[nm-wg] Re: NMWG: hierarchy doc revisited

[Bruce Lowekamp <lowekamp@CS.WM.EDU>]

I'm resending this message since it arrived as most people were leaving for 
vacation.  If you have any comments on this revision, or if you would like 
another day or so to read it, please let me know by Tuesday evening.  We 
will begin the submission process on Wednesday.

Bruce


As many of you are aware, we submitted the hierarchy document to the GFSC 
this past summer.  We got some comments back recently, and two issues were 
raised:

- what type of document should this be
- normative text

After discussing the issues somewhat, we concluded that ultimately we want 
the hierarchy to be a recommendation.  Obviously, as a nomenclature it 
isn't enough to implement measurement portability, but it is something that 
multiple schemas can be developed with, and sharing the nomenclature should 
facilitate usability.  So eventually, we hope that other products beside 
the NMWG schema can say "we use this terminology."  To have that statement 
mean anything, it needs to be a recommendation.

Therefore, we revised this as a "proposed recommendation."  Essentially, 
this means that it is on the track to be an official GGF recommendation. At 
this point, what we are claiming is that we have general consensus that 
this makes a good recommendation, but need implementation experience and 
more review to ensure that it is correct and useful.

After making that decision, the normative text was easy.

The intro has the most revisions, and there are a variety of other sections 
that have normative text inserted.  There is also a new section explaining 
the DAMED method of converting the hierarchy into dotted-decimal names.  We 
may also want to include a list of mandatory and optional attributes for 
characteristics at a later point, but right now I don't think we have 
enough perspective to do that in a way that will be equally applicable to 
all measurements.

I would like to say that there is a version available with changebars, but 
there is not.  I foolishly assumed that word would be able to "compare 
documents" at the end of the process, but apparently "diff" is beyond the 
grasp of microsoft programmers.  Instead, both the old (00) and new (01) 
version are on the webpage.  (http://www-didc.lbl.gov/NMWG/)

As the changes are relatively minor, I'm hoping we can resubmit this to the 
GFSC quickly.  Therefore, I would like to ask for feedback by January 6. If 
we have not heard anything by then, or the comments are minor, we will 
resubmit to the GFSC at that point.  If there is a significant amount of 
discussion, or if people feel more time is required, we'll postpone 
submission until consensus can be achieved.

Bruce Lowekamp