"Concept" language
danielskatz opened this issue · comments
Based on discussion in Section 2 (and Section 3.2) of A&P google doc
- Dan had suggested "concept" for the overall software package (not a particular version).
- Other names that have been suggested are "work" and "versionless" and “product”
- What should we use?
I think "project" is another option.
+1 for product
An example from another issue that has now been closed, based on discussion with @AlastairKelly:
Microsoft Word is the project/work/product/concept/etc., and Microsoft Word 13 and Microsoft Word 16.0.1 are both versions.
I think "product" may be confusing to curators and muddy the water a bit in the context of proprietary software. I like "conceptual work" or concept for short still. @danielskatz pointed out that the intellectual content changes from version to version so both work and product seem to fall short of really nailing this. "Construct" might work?
I'm starting to think that there is no word that everyone will agree on. I wonder if "software family" or something else new to this discussion would help?
software family brings to mind a collection of different components, so different software artifacts and not just one software with several versions.
I can see that the proposition of product is ambiguous with commercial intentions.
In wikidata software type inherits from creative work and from product.
In schema.org SoftwareApplication and SoftwareSourceCode inherits from creative work.
In Datacite software is a type of resource which can be used for the version and for the versionless artifact.
We can align with the DOAP vocabulary with project.
This term is used by OpenHub, the FSF directory, freshfoss, source forge.
Personally, i think it has a larger scope than all the versions of the same software, but it is a good compromise here.
I would prefer relying on a term used by a known software vocabulary and by software registries.
+1 for project
Can I suggest here (as it doesn't seem worth a whole separate issue) that we also add a brief summary of this discussion or at least listing the other terms considered to the document? I think it would be helpful to make explicit the possible correlations between whatever terms readers from different communities might be most familiar with and whatever term we use, and alleviate any doubts among us about clarity.
decision by writing group is on concept - @danielskatz will act on this, and also include some of @AlastairKelly 's point above in the text.
done - I think concept is now used everywhere, and I've tried to add discussion about this to Section 6.6