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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ cellml-discussion mailing list cellml-discussion@cellml.org http://www.cellml.org/mailman/listinfo/cellml-discussion
