Report of ad hoc Query/NetAPI meeting at ISWC/Sardinia

A small group at ISWC got together for an impromptu discussion around
how to go forward at a practical level on query of RDF and remote access
to RDF.

Here are the conclusions.

Present:
	Dirk-Willem van Gulik <dirkx@apache.org>
	Mike Dean <mdean@bbn.com>
	Alberto Reggiori <areggiori@webweaving.org>
	Jeen Broekstra <jeen.broekstra@aidministrator.nl> 
	Arjon Kampman <arjohn.kampman@aidministrator.nl>
	Steffen Staab  <staab@aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de>
	Benjamin Grosof <bgrosof@mit.edu>
	Graham Moore <gdm@empolis.co.uk>
	Andy Seaborne <andy.seaborne@hp.com>

Apologies:
	Frank van Harmelen <frank.van.harmelen@cs.vu.nl>
	Eric Prud'Hommeaux <eric@w3.org> 

Date: 11 June 2002

Location: First International Semantic Web Conference / Chia, Sardinia.



The group reflected a diverse set of people interested in access to RDF
data, whether through query and/or remote access.  Because remote access
often implies submission of a query, these two areas are related.

We plan to advance each area separately using the same general
mechanism.  We will document existing practice and consolidate all
documentation in the hope that further query and NetAPI work will use
this as a base, rather than inventing similar technology unnecessarily.
Collecting implementation information and test material will also be
valuable.  New query and remote access systems will want to interoperate
with existing query and remote access systems and this is facilitated by
understanding the current state of the installed base, without prejudice
to new features or capabilities.  

This is not a standardisation or recommendation process within any
existing or new organisation.  It is a movement within the RDF community
to draw together what already exists.  Of course, there is a hope that
future systems will choose to adopt an existing solution where possible.

The query and remote access areas will proceed independently - Alberto
Reggiori offered to initiate discussions in the query area and Andy
Seaborne offered to initiate discussions in the remote access area.  

The query thread of discussion will use the existing mailing list
www-rdf-rules@w3.org
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-rules/>

The remote access thread of discussion will be in
www-rdf-interest@w3.org (If the volume is large enough and sustained
enough, we see about forking off a separate list). 

Groups are encouraged to use existing documentation, W3C notes and other
channels to create concise descriptions of their work.

Thanks to everyone there - and a hope we can find enough time to make
this work.

	Andy

Andy Seaborne // tel: +44 117 312 8181 // email: andy.seaborne@hp.com

Received on Wednesday, 19 June 2002 12:04:01 UTC