[VM] RDF vocabulary configuration management with named graphs

Btw, subsequent to our discussion at the telecon today, the cleanest way I can imagine to do version history for RDF vocabularies is to use named graphs [1].

The SKOS Core RDF/OWL description would look much cleaner if it were like e.g. (using TriG syntax [2]) ...

@prefix skos: <http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#> .
@prefix graph: <http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core/graph#> .
@prefix rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> .
@prefix rdfs: <> .
@prefix temp: <http://www.foo.org/temp#> .
@prefix dct: <http://purl.org/dc/terms/>

# default graph
{		
	graph:prefLabel-001 a temp:Graph;
		dct:isReplacedBy graph:prefLabel-002;
		dc:date '2005-04-04';
		.
		
	graph:prefLabel-002 a temp:Graph;
		dct:replaces graph:prefLabel-001;
		dc:date '2005-07-01';
		.

	<http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core> a temp:Graph;
		temp:unionOf (graph:prefLabel-002, graph:altLabel-004, ...);
		dct:modified '2005-07-01';
		.
}

graph:prefLabel-001
{
	skos:prefLabel a rdf:Property;
		rdfs:label 'preferred label';
		rdfs:comment 'blah';
		. 
}

graph:prefLabel-002
{
	skos:prefLabel a rdf:Property;
		rdfs:label 'preferred lexical label';
		rdfs:comment 'blah blah';
		.
}

... this would support what danbri said, i.e. via sparql get the description of e.g. skos:prefLabel at a given point in time.

Currently what is at http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core is pretty messy, with lots of commented statements to preserve historical stuff.

Cheers,

Al.

[1] http://www.w3.org/2004/03/trix/
[2] http://www.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/suhl/bizer/TriG/
---
Alistair Miles
Research Associate
CCLRC - Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Building R1 Room 1.60
Fermi Avenue
Chilton
Didcot
Oxfordshire OX11 0QX
United Kingdom
Email:        a.j.miles@rl.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1235 445440

Received on Tuesday, 5 July 2005 14:54:36 UTC