RE: Comments on GRDDL (using 3rd-party XML schemas with GRDDL) [OK?]

This is not an official response from the GRDDL WG, but just a couple of
points that I hope will aid this discussion.

1. A key concept of GRDDL is that the XML document author has
*authorized* the resulting RDF as a "faithful rendition" of the original
XML document:
http://www.w3.org/TR/grddl/#sec_rend

The central idea is that there must be a clear chain of authority
leading from the XML document to the resulting RDF, either via direct
annotations or by explicit reference to some a namespace or profile
document.  

2. The use (or non-use) of XML Schema is irrelevant to GRDDL.
Independent of GRDDL, the same XML document may be used by different
applications that wish to transform that XML document to different kinds
of RDF for different purposes that are *not* necessarily "faithful
renditions" of the original XML document, just as the same XML document
may be used with different XML schemas, and not all of them may be
sanctioned by the original XML document author.  GRDDL is not designed
to support such arbitrary transformations.  It is only designed to
support those that are demonstrably intended to produce a "Faithful
Rendition" as indicated by a clear chain of authority leading from the
original XML document as mentioned above.  

This chain of authority is what permits XML document consumers to
reliably follow their noses from the XML document to authorized RDF
results *without* resorting to out-of-band communication between XML
document producers and consumers.

If XML document consumers are intended to use a transformation that is
*not* indicated directly or indirectly by the XML document -- a 3rd
party transformation -- then the XML document producer and consumers
would have to have some out-of-band mechanism to indicate that the
transformation is authorized.  And if the parties have such an
out-of-band communication channel anyway, then they might as well also
use that channel to indicate what transformation should be used.  There
is much less need to standardize how that transformation can be
indicated.  Granted, there may still be some need, but it is a far less
compelling need than when producer and consumers do not have such an
out-of-band channel, and that is what GRDDL addresses.


David Booth, Ph.D.
HP Software
+1 617 629 8881 office  |  dbooth@hp.com
http://www.hp.com/go/software

Opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not represent
the official views of HP unless explicitly stated otherwise.

Received on Thursday, 19 July 2007 04:33:28 UTC