RE: PDF's usefulness to the semantic web

I agree with Jose that it is appropriate to focus first on W3C
Recommendations.  However, I would also note that objective 2.1 in our
charter says:

- <Objective>
  <SequenceIndicator>2.1</SequenceIndicator> 
  <Name>Transparency and Openness</Name> 
  <Description>Identify ways to improve government transparency and
openness.</Description> 
  <Stakeholder /> 
  <OtherInformation>Identify any gaps to be filled in creating a complete
suite of standards to enable open government information and ease the goal
of linkable Public Sector Information.</OtherInformation> 
  </Objective>
http://xml.gov/stratml/WEIG.xml 

If we were to go beyond W3C Recommendations right now, it seems to me that
emerging Recommendations like SVG Print --
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Vector_Graphics -- and W3C Notes like
this one -- http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-XFDL -- might be the next logical
steps for referencing.

Ultimately, I believe the reasonable pursuit of objective 2.1 requires
something along the lines suggested in my October 1 posting on the listserv:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-egov-ig/2008Oct/0010 In short,
all standards should be in readily referenceable format with appropriate
elements of metadata embedded to enable indexing and facilitate discovery.
It would be good of the eGov IG could play a role in fostering specification
of the necessary XSD for such metadata.

Owen

-----Original Message-----
From: public-egov-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:public-egov-ig-request@w3.org]
On Behalf Of Jose M. Alonso
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 4:20 AM
To: Dave McAllister; Bobby Caudill
Cc: Owen Ambur; eGovernment Interest Group WG; Christopher Testa; Miguel
Ángel Amutio; John Sheridan
Subject: Re: PDF's usefulness to the semantic web

Dave, Bobby,

I think we are talking about ISSUE-18 again here, what standards  
besides W3C's should be added to the document. Some comments about this.

I'm sure we all agree on the usefulness and heavy use in government of  
several standards beyond W3C's. Said that, here's my rational _not_ to  
include those you are referring to (and others).

1) This is W3C and the document is titled? "... of the Web" and I  
prefer to stick to Web standards for now. For me, e.g. PDF/A and OOXML  
are not Web standards but something you can link to from the Web, as  
you can link to a ZIP file. Not an expert in the field and welcome any  
additional info but quite sure we could discuss for hours and hours  
what is Web and what is not and we would probably have as many  
versions as group participants.

2) I would like to see the Web-related use cases to add this or any  
other technology and not adding them just for growing the list of  
standards referenced in the document.

3) Why add only ISO ones, why not IETF ones or others'?
As an example, I recently learned about the study for the catalogue of  
standards usable by governments here in Spain, and heard Miguel Amutio  
speak about it saying 400 coming from dozens of bodies were analyzed.  
Not to mention other similar initiatives such as the U.S. TRM.

4) We don't have a liaison with ISO and I would prefer this Group not  
to make interpretations on the use of standards developed by other  
organizations without discussing with them how they fit in our work.


Scoping the Group's work was a difficult challenge and I don't think  
that broadening the scope now that the charter is about expire makes  
sense.

I think we should disregard this for now but discuss it when  
developing the 2nd charter, see if we should work on a broader suite  
of standards, setup a liaison with more SDOs, etc.

One more comment, you mention:
> On reading the document several times, it seems uncleaqr if we are  
> focused on transient data and remunging such, on archival and  
> temporal validation of such.  I think this came through in some of  
> the discussions on socila media in the last telecon.

I wish we had some text in the "Long Term" section but we don't yet.  
There were former IG Members tasked to provide use cases on the  
differences you mention. I remember we were going to get a use case on  
"Temporal Data" but unfortunately that didn't happen.

