UMLDI — UML diagram interchange: containment vs reference

With regard to the OMG issue of changing the semantic bridge’s association with the diagram role from ‘namespace’ to ‘owner’, the request is appropriate but the justification that state diagrams are owned by state-machines and therefore the role name has to change is not correct. In fact, the important relationship between a state diagram and its state-machine should not be the containment but rather the reference relationship. A state diagram references a state-machine element through the semantic bridge’s ‘semantic model’ role. The containment relationship is optional; a state diagram could legitimately be referencing a state-machine but contained within another namespace (although not typical).

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