DXWG priorities

Dear all,

I would like to propose a clarification of priorities for
this working group.

On every call, we remind ourselves that finishing CONNEG
and DCAT are the top priorities, which is why we resolved
on May 21 to request a six-month extension.  Work on DCAT
does appear to be moving forward nicely in a sub-group.  

However, I am worried about CONNEG.

I posted a number of substantive comments about CONNEG to
the public-dxwg-comments list eight weeks ago [1], and I
still see no public response or even acknowledgement that
the comments are being addressed.

The Github log for CONNEG shows that there have been no
changes to CONNEG since April 23 [2].  "Dublin Core
Terms" has not even been corrected to read "DCMI Metadata
Terms" -- a simple erratum that is so easily fixed.

About 40% of the vertical space in the CONNEG draft is
still taken up with 34 red boxes linking to open issues
and 11 light blue boxes with issue discussion.

Then there is the unresolved issue of defining "profile".

The definition of "profile" in CONNEG [3] (and in parts
of DCAT) still reads: "A named set of constraints..." --
a definition that I still find deeply flawed (e.g.,
[4,5]).

DCAT and CONNEG must be about profiles as they currently
exist; if they were not, they would not meet the criteria
for W3C Recommendations.  Indeed, we resolved on
Tuesday's call to focus on definitions of profile "as
they _are now_ for CONNEG and DCAT.

Discussion of what profiles could, should, or might be in
the future (e.g., the Profiles Vocabulary) should not
distract this group from adopting a readable definition 
of "profile" and keeping its focus on publishing DCAT and
CONNEG.

I have proposed a definition that, in my opinion, fits
the concept of real profiles as they exist today [6,8].
The definition appears to have the support of a majority
of active WG participants.  I have updated the proposal
at [8].  I invite members of this group to informally
indicate their support with upvotes.

Tom

[1] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-dxwg-comments/2019May/0001.html
[2] https://github.com/w3c/dxwg/commits/gh-pages/conneg-by-ap/index.html
[3] https://w3c.github.io/dxwg/conneg-by-ap/#definitions
[4] https://github.com/w3c/dxwg/issues/963#issuecomment-507188969
[5] https://github.com/w3c/dxwg/issues/963#issuecomment-507848654
[6] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-dxwg-wg/2019Jul/0201.html
[7] https://www.w3.org/2019/05/21-dxwg-minutes#x13
[8] https://github.com/w3c/dxwg/issues/963#issuecomment-509994999

-- 
Tom Baker <tom@tombaker.org>

Received on Wednesday, 10 July 2019 10:08:13 UTC