Introduction: Stuart Williams

I am a elected member of the W3C TAG and act as its co-chair (at the request
of the group).

I'm employee by Hewlett-Packard and work as as part of the Semantic Web team
at HP Labs in Bristol. I am currently focussed (if that can ever be said to
be the case) on the application of the Semantic Web to the rich description
of Web Service interfaces. This work is partially funded by the EU Semantic
Web enabled Web Services (http://swws.semanticweb.org) project.

I spend some time as a member of the XML Protocol Working group (until July
2002) and before that I spent a chunk of my life working on infrared
wireless communication protocols (http://www.irda.org) and still derive
perverse pleasure from its continued existence on mobile phones, PDAs,
printers and portable PCs.

As a TAG member I hear conflicting opinions from people I respect about the
existence of an architectural issue at the heart of the social meaning
problem. Folks have suggested that this is a wider issue than just an issue
for RDF - folks are exchanging business documents in XML and the like - if
those things represent purchase order and invoices and the like, they too
have some intended real world meaning - likewise my hypertext driven
interactions with an online store.

I think that there are a bunch of issues potentially tangled in with the
social-meaning question... in particular questions about the denotation of
URI (and maybe more specifically HTTP URI), which have 'exploded' over both
uri@w3.org and www-tag@w3.org and are related to the TAG issue httpRange-14
(http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/ilist#httpRange-14).

My understanding of the formal underpinnings of RDF and OWL is currently
limited, but as I understand it, at least for RDF, the semantics of RDF are
independent of particular interpretation (ie. mapping from URI to the things
the are being used to denote). I'm wondering whether the notion of a 'social
interpretation' whether that mapping is at least partially established
through the social process of URI assignment rooted in and delegated from
the URI specification might be a helpful concept. Acknowledging the
existence of multiple interpretations in general and even multiple 'social
interpretations' arising from a somewhat incomplete mapping.

I also mused about the what the first human astronauts to land on Mars (or
some more distant planet) might make of the string "http://www.w3.org/"
scratched, in an apparently roman script, in the dust close to their landing
site.

As to process:

I'd like the group to initially work toward a concensus expression of the
problem it aims to address and an expression of what it hopes to accomplish.
If you like, to write its own terms of reference or charter. Beyond that, to
accept various proposals on how to address the substantive problem... and
beyond that some analysis and concensus building around what, if anything,
need be said and where (in what publication) it need be said. I guess that
feels a little generic and straightforward... I'm sure it won't prove that
easy :-)

I think that an initial telecon would be useful to understand where various
folks are coming from one the technical issue. I think the group also needs
to address a few house-keeping issues: like how it's going to meet
(regularly (frequency), irregularly, by phone, F2F...); what record (beyond
a mailing list archive) of its meetings will be kept (I have a preference
that we do produce a publically accesible record of our meetings); how will
the group manage its process, monitor action items, generate meeting agenda,
make decisions... It would be good to get the house-keeping sorted early so
that discussion can be focussed on substantive matters. A good strawman and
some email discussion might serve better than telcon time.

Telcon constraints:

Mon, Wed, Thur, Fri anytime 09:30-17:30 UK (04:30-12:30 Boston)
Wed and Fri 20:00-22:00 UK (15:00-17:00 Boston)

I'd do late Friday for a one-off, but not as a regular commitment.

Travelling (restricted availability):
22-25 September
6-8 October (TAG F2F in Bristol)
17-25 October (ISWC Florida)

ISWC may provide a useful opportunity for some to meet F2F.

Regards

Stuart Williams
Tel: +44 117 3128285

Received on Monday, 8 September 2003 07:52:03 UTC