AWWSW minutes from today

. . . are at
http://www.w3.org/2008/02/05-awwsw-minutes.html
and below in plain text.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

   [1]W3C

      [1] http://www.w3.org/

                               - DRAFT -

              Architecture of the World Wide Semantic Web

05 Feb 2008

   See also: [2]IRC log

      [2] http://www.w3.org/2008/02/05-awwsw-irc

Attendees

   Present
          TimBL, DBooth, Jonathan_Rees, Noah

   Regrets
   Chair
          Jonathan Rees (jar)

   Scribe
          dbooth

Contents

     * [3]Topics
         1. [4]Representations
     * [5]Summary of Action Items
     _________________________________________________________



Representations

   <jar> [6]http://esw.w3.org/topic/AwwswAnalysis

      [6] http://esw.w3.org/topic/AwwswAnalysis

   <jar>
   [7]http://w3.org/mid/0539149A-F4E6-4B34-88FE-E7E711CD2F07@creativeco
   mmons.org

      [7] http://w3.org/mid/0539149A-F4E6-4B34-88FE-E7E711CD2F07@creativecommons.org

   jar: Last mtg there was discussion about whether a representation
   could be a resouce.

   That discussion was on the list.

   timbl: Alan asked what happens what happens if I save a rep in a
   file. I don't think we should be distracted by that.

   jar: We're dealing with a lot of things that are not IR's, so it's
   important to get boundary cases. We need to identify diseases and
   chemicals.

   timbl: When you look a the relatinoship between Moby Dick and a
   physical copy of it, you can get a distinction. You'll always find
   corner cases, like is 2 an IR?
   ... You can always push until it's uncomfortable, and that's
   pedantic and picky. But it's useful if you have a general idea.

   dbooth thinks the email discussion was helpful in resolving that
   question: a rep is a relationship.

   jar: but we run into real questions of whether a number is an IR.

   timbl: Does google tell you about 3?
   ... I think we should make an ontology.

   <scribe> Scribe: dbooth

   <timbl> {x a Thing} is tautolgical

   jar: Is a resource anything? You can put any URI on the left and it
   is a resource.

   <timbl> I think th word "resourdce"in english is a terrible fit.

   timbl: The word "resouce" was a historical choice. Much better to
   use "thing" in discussions.

   noah: the tricky stuff: given that I have a URI, and I'm accessing
   it w HTTP and get a 200, how close does the rep have to be to
   whatever the resource was?
   ... I think the part that we're discussing now is the easy part.

   timbl: Everything is a resource, everything is a thing.

   noah: Everything can be a resource ....

   timbl: No, everything *is* a resource.

   <jar> it's a resource even if it doesn't have a URI!

   <jar> "Can be" is what raised a red flag for me.

   I was trying to point out that there is no need to differentiate
   between "is" and "can be" if you never try to talk about a
   particular resource, i.e., the difference does not matter.

   jar: On the list, there was discussion about rep can be a class.

   timbl: the relationship has a well-defined range. It's a well
   defined pair of metadata + octet stream.

   <jar> Tim proposes a class Representation = metadata + content

   timbl: That comes from Roy's thesis.

   jar: If it is RFC2616 it does not include the response headers, but
   does include the entity headers.
   ... There's a wiki page listing the entity headers.
   ... IT's a small difference.

   timbl: So it doesn't include all the http headers.

   <jar> The email thread has some tag members saying they don't want
   to use 'representation' as a category...

   timbl: awww talks about reps as classes. When you say "this is the
   rep of..." then y0ou cannot avoid using the nown as a class.

   <jar> but Tim says this is fine?

   My point in that email thread is that there is no rep without an IR:
   it only exists in relation to an IR.

   noah: Somebody does a GET and i want to file a bug report, so I
   create a URI for that rep, using a checksum. I want to be able to do
   that.

   <jar> distinction: representation = an entity that represents an IR.

   <timbl> dbooth: a rep'n exists only in rpresnttaion in relation o a
   resource./

   <jar> so representation is a subclass of entity, yes?

   <timbl> NM: I craeted a URI and I said that this URI i s the URI of
   a Represntauo which happened at aparticular time, i want to say
   things about them.

   <timbl> .. therefore Reprtesntaion is a class

   noah: I'm not necessarily copying the bits. Therefore rep is a
   class.

   y, it's useful in RDF to have a class of rep, but no rep exists in
   isolation.

   jar: an entity is a grammar producttion.

   <jar> tim: not all reps are going to be from http

   timbl: when an http transaction occurs, we have a rep, but not all
   reps are goign to be http. In the case of http i find it useful to
   think that the entity is a rep.

   jar: in a 404, the entity is not a rep.

