I was puzzled by a recent comment concerning the “..uncertain future of topic maps…?”
Some possible sources of an “uncertain future” for topic maps:
- Unchanging one world language and semantic adopted universally, plus conversion of all existing data into that language/semantic.
- Universal agreement to ignore semantic differences. Increase in death rates stabilizes the world’s population at 17th century levels.*
- Extinction of human race.
I hate to be disagreeable, ;-), but I really don’t think any of those three causes are likely to imperil the future of topic maps.
To be honest there could be a fourth cause:
4. As a community we promote topic maps so poorly or create such inane interfaces that users prefer to suffer from semantic impedance than use topic maps.
And there is a fifth cause that I don’t recall anyone addressing:
5. There are people who benefit from semantic impedance and non-sharing.
I think we can address #4 and #5 as a matter of marketing efforts.
Starting by asking yourself: Who benefits from a reduction (or maintenance) of semantic impedance?
*****
*No need for alarm. That is just a wild guess on my part. Has the same validity as software and music piracy figures. The difference is I am willing to admit that I made it up to sound good.