PROV-ISSUE-55 (are-provenance-uris-needed): Are provenance URIs really needed [Accessing and Querying Provenance]

PROV-ISSUE-55 (are-provenance-uris-needed): Are provenance URIs really needed [Accessing and Querying Provenance]

http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/55

Raised by: Luc Moreau
On product: Accessing and Querying Provenance


I would like to initiate a debate about a fundamental assumption of the PAQ document: "A general expectation is that web applications may access provenance information in the same way as any web resource, by dereferencing its URI.".

I can see that this "expectation" may be valid in a number of circumstances. But in various projects, we have implemented provenance stores as stand-alone services, accumulating provenance about things.   Whenever the provenance of something was requested, we were querying the storage system, and returning the set of assertions that was appropriate.

The use of a provenance-uri is counter-intuitive in this context. I would even argue it puts an undue burden on the provenance store.  Indeed, the provenance store would have to maintain a reverse mapping provenance-uri to thing-uri, so that the query about that thing can be re-issued, if required.  (Of course, see ISSUE-54 on the requirements set on provenance-uris and what they refer to.)

What do people think?

Received on Friday, 29 July 2011 08:07:58 UTC