[Data-modeling] [Developers] Modeling question

[Ed Laurent]

I guess it's growing on me and Shawn's definition helps quite a bit except I
would replace "organization" with "person, company, or other organization".
My concern is that the product <-> producer concepts are so general that
they should be well thought out and modeled as generally as possible so that
they support all relevant co-types now and in the future. For example, are
UPC, weight/volume, and cost universal properties of a product? Coca-cola
for example has different combinations of ingredients depending on where it
is sold. Similarly, my motorcycle model has a different gear ratio when sold
in Japan compared to the U.S. Maybe these versions have different UPCs but
their differences in weight/volume are insignificant and you might be able
to sell each version for the same price. I don't know how many topics in
Freebase can/will be considered products but it's probably a bunch. Any
problems later on could have big implications.

-Ed


On Jan 7, 2008 12:19 AM, Shawn Simister <narphorium at gmail.com> wrote:

>  I would define a Product as a tangible object which is sold by an
> organization under a specific brand name. Therefore corn or people are not
> products but Corn Flakes and People Magazine are. I know that there are more
> general definitions of products, but I think they could be accommodated by
> additional types like Commercial Service, Commodity etc.
>
> Shawn
>
> Ed Laurent wrote:
>
> The "Products producer" type with a "Products produced" property sounds
> pretty good to me. The "Product" type a little less so. Would every tangible
> topic (including people) need to be typed as a product? What defines a
> product that separates it from other tangible topics? I agree that this kind
> of type could be very useful and there should be reciprocation between
> product and producer but I'm not excited about this approach to doing it.
>
> -Ed
>
> P.S. This conversation is probably more relevant to the Data Modeling list
> so I'm cc'ing it.
>
>
> On Jan 6, 2008 10:05 PM, Daniel E. Renfer < duck at kronkltd.net> wrote:
>
> > It would probably make sense to have some sort of "products producer"
> > co-type. The producers would have a "products produced" link to the
> > "producer" field of the corresponding "product" type.
> >
> > Not every company produces products, and there are some products that
> > are produced by groups other than companies.
> >
> > Other than that, it sounds like great information to track.
> >
> > Kavitha Srinivas wrote:
> > > For companies, is there any interest in linking companies to their
> > > major products (e.g., Pfizer to its key pharma products) as listed in
> > > Wikipedia?  I don't mind adding it, but there is no appropriate slot
> > > to add it.
> > > Key products seems to be important information for a company.
> > > Thanks!
> > > Kavitha
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