   <jar> Tim: rule: if 200, then the entity is a representation.

   timbl: a rule says if http get occurs, and the status is 200, then
   the entity is a rep of the resource, (dbooth adds: and the resource
   is an IR)
   ... that's httpRange-14

   jar: any reason to have reps that are not entities?

   noah: timbl wants rep to be broader than http. SOAp has add-ons that
   talk about reps that are in the spirit of http. I don't think it
   uses the word entity.

   <timbl> Ifthe status is 200, then the entity is a representation of
   the resource identified b the URI

   <jar> noah: there are representations that are not entities because
   we want to cover more than just HTTP

   <timbl> 'entity' is a terrible fit with things like XML usage as
   well, so using that term

   jar: What is common among reps? metadata and octects?

   timbl: metadata tells you the meaning of the bits. you read the
   protocol spec, and the metadata tells you how to interpret the bits
   to understand the meaning of IR.

   noah: I'm tempted to say that it's the relationship that is common.
   If the rel is close to the spirit of what we mean, then ou can use
   the word rep.

   a+

   dbooth: do we reallky understand the http case? how about if we
   focus on that before we broaden?

   timbl: there is aother stufff out there -- gopher, ftp, etc.
   ... but ftp doesn't give you enough metadata, that's an existing tag
   issue.
   ... the awww isn't restricted to http, though it talks about http
   99% of the time.

   <jar> propose to table discussion of 'representation' outside of
   http?

   <jar> tim proposes the class awww:representation

   jar: What class should we use?

   timbl: in http, the metadata is an unorderd set of pairs, followed
   by ordered set of octets. But an entity is serialized on the wire.

   <jar> awww:representation as ADT? = unordered set of headers +
   ordered octets? abstract version

   <Zakim> dbooth, you wanted to vote for first focusing on http

   <noah> In case it's of any help, the text from RFC 2616 defining
   "Representation" is:

   <noah> representation

   <noah> An entity included with a response that is subject to content

   <noah> negotiation, as described in section 12. There may exist
   multiple

   <noah> representations associated with a particular response status.

   <timbl> awww:represntation rdfs:Range awww:Represntation

   <jar> dbooth thinks progress will be faster if we use
   rfc2616:Representation instead of awww:Representation

   jar: Easier to generalize later than earlier.

   timbl: Arch is at the general level. Talks about URIs, but not
   restricted to http.

   noah: to do the http case and hope that it generalizes, . . . i
   don't think so.

   <timbl> Can we just say that rfc2616:Representation rdfs:subClassOf
   awwwRepresenttaion.

   <jar> noah: disagrees. harder to generalize later, better to get
   definitions right at beginning

   timbl: http is not even https!
   ... I'm also concerned that if we talk about http we'll get stuck at
   the bit level instead of the abstract level.

   <noah> RFC 2616 says:

   <noah> "An entity

   <noah> consists of entity-header fields and an entity-body, although
   some

   <noah> responses will only include the entity-headers.

   <noah> "

   <noah> When you look at header fields, it's clear that they have ":"
   characters in them, so the HTTP concept of entity is no more general
   than that.

   timbl: When you call something to retrieve something, it can do more
   than http. There's a kludge for file: that if it ends in .txt then
   the metadata is deemed to be plain/text.

   jar: We need a model of the things that can be reps.

   <jar> tim: of all the rep's metadata, the prime thing is the
   content-type, which is a mime type.

   timbl: In the arch, of all that metadata the content type is the
   prime thing. The IANA registry has issues, the mime type should be a
   URI, and that's a longstanding issue.

   <jar> (jar asked what more concretely we can say about what a rep
   is. does it have headers that have header-names and header-values?)

   timbl: So I can make my own private mime type and dispatch on it.
   Which level are we goign to talk? I'm happy to do it in terms of
   mime types -- treat them as identifiers.

   ack

   <Zakim> dbooth, you wanted to again ask for RDF on the table

   <jar> entity is-get-of resource

   <inserted> I have some mostly done RDF. Here's a snippet:

   ########## Classes

   http:Reply a rdfs:Class ;

   rdf: comment "An HTTP 1.1 reply, as defined in
   [8]http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec6.html#sec6 ." .

      [8] http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec6.html#sec6

   http:StatusCode a rdfs:Class ;

   rdf: comment "An HTTP 1.1 status code, as defined in
   [9]http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec6.html#sec6.1.1 ."
   .

      [9] http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec6.html#sec6.1.1

   http:EntityBody a rdfs:Class ;

   rdf: comment "An HTTP 1.1 Entity Body, as defined in
   [10]http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec7.html#sec7.2 ."
   .

     [10] http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec7.html#sec7.2

   <jar> jar proposes that first triple is domain or range constraint
   of the http "GET" relationship

   <jar> http:Reply = http2:ResponseMessage (@prefix http2: the one
   used by tabulator)

   <jar> ?

