Within a week after ISO
adopted Topic Maps as a standard, though before its actual
publication, participants in an XML '99 Nocturne session
were discussing ways to bring Topic Maps to XML and the
Web.
Topic Maps provide
descriptions of information separate from the
information itself. The standard provides a structured set
of tools including topics, subjects, associations, and
descriptions.
Topic Maps create navigable indices for document sets, and
permit the easy creation of multiple views of the same
information.
In a preliminary discussion led by Diane Kennedy of IDEAlliance and two
of the
co-editors of the ISO spec, Michel
Biezunski of Infoloom
and Steve Newcomb of TechnoTeacher,
participants discussed the potential
for bringing the SGML-based standard to XML and providing
support for XLink.
While a number of obstacles, from political and
intellectual property issues involving different standards
organizations
(IDEAlliance, OASIS, ISO, W3C) to the stability level of
the current XLink draft, were discussed, the 20+
participants seemed
united on the value of bringing Topic Maps to XML and
potentially to the World Wide Web.