Meeting summary - 3 Dec 2007

[DDWG Teleconference summary - 3 Dec 2007] Cross-referencing the
ontology, populating the ontology, property names, XSD data types,
Requirements, implementations, weekly calls

[Cross-ref] The DDWG vocabulary needs to reference the UWA ontology for
definitions of concepts and data types. However, a recent decision of
the group was to refer to device information via "properties within
aspects". This means that the mapping of DD properties to the ontology
is no longer one-to-one. For example, a Vendor property can be applied
to the hardware aspect (thus identifying the manufacturer) or to the
browser aspect (thus identifying the origin of the software). The
ontology has two different properties for these two vendor concepts. One
approach to mapping DD items to corresponding items in the UWA ontology
is to create a table that shows how the combination of DD properties and
DD aspects map to the UWA ontology properties. It was proposed that this
mapping could be part of the Vocabulary document. Three parts are
identified: the DD properties, the aspects and the mapping to the
ontology. Resolving these details could take some time, but meanwhile
there is an initial draft of the vocabulary that is getting close to
publication. It was agreed that this document should continue towards
publication, with editor's notes to highlight areas of ongoing
discussion.

[Populating] It was noted that the UWA Ontology has information in it
already, although it is understood that the intention is that the
ontology will evolve based on the needs of respective vocabularies. The
DD group needs to take care not to let the initial (experimental)
information in the ontology control the evolution of the DD vocabulary.
Instead, the group will continue to identify properties and aspects as
it deems necessary to support content adaptation, and these will then be
mapped to the ontology. If there are omissions in the ontology, these
can be resolved in due course.

[Names] A minor issue of the names of properties was raised. With the
introduction of aspects, it is important not to have aspects appearing
in the property names, For example, browserVersion would not be a good
DD property name because it includes the browser aspect in its name. One
example that occurred in early drafts was screenColorDepth. This was
recently changed to displayColorDepth. The intention here was to replace
the mention of the screen aspect with a term to describe how colour
depth is transmitted as output. However, the word "display" could be
seen as synonymous with "screen" so this might need to be reconsidered.

[XSD] In early drafts of the vocabulary, data types were mentioned as
String, Boolean, Integer etc. The group resolved that these data types
should be formalised by reference to the XML Schema Data types (XSD).

[Requirements] A recent update of the requirements document on the wiki
was noted, and commended. Members will review the text, with the
intention of agreeing to publish. The new version uses use cases to
explain the motivations behind certain DDR characteristics.

[Implementations] It was noted that there is growing Open Source
activity in support of the DDR API. It is expected that during 2008
there will be free, commercial and Open Source implementations of the
API. Announcements of these have been made on the public mailing list.

[Weekly call] With some participants attending the weekly call very late
at night in their time zone, it was resolved to move the call time
forward an hour from this point onwards.

Attendees:
Rotan, Jo, Dimitar, JongPil, Rafa, Matt, Pontus, Jose Cantera, Martin,
Rodrigo.

Received on Thursday, 6 December 2007 09:54:44 UTC