Sticking to the Web standards part above, I think that section was  
intended to talk about "Web Archiving" and maybe the closest view is  
that of the draft use case John submitted a while ago --
http://www.w3.org/2007/eGov/IG/wiki/Use_Case_10_-_Persistent_URIs


-- Jose



El 09/04/2009, a las 21:41, Dave McAllister escribió:
> Actually, I think it important that we do recognize and extend to  
> relevant standards. PDF (as in ISO 32000) is such, as are PDF/A, PDF/ 
> E, PDF/X.  There are also best practices based on such , e.g.  PDF/ 
> Healthcare. PDF/UA is approaching such status as well.
>
> It is interesting to note that right now neither Mars nor XPS are   
> formal standards, though I suspect XPS will be approved in Ecma  
> shortly (as was OOXML for th starting point of that most painful  
> standard process.
>
> On reading the document several times, it seems uncleaqr if we are  
> focused on transient data and remunging such, on archival and  
> temporal validation of such.  I think this came through in some of  
> the discussions on socila media in the last telecon.
>
> Reworking the world from PDF (to which there are numous independent  
> implementations)seems counter intuitive in this best practices style.
>
> davemc
>
> On 4/9/09 11:47 AM, "Owen Ambur" <Owen.Ambur@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> If PDF is expressly referenced, so too should Adobe’s Mars Project  
> -- http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/mars/ -- as well as XFDL --
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Forms_Description_Language 
>  -- and XPS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_Paper_Specification
>
> Owen Ambur
> Co-Chair Emeritus, xmlCoP <http://xml.gov/index.asp>
> Co-Chair, AIIM StratML Committee <http://xml.gov/stratml/index.htm>
> Member, AIIM iECM Committee
<http://www.aiim.org/Standards/article.aspx?ID=29284 
> >
> Invited Expert, W3C eGov IG <http://www.w3.org/2007/eGov/IG/>
> Communications/Membership Director, FIRM Board
<http://firmcouncil.org/id5.html 
> >
> Former Project Manager, ET.gov <http://et.gov/>
> Brief Bio <http://ambur.net/bio.htm>
>
>
>
>
> From: public-egov-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:public-egov-ig-request@w3.org 
> ] On Behalf Of Bobby Caudill
> Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 10:11 AM
> To: public-egov-ig@w3.org
> Subject: PDF's usefulness to the semantic web
>
>
> Calling out PDF specifically here should be reconsidered.
>
> >From a semantic web perspective, PDF is more useful than many other  
> formats, including graphics, imagery, audio and video, all of which  
> are very useful formats for government to consider when becoming  
> transparent. Given that documents are machine readable as well as  
> human readable, technologies do exist today that are capable of  
> extracting an ontology, making the information more useful to the  
> semantic web.
>
> In addition, there simply are times when a secure container is  
> required for publishing information. While typical internet  
> technologies, such as outlined above, are very good for sharing and  
> transparency, they are not necessarily always appropriate for  
> information types that require assurances of authenticity, privacy,  
> authoritativeness, etc.
>
> Further, is the requirement to archive PSI. Again, with  
> consideration that many government processes are document based, PDF/ 
> a (ISO 19005-1:2005) provides a standards based approach to ensuring  
> the long term preservation of government information. PDF/a based  
> documents are both machine readable, making them searchable,  
> discoverable and available to the same technologies as an ISO 3200  
> PDF to extract ontologies. Likewise, the standard’s based nature of  
> PDF/a ensures the ability to allow human access to the documents  
> into the future.
>
> I am concerned that this paper is limiting it's focus and not taking  
> into consideration the wider view of government processes, many of  
> which depend upon more traditional document formats for legitimate  
> business reasons.
>
> Thank you for the consideration.
>
> Bobby Caudill
>
>
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Bobby Caudill
> Solution Architect, Global Government Solutions
> Adobe Systems Incorporated
> 8201 Greensboro Dr., # 1000
> McLean, VA 22102
> 703.883.2872 - Office
> 703.855.9945 – Mobile
> @BobbyCaudill – Twitter
> Bobby Caudill – Facebook
> www.governmentbits.com - Blog
> rcaudill@adobe.com
>
>
> -- 
> Dave McAllister
> Director, Standards and Open Source
> 650-523-4942 (GC)
> 408-536-3881 (Office)
> Dwmcallister (Skype, Aim, YIM)
> http://blogs.adobe.com/open

Received on Tuesday, 21 April 2009 13:20:49 UTC