awwsw status report for TAG F2F

I just whipped this up.  The deadline for TAG F2F prep materials is
today, so if you can comment in the next 3 hours that would be great.
Otherwise you'll just have to live with my disclaimer. If necessary I
can provide corrections and further information at the F2F.
- Jonathan

AWWSW Task Force - status report for TAG

Jonathan Rees, June 2006

This is my own report, and has not been reviewed by the group.

Regular members:

  * Tim Berners-Lee
  * Jonathan Rees
  * Michael Hausenblas  - joined Feb 2009
  * Stuart Williams
  * David Booth

Irregular members:

  * Alan Ruttenberg
  * Harry Halpin

Contributing by email occasionally:

  * Pat Hayes
  * Henry Thompson
  * Noah Mendelsohn


Home page: http://esw.w3.org/topic/AwwswHome
Mail archive: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-awwsw/

We have been holding biweekly telecons.

Generally speaking, we are trying to put the relationship(s) between
HTTP and RDF on a more rigorous footing.  Among the questions falling
under this objective are:

  * If an HTTP interaction (such as a 200 response or redirection)
    can be said to say something about a resource, how might one
    capture that meaning in RDF?

  * If we know something about a resource that impinges on HTTP
    behavior, such as representation stability over time, how might
    one express that in RDF?

  * How might one express in RDF (e.g. via class membership) some of
    the differences between entities and practices that respect web
    architecture, and those that don't?

  * Is there any basis for recommending any particular RDF-yielding
    nose-following method over another?

I do my best to steer the group away from unanswerable questions like
"what is an information resource" and "how should the use of GET+200
be restricted", but I think everyone has present in their mind the
goal of being able to say something to rationally inform the
httpRange-14 debate.

The group has not yet produced any consensus artifacts, but is hoping
to publish a draft ontology by the end of 2009.

The following have been discussed:

== Ontological diversity ==

We have compared the myriad ontologies and models of HTTP:

  * HTTP spec
  * REST informal description (Roy)
  * REST formal description
  * Generic resource "genont" (Tim)
  * AWWW (TAG)
  * Boothianism (David Booth)
  * Resources that you can access (Pat Hayes)
  * IRW (Harry Halpin)
  * HTTP-in-RDF  http://www.w3.org/TR/HTTP-in-RDF/

Many of these are placed next to one another in this diagram:

  http://w3.org/2001/tag/awwsw/jar-diagram-5.pdf

== Generic resources ==

We spent a while trying to nail down what Tim means by "generic
resource" or "information resource".  The results are collected here:

  http://esw.w3.org/topic/AwwswGenericResource
  http://esw.w3.org/topic/AwwswGenOntDiagrams
  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-awwsw/2009May/0006.html

== HTTP semantics ==

My proposed semantics of HTTP, based on a suggestion of Pat's, is
here:

  http://esw.w3.org/topic/AwwswRfc2616
  http://w3.org/2001/tag/awwsw/jar-diagram-6.pdf

This is very new and has not been discussed by the group yet.  It only
assumes that the two parties in an HTTP exchange are obeying the HTTP
protocol specification.  There is no assumption that they know
anything about web architecture.

== Recurring problems ==

Ground rules.  Different participants have very different ways of
doing ontology design, with Harry and Alan perhaps representing
opposite ends of some spectrum.  Solution: Do not talk about it.

Slippery terminology.  "X is a representation."  "No, Y is a
representation."  Solution: Focus on definitions (or some other
anchor), not words.  Punish unqalified use of terms when choice of
definition is not clear.

Confusion between syntactic things vs. events (e.g. response, entity,
representation).  Solution: Always articulate which is meant.

== Earlier work ==

Errata for the httpRange-14 resolution

  * http://esw.w3.org/topic/ErrataHttpRange14

Vocabulary survey (stale)

  * http://esw.w3.org/topic/AwwswVocabulary

Questions and use cases (needs to be revisited)

  * http://esw.w3.org/topic/AwwswQuestions

Some N3 rules around HTTP (needs to be revisited later)

  * http://esw.w3.org/topic/AwwswDboothsRules

Received on Tuesday, 16 June 2009 14:48:34 UTC