During today's discussion of the logical model someone suggested defining a taxonomy. I think that is a great idea because it both defines the semantic purpose of the various blocks and clarifies the relationships between between blocks that aren't obvious from the model itself. (A distinction between open and closed arrowheads was mentioned - that is a very subtle and non-intuitive way of representing things that should be blindingly obvious.
There is apparently a history of discussion on what a package is and what it should be called. One alternative is "archive" or "bundle" - the equivalent of a zipfile that can contain a bunch of anything, perhaps including other zipfiles. The other is the UML definition of "package": a namespace for a collection of types: *12.2.3.1 Package**A Package is a namespace for its members, which comprise those elements associated via packagedElement (which are said to be owned or contained), and those imported. A Package definition can extend the contents of other Packages through the merging of the contained elements.* I'm a strong believer in UML, and so I believe "Package" is a terrible name for what appears to be a "bundle". Document, Fragment, File, Artifact, Element, etc, are all UML "Elements" (also not the same meaning as SPDX Element). Each of them is defined within one and only one namespace/package. A taxonomy would clarify whether the purpose of a Bundle is 1) to contain Documents, Fragments, Files, Artifacts, Bundles, etc, or 2) be a superclass of Document, Fragment, File, etc. If the latter, Bundle obviously is not it's own superclass (parent in the taxonomy). The relationship between two blocks in the model can include "is a member/attribute of" and "is a kind of" (a taxonomical relationship). Identity for example is used in a Document, it is not a kind of Document. A Bundle can contain a Document, but a Bundle is not a kind of Document and a Document is not a kind of Bundle. Deciding where to place Document in the model depends on the semantics of its relationship to what it is connected to. Regards, Dave -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#3989): https://lists.spdx.org/g/Spdx-tech/message/3989 Mute This Topic: https://lists.spdx.org/mt/80861827/21656 Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.spdx.org/g/Spdx-tech/unsub [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
