- From: Norman Gray <norman@astro.gla.ac.uk>
- Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:53:20 +0100
- To: paoladimaio10@googlemail.com
- Cc: public-xg-eiif <public-xg-eiif@w3.org>
Paola, hello. On 2009 Sep 17, at 17:26, Paola Di Maio wrote: >> 2. the Cabinet in the UK is a bit stuck in RDFizing their vocabulary, >>> posted >>> recently to ths list, cause they havent decided on the namespaces >>> yet, >>> among >>> other issues, Peter who attended the vocamp and works for the >>> government >>> is >>> going to try to solicit them gently, he agrees that some things >>> cannot >>> wait >>> for govenrments to get unstuck . If anyone decides to rdfize >>> vocabularies >>> with temporary namespaces could help move things along. Let's see if >>> something happens >>> >> >> I agree that it's important to get things under way, and that a >> temporary >> namespace might help get things moving until the vocabulary gets some >> traction. But beware: the evidence that the vocabulary has some >> traction >> may be that it's being used sufficiently widelyl that you can no >> longer >> change the namespace. This happened with FOAF and with SKOS. The >> FOAF >> namespace is http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/ and will remain so no >> matter what >> version FOAF has -- they can't change the version number. A >> similar thing >> happened with SKOS. >> >> I'm not saying there's an easy answer to this, just that no-one >> should >> blithely say 'och, we can change the namespace later...'. >> > > OKAY, BUT WE CAN START WORKING AND THEN SLIP IN THE NAMESPACES JUST > IN TIME > BEFORE PUBLISHING THE VOCABS PERHAPS PROVIDED THEY ARE READY, AND > IF NOT, > WORRY ABOUT IT LATER? Two points: * The namespace you use doesn't actually have to exist as a dereferenceabl URL. It's good practice to have the namespace document resolvable, but nothing will break if that's not true right at the start. * The crucial milestone is when someone who isn't part of the development team actually starts using your vocabularies in software. At that point, changing the namespace will cause software to break, and so at that point people will start squealing loudly if you threaten to do so. So you need to plan for that. Have fun! Norman -- Norman Gray : http://nxg.me.uk Dept Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, UK
Received on Sunday, 20 September 2009 17:53:59 UTC