Re: Nov 18 telecon: Approval of RDFTM Task Force

* Steve Pepper <pepper@ontopia.net> [2004-11-15 17:00+0100]
> 
> I would like to request that the issue of approving
> the proposed RDF/Topic Maps Interoperability Task Force
> be added to the agenda for this upcoming telecon on
> Thursday and, at the same time, encourage members of
> the WG to review the (short and sweet :-) Task Force
> Description at
> 
>   http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/RDFTM/
> 
> I haven't received any feedback, over and above what
> was given during the Brisol f2f, so I'm hoping there
> won't be a need for a lengthy discussion. I am at the
> XML 2004 conference and may not have time to take
> part in the whole telecon.

Looks good to me. 

Some minor points:

 "* Producing guidelines for cross-querying RDF/OWL data and topic maps."

...this one seems redundant. If RDF/OWL data can include stuff 
converted from TMs, a measure of success for our short term goals 
should be that the DAWG's SPARQL "just works" for this purpose. If 
we find we need to specify a custom RDF+TM cross-querying approach,
then I fear something hasn't gone quite right. Same goes for API, 
rule languages, etc etc., and for RDF reflected into the TM universe.
I can live with this bullet, but would suggest s/guidelines for/examples
of/ to note that a walkthrough of how to do this could still be useful.

 "* Producing guidelines for using OWL to constrain topic maps."

...I could make same comment, and the 'guidelines' -> 'examples' 
point I think still stands here. Using OWL to constrain TMs does
seem trickier somehow, hard to articulate why. Hmm many people 
are mapping from SQL/RDBMS schemas into RDF, but they don't talk about
using RDF/OWL vocabs to constrain relational databases, perhaps 
something similar might happen with RDF/TM. Not sure. 


"Target Audience: Information owners and application developers who wish
to integrate RDF and Topic Maps data."

propose s/owners/publishers/, since "owner" feels a little legalistic.

I trust that we can tweak this document slightly if the need arises, but 
it seems good enough to get us moving. Thanks for your work on this!


Oh last thought, I'm not sure where PSIs fit into this picture. Are they 
naturally included by our reference to ISO 13250 TMs? Worth explicit 
mention? In particular, SWBPD WG's existing efforts around SKOS (RDF 
for thesaurus-like systems) has already given rise to a fair 
amount of discussion on PSIs and RDF. Regardless of the exact 
approach we settle on, some acknowledgement of this debate (and 
relationship to SKOS) would be useful. I don't know the TM scene 
and it's concerns well enough to propose wording here. Could you suggest
something? 

Thanks,

Dan

Received on Thursday, 18 November 2004 08:14:51 UTC