Makes sense.
WRT: a tag for dev-system
One or two
Tool-output: Tools encourage particular types of output. For example, it’s hard (but theoretically not impossible) to make music using Photoshop. This effect is comes from both the capabilities of the dev-system itself and the communities that form around dev-systems. Players may find a dev-system distinction helps locate IF that interests them.
Significant by usage: The number of dev-systems is diverse (also: anecdote by above). When searching by browsing, dev-system provides another method of splitting results. IF has a large enough corpus that there are unlikely to be many single-item categories.
Usefulness to authors: It’s easier for authors to understand their dev tools if they can find actual examples.
Future history: The book colophon began to include useful information on the production of the book. Colophons might be the only evidence we have then certain printers existed. Dev-system tags may also assist future digital archaeologists identify and debug particular dev-system quirks.
The specification (5.6.7) is vague. The difference in Inform / Infocom usages show a single field used for two different data-types: dev system / dev-org. That’s already a warning sign that the schema is insufficient to express current use.
If is tied so strongly to iTunes-like indexes then its intended usage is for linking related works between albums. In a meta-sense that assumes a way to provide an alternative linking of works that are already strongly collected (by album). As a spatial metaphor: Horizontal linking between members in vertical groups.
There is also an assumption that users can change to suit their preferences. In an authoritative index that is undesirable. There should be a single setting and user’s individual preferences accommodated in other ways.
looks like a field that was sorta-kinda useful then it’s specification became muddied over time.