It's the function/link/query overlap.   What one can do with a multiway
link, one can do with a query.  There is a bit of over-fascination with
the inverted index.

OTOH, when building federated systems that require one to navigate
heterogeneous systems, ontologies and linking are the alternative to
data warehousing.   You may want to look at business intelligence
applications for some of those requirements.  They are metadata driven,
drag-and-drop reports-as-applications.

Isn't an FEA Data Requirements Model just another Topic Map?   Isn't a
Conceptual Graphs model just another n-way linking model?

len 


From: Rick Jelliffe [mailto:rjelliffe@a...] 

At the ISO SC34 meeting in Korea, a question came up of whether there
was any scope for repackaging parts of HyTime in some more
XML/XPath/XLink friendly way. Anyone who has ideas or requirements or
use cases or running code in this area is very welcome to let an SC34 WG
1 committee person know (e.g. Martin Bryan, Alex Brown, Lynn Price,
Murata Makoto, me. I hesitate to suggest the Microsoft and IBM
representatives, because they might be focused on other areas at the
moment :-)

I don't see it myself. The poor uptake of XLink suggests there is some

        funny dynamic at play hindering linking in general, independent
of the technical excellence of the solutions.