   <noah> Section 7.2 talks about colon (:) chars in the entity

   <timbl> ikeXML document string vs DOM

   <timbl> Like

   <jar> tim: production for entity as string must be distinguished
   from the ADT/parse tree which is the representation [and maybe the
   entity]

   <inserted> dbooth: It tries to accurately model HTTP, but there are
   a few things I had to gloss over. For example, I did not yet find an
   appropriate xsd data type for "octet stream", so at the momemnt I'm
   treating it as an xsd:string.

   <jar> need to wind up folks... homework?

   <noah> I suspect that the value space of the XML binary formats is
   closer to what you want than xsd:string, though the serialization in
   HTTP over TCP is certainly not Hexbinary or Base64 in the typical
   case.

   timbl: If you get some bits, and you run an RDF/XML parser on it,
   then you get a formula.
   ... I need to run to AB event. Amy didn't have this mtg as a
   recurring event.

   <jar> cwm has relationship between bits and formula... similar

   jar: noah, y9ou've ben silent. What do you think?

   <jar> noah: we need to decide what we're going to do carefully &
   what not. need to be careful about abstractions like 'resource'

   noah: I think we need to make a cleaner decision about which things
   we're going to do carefully, and for core concepts like rep we don't
   want to be a little bit pregnant. media type fills a position in the
   arch for http, but suppose we're using p-p protocol?
   ... My intuition would be for core concepts like rep, embodiment on
   the wire, need for typing info to let us interpret it, we should do
   it cleanly and then specialize to http.

   <jar> talk about restful protocols generally

   noah: Or second choice, let's not do the gen case at all, except
   maybe https.

   jar: If people are familiar about OBO, there are lots of people
   trying to be very careful about issues llike this. I asume they'll
   coord w the lib community. They're trying to make general enough
   defs.

   <scribe> ACTION: jar to send out pointer to OBO work [recorded in
   [11]http://www.w3.org/2008/02/05-awwsw-minutes.html#action01]

   <trackbot-ng> Sorry, couldn't find user - jar

   jar: There are thorny philosoophical differences though. They're
   goign to use a particular method of making ontologies. But it's
   worth looking at the method as opposed to software eng methods.
   Interesting differences.

   <scribe> ACTION: dbooth and jar to get together at least once before
   next mtg [recorded in
   [12]http://www.w3.org/2008/02/05-awwsw-minutes.html#action02]

   <trackbot-ng> Created ACTION-4 - And jar to get together to discuss
   RDF at least once before next mtg [on David Booth - due 2008-02-12].

   <jar> thanks again dboot

   <jar> h

Summary of Action Items

   [NEW] ACTION: dbooth and jar to get together at least once before
   next mtg [recorded in
   [13]http://www.w3.org/2008/02/05-awwsw-minutes.html#action02]
   [NEW] ACTION: jar to send out pointer to OBO work [recorded in
   [14]http://www.w3.org/2008/02/05-awwsw-minutes.html#action01]

   [End of minutes]
     _________________________________________________________


    Minutes formatted by David Booth's [15]scribe.perl version 1.133
    ([16]CVS log)
    $Date: 2008/02/05 15:19:38 $
     _________________________________________________________

     [15] http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/~checkout~/2002/scribe/scribedoc.htm
     [16] http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/2002/scribe/

Scribe.perl diagnostic output

   [Delete this section before finalizing the minutes.]
This is scribe.perl Revision: 1.133  of Date: 2008/01/18 18:48:51
Check for newer version at [17]http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/~checkout~/2002
/scribe/

     [17] http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/~checkout~/2002/scribe/

Guessing input format: RRSAgent_Text_Format (score 1.00)

Succeeded: s/sucks/has issues/
Succeeded: i/Classes/I have some mostly done RDF.  Here's a snippet:
Succeeded: i/need to wind up/dbooth: It tries to accurately model HTTP,
 but there are a few things I had to gloss over.  For example, I did no
t yet find an appropriate xsd data type for "octet stream", so at the m
omemnt I'm treating it as an xsd:string.
Succeeded: s/get together/get together to discuss RDF/
Succeeded: i/Meeting:/Topic: Representations
Found Scribe: dbooth
Inferring ScribeNick: dbooth
Default Present: +1.617.253.aaaa, TimBL, dbooth, Noah_Mendelsohn, jar
Present: TimBL DBooth Jonathan_Rees Noah
Got date from IRC log name: 05 Feb 2008
Guessing minutes URL: [18]http://www.w3.org/2008/02/05-awwsw-minutes.ht
ml
People with action items: dbooth jar

     [18] http://www.w3.org/2008/02/05-awwsw-minutes.html

   End of [19]scribe.perl diagnostic output]

     [19] http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/~checkout~/2002/scribe/scribedoc.htm




David Booth, Ph.D.
HP Software
+1 617 629 8881 office  |  dbooth@hp.com
http://www.hp.com/go/software

Opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not represent the official views of HP unless explicitly stated otherwise.

Received on Wednesday, 6 February 2008 04:18:17 UTC