[uf-discuss] Bioformats - microformats for biology

[Manu Sporny]

André Luís wrote:
> http://bioformats.org/
> 
> Why is this being developed outside of this community?

Possibly because they don't quite understand how the Microformats
Process works. I know our first impression was that we didn't need to
perform any sort of centralized development through the Microformats
community. We believed that Microformats could be developed by anybody
on the web and there was no "stamp of approval" necessary to call what
you were doing a "Microformat". At first blush, it wasn't clear that
there was a process behind what this community does...

> Has anyone heard of this before and/or have contacted the 
> founders of this project?

I've notified them of this thread.

> Bottom line is.. should we care about this? 

Yes, we should. They have demonstrated buy-in to the semantic web at
some level, interest in Microformats, the ability to do some work and
publish in a way that is open, and they're backed by an institute -
which means that probably have more time and interest than most to work
on this stuff.

> Try to invite them to join the community and discuss the pros 
> and cons of their proposals? Or just leave them be?

It would be a mistake to not invite them to join and let them decide if
this community is the best avenue forward. We shouldn't assume what the
interests of this community are - this mailing list has over 1,000
readers and all you really need is 2-3 highly motivated individuals to
push some of these initiatives forward.

-- manu

-- 
Manu Sporny
President/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: Bitmunk 3.1 Website Launch
http://blog.digitalbazaar.com/2009/01/16/bitmunk-3-1-website-launch