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Andrew Miller wrote:
> David Nickerson wrote:
>> I'm wondering if there needs to be some kind of formal progression of
>> metadata standards being adopted by the CellML project. While I concede
>> that it was rather arbitrary to add the simulation and graphing
>> specifications under the CellML metadata umbrella, I can see how those
>> two are going to play very important roles in the future of CellML. I am
>> less certain of the value of the Custom Subset specification.
>>
>> I guess the question is whether we are happy to continue simply adding
>> any and all metadata specifications that people come up with under the
>> CellML metadata umbrella? or whether we want to implement a system
>> whereby draft specifications are first circulated on this mailing list
>> and require a certain level of support (or maybe a lack of objections?)
>> before the CellML project formally accepts the draft for further
>> development under the CellML metadata umbrella?
>>
> All three specifications are merely drafts, and they have not been
> accepted in any sense. The drafts are put on the cellml.org site simply
> because that is the most appropriate place for them to be stored, but
> this does not imply that they are in any way endorsed by the CellML team
> as a whole.

To me, having the draft available under
http://www.cellml.org/specifications/specifications and using a
cellml.org namespace indicates that the CellML Project has accepted the
draft as a valid specification to be developed under the CellML Project.
I'm just worried that we are going about things in a rather backward
manner where we put up metadata specifications and then discuss whether
they are valid or not.

> Any CellML-specific information which could potentially be used by more
> than one tool should be stored in a format which is publicly documented,
> and so Custom Subset, and any other specifications which people might
> propose, should be stored somewhere (although if someone submitted a
> draft which conflicted with some other work, e.g. which stored the same
> information in an incompatible way, we could put a CellML team note on
> the draft, discouraging its use).

in your example that just seems wrong - we could end up with a whole
bunch of conflicting specifications and all we do is suggest people
don't use them? There has to be a mechanism whereby the specifications
are filtered before they are added to the CellML specifications section.
There is no reason for people not to develop and discuss early versions
of a draft specification using the cellml.org wiki (or any other
collaborative tool they may choose) and then once a suitably complete
description of what the draft specification hopes to achieve has been
established it can be sent to the cellml-discussion list to see if it
has enough support to be added to the CellML Project's list of
specifications.

Obviously this isn't going to be a huge problem as I don't imagine we
will be overwhelmed with draft specifications - but just for the sake of
long term stability I think we need to consider such processes now
before any problems come up.

--
David Nickerson, PhD
Research Fellow
Division of Bioengineering
Faculty of Engineering
National University of Singapore
Email: david.nickerson at nus.edu.sg

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• [cellml-discussion] New Draft: Custom Subset Metadata specification, Andrew Miller, 11/06/2006
  • [cellml-discussion] New Draft: Custom Subset Metadata specification, David Nickerson, 11/07/2006
    • [cellml-discussion] New Draft: Custom Subset Metadata specification, Andrew Miller, 11/08/2006
      • [cellml-discussion] New Draft: Custom Subset Metadataspecification, David Nickerson, 11/08/2006
        • [cellml-discussion] New Draft: Custom Subset Metadataspecification, Andrew Miller, 11/08/2006
          • [cellml-discussion] New Draft: CustomSubset Metadataspecification, David Nickerson, 11/08/2006

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