Re: [xml-dev] "XML for the Long Haul" program available

[Stephen Green <stephengreenubl@gmail.com>]

Going back to previous thread
http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/201005/threads.html#00006
maybe it would be best to first convert the XML to its OWL-DL
equivalent (making explicit the
semantics which are only implicit in the XML). Then the OWL-DL could
be turned into prose
statements/descriptions using 'description logic' before printing it
out. It would be very verbose
so only information that needed preserving would warrant this. Maybe
it is best to use microform
rather than paper - to save space, etc (microform can be read with
minimal technology of course).
I'm not sure how 'green' microform (microfilm and microfiche) is
though so paper might actually
be 'better'.

Best regards

Steve
---
Stephen D Green




On 15 June 2010 22:21, Frank Manola <fmanola@acm.org> wrote:
>
> On Jun 15, 2010, at 4:19 PM, Costello, Roger L. wrote:
>
>>> People who create, store, query, or serve XML expect it to live a
>>> very long time. XML is platform- and application-independent, and by
>>> and large it is platforms and applications that vanish. If by
>>> encoding information in XML we have freed it from dependency on
>>> specific platforms or applications, have we succeeded in ensuring
>>> that the XML can live long into the future? Or is there more to it
>>> than using XML? How can we best ensure that our data, all our data,
>>> and its semantics survive this year, next year, ten years? into the
>>> next millennium?
>>
>> This is a fascinating topic.
>
> A couple of things regarding your points below:
>
>>
>> Setting aside the issue of whether or not someone 200 years from now will be able to understand the semantics of the XML text that we create today,
>
> The U.S. Constitution was written not too much over 200 years ago, and we still seem to spend an awful lot of time debating its semantics, despite the fact it was written in English.  Would we have done better, worse, or about the same if we'd written it using XML?  (Or would the delegates to the Constitutional Convention still be arguing about the XML Schema to use in writing it?)
>
>> isn't there a more fundamental issue: will there be any tools that understand the encoding used by today's computers? Will UTF-8 still exist 200 years from now? Will there be tools that can interpret UTF-8 200 years from now?
>
> As a backup, why don't we just print it out (acid-free paper of course!)?  Or maybe just the important stuff (NSA may be interested in every XML message ever sent over the net, but I doubt anyone else will be).  XML's supposed to be text, after all.
>
> --Frank
>
>
>
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