ISSUE-27 (format): URIs for file formats [DCAT]

ISSUE-27 (format): URIs for file formats [DCAT]

http://www.w3.org/2011/gld/track/issues/27

Raised by: Phil Archer
On product: DCAT

DCAT uses dcterms:format thus:

:distribution dcterms:format [
   a dcterms:IMT;
   rdf:value "text/csv";
   rdfs:label "CSV"
]

Is this the best we can do? There are alternatives:

1. Ed Summers' work on providing URIs for MIME types [1] could potentially be moved in to W3C space by this WG.

2. Ivan Herman's work on providing file types [2] could be extended ad hoc to provide a stable set of URIs for file formats that includes MIME type as one property but allows for unambiguous naming of multiple formats with a single MIME type

3. Stick with what we have.

Of these, 3 is the path of least resistance, 2 is my preferred option. This is because, as Ivan points out, the MIME type doesn't always tell you everything you need to know.  It's not that big a task and we could create a few key ones fairly quickly. 

[1] http://mediatypes.appspot.com/
[2] http://www.w3.org/ns/formats/ 

Received on Thursday, 9 February 2012 13:32:45 UTC