Re: RDF Serializations

Rob Vesse wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I've been putting some thought in to RDF Serializations in the context
>> of linked data; and ever increasingly I'm questioning why I feel the
>> need to offer "the same" RDF graphs serialized in different formats.
>>
>> I guess a specific questions would be, does anybody operate a linked
>> data consuming library that doesn't support a particular serialization?
> 
> Yes I expect they do because unfortunately RDF/XML is still the only
> officially endorsed W3C standard despite the plethora of other formats - not
> every library supports every serialization and then you have the issue of
> RDF embedded/implied in other formats - RDFa, micro formats, RSS, GRDDL -
> where support is more patchy.
> 
>> I'm starting to see this more as a processing / computation load
>> transfer between server and client, where most clients could easily
>> convert the serialization from one format to another, but prefer to
>> offload this to the server where possible.
> 
> A good library should be able to do the transformation efficiently whether
> at the client/server end, unless you're serving massive RDF dumps where this
> is infeasible/ill-advised for the server then there's no reason not to offer
> multiple formats
> 
>> What I'm gunning for in the end, is to only expose all linked data / rdf
>> as static RDF+XML documents within my application - would this in any
>> way make the data "less" linked because some clients don't support
>> RDF+XML or could I take it for granted that everybody (for instance
>> everybody on this list) could handle this serialization.
> 
> Yes most clients would support RDF/XML as it's the only official W3C
> standard but part of the ethos of the whole LOD movement is that the data
> should be as open as possible - restricting it to one format limits the
> openness of the data to some degree.  Personally from the point of view of
> someone who both consumes Linked Data and writes parsers and serializers for
> RDF I'd prefer to get my RDF in a format other than RDF/XML such as Turtle
> as other formats are typically far easier (and faster) to parse.
> 
> Having it available in formats other than RDF/XML also allows for easy
> scripting - someone could quite easily write a script to grab RDF in
> NTriples format from some URI and then dump the Triples to the screen
> without having to use a full blown RDF library whereas it's just not
> possible if you're stuck with getting RDF/XML
> 
> I guess in answer to your question it doesn't make the data less linked but
> it makes it less accessible i.e. open

good answer; thanks :)

Received on Friday, 12 March 2010 10:51:48 UTC