the DC set.

>   If no version is given, then one must assume that the vocabulary  
> is stable and trustworthy (e.g. constellation name vocabulary) or  
> undocumented and thus unstable and untrustworthy (depending upon the  
> context).
>
> Let's then call this option #4 - versioning in content, not in  
> namespace.

Sounds good.  Can you give me a 'possible resolution 4' paragraph that  
I could drop in to the text at <http://www.astro.gla.ac.uk/users/norman/ivoa/vocabularies/issues#versioning-3 
 >?

All the best,

Norman


-- 
Norman Gray  :  http://nxg.me.uk
eurovotech.org  :  University of Leicester