Hi I'm Lisa I'm a database person

I think the idea of a taxonomy is great as it can be used in drilling down in a search.

think

nptech

Software

OpenSource

Database

or

nptech

Software

Windows

Free

Database

This is important for database products where a "Google type search" isn't going to be fast enough or if the database system used doesn't have a text search built for it.

This also helps for classification purposes and cataloging.

Where some work has to be done, besides agreeing on the terms to use, is to decide if you allow the same word to appear at different levels of drill down or if you try to focus the words to specific levels of drilldown, meaning you have to prioritize the words ( Does OpenSource/Proprietary belong to a higher level than Operating System etc.)

The above would apply to an XML taxonomy as well since XML is a series of drilldowns in a tree structure (at least usually) for storing information

These is just some "thinking outloud" I'm not sure if it is useful, but it might be worth considering.

Lisa