Re: Question about standardization

     Hello Bijan, Michael, All,

  The group does not deliver standards, but can submit something for
consideration to W3C. I remember this being discussed indetail in one
of the phone conferences.

  If SBML is not deserving of being a standard, the what is? Something
no one uses?

     Take care
     Oliver

On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 4:31 AM, Bijan Parsia
<bparsia@cs.manchester.ac.uk> wrote:
> On 13 May 2009, at 03:12, Michael Hucka wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>>>> I hope this is not too off-topic -- I'm new to this
>>>> group and still am trying to get a sense for what it's
>>>> about.
>>
>>  bparsia> The way to figure out it's formal scope is to
>>  bparsia> read the charter:
>>  bparsia> http://www.w3.org/2008/05/HCLSIGCharter
>>
>> In fact, I did that before posting.  But there is enough
>> breadth and room for interpretation in the statements
>
> I don't see how. If you look at:
>  http://www.w3.org/2008/05/HCLSIGCharter#deliverables
> you see that the group deliverables do not include standards.
>
>> there
>> that I still was not entirely certain whether my question
>> would be considered appropriate,
>
> I think you are conflating standardization with the other activities. I
> think SBML is the kind of thing for which HCLSIG could, if the members felt
> up to it, implement use cases, produce technical collateral, etc.
>
> Thus, if you are looking for a wider forum for SBML, HCLSIG is appropriate.
>
> If you really want (and need) to produce a *standard*, that is, a
> specification of a language that has the formal endorsement of the W3C, then
> HCLSIG is merely a place to start building consensus for the chartering of
> such a group.
>
> [snip]
>>
>>  bparsia> Well, given that standardization is a costly
>>  bparsia> endeavor, I'd ask about the motivations and
>>  bparsia> expected benefits for moving development into a
>>  bparsia> standards body, per se.n There are lots of
>>  bparsia> different sorts of standards body and lots of
>>  bparsia> different reasons for pursuing standardization.
>>
>> Indeed.  Standardization of SBML has been discussed over
>> many years in the SBML community,
>
> Pointers?
>
>> but generally pushed back
>> due to various reasons, such as the question of whether SBML
>> was ready, and whether we had the resources to pursue
>> official standards recognition.
>
> And is there a reason? I mean, if you have interop already and buy-in from
> key players, then all that's left is publicity (or badge collecting). These
> can be worthwhile, but they come at considerable cost, not just for you, but
> for the W3C.
>
>>  We may still lack the
>> resources (depends on what's involved), but aside from that,
>> my sense is that it is time to look into it seriously now.
>
> [snip]
>
> But, again, why? I mean, what goals do you have for standardization? Are
> there implementations that don't comply? Are there vendors who can't sell
> their SBML tool to govt agencies due to the procurement requirement to use
> "recognized standards" thus they are forced to use older, inadequate
> standards? Or is there a user base that likely *would* use (and benefit)
> from it but just need to know they are working "with a standard"? Or are
> there patent implications you are trying to work around?
>
> Cheers,
> Bijan.
>
>



-- 
Oliver Ruebenacker, Computational Cell Biologist
BioPAX Integration at Virtual Cell (http://vcell.org/biopax)
Center for Cell Analysis and Modeling
http://www.oliver.curiousworld.org

Received on Wednesday, 13 May 2009 09:49:01 UTC