Re: [dxwg] Distributions, services and implementation-resources

This is a conversation that's been lingering on the edges for a while, so its really good that its surfaced.  

If we ignore services for a moment and just consider the DCAT2014 style of use, having distributions that aren't equivalent immediately raises the question of how does a consumer choose between them?  Its true that some formats make it easier to express certain characteristics than others, so there is a challenge for the publisher to be very careful here about what datasets (ie information) is really being published. In at a least one of the uses we have internally (not referenceable at this point, unfortunately), we've been looking at using dataset subset relations as way through this - I'll see if I can provide a coherant use case for this.

Once you introduce services that go beyond "download the whole thing" then we've looked at that as a dynamic subset - in effect a slice of some underlying distribution which varies according to the needs of the consumer.  That allows the publisher to describe the whole dataset which might be downloadable in one form, or shareable via a cloud based bucket in another (for example) as well as providing access services on the same information via some interface. If the consumer uses a selection interface then they just get a subset, trading off completeness against ease of use (ideally).  The consumer can rely on all access paths giving the same information.

But to agree to @rob-metalinkage 's point we do need some documented use cases for this.  Unfortunately our use of DCAT hasn't filtered through to our available/public services quite yet, but I'll see what I can do

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Received on Tuesday, 25 September 2018 07:26:54 UTC