- From: (unknown charset) Thomas Baker <tbaker@tbaker.de>
- Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 14:55:58 +0200
- To: (unknown charset) "Miles, AJ (Alistair)" <A.J.Miles@rl.ac.uk>
- Cc: (unknown charset) Thomas Baker <tbaker@tbaker.de>, public-swbp-wg@w3.org, www-rdf-interest@w3.org
I find the name confusing but I really like the requirements you lay out. Maybe the document should start with those. With "configuration management", I feel confused as to whether something is being configured (i.e., according to a process that needs to managed) or if it is "the configuration" itself -- i.e., perhaps, a structure of properties and classes -- that is being managed. Tom On Thu, Jul 07, 2005 at 01:36:13PM +0100, Alistair Miles wrote: > Perhaps a slightly confusing name, but in a project management (e.g. prince2) context 'configuration management' means a system for controlling change to ensure quality, and that's what we need for RDF vocabs. I.e. we need to know how to support *commercial strength* RDF vocab and ontology development. > > If you've got 'The Little Prince2' look at section 6.1.1 'Planning Quality' ... very useful, tho I better not reproduce it here for fear of copyright infringement. It highlights 5 processes: > > Planning: this is what we did when we discussed the policy statements section of the SKOS Core spec - we decided what level of configuration management is required, and we wrote a process for achieving it. > > Identification: this means identifying all the components of a product. In the case of SKOS Core this is all the properties and classes, in the case of a generic RDF vocab it could be modules as well. > > Control: this means 'freezing' products and making changes only within a formal (or at least clearly defined) procedure, involving e.g. access rights, version tracking. For SKOS Core this is editorial responsibility, historical snapshots, and the review process. > > Status accounting: this means keeping a record of current and historical data for a product, especially relating to the status of the product. For SKOS Core this is per-term stability levels. > > Verification: verifying that actual status matches recorded/authorised status. We could do that e.g. by checking if changes have occurred to a class or prop between versions that are not allowed by the term's stability level. > > An analogy is e.g. car or aerospace engineering. With good configuration management you can track a problem back to the specific batch of faulty nuts or bolts. With poor configuration management you have no idea what went wrong or how to fix it. > > Cheers, > > Al. > > [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Configuration_management -- Dr. Thomas Baker baker@sub.uni-goettingen.de SUB - Goettingen State +49-551-39-3883 and University Library +49-30-8109-9027 Papendiek 14, 37073 Göttingen
Received on Thursday, 7 July 2005 12:50:13 UTC