Re: GRDDL extraction *to* RDFa (issue-output-formats)

On Sep 9, 2006, at 7:23 PM, Ben Adida wrote:
> Chimezie Ogbuji wrote:
>> I've always thought of the GRDDL process as a black box where an XML
>> dialect goes in and an RDF syntax comes out (RDF/XML currently, 
>> though I
>> think there
>> is an outstanding issue in the author's version to consider other
>> serializations of RDF).  The mechanisms by which the transforms are
>> registered and the transformation itself constitute the black box.
>
> Correct, I agree with that, though I would say that XHTML+RDFa is just
> another syntax for RDF (with extra bells and whistles, like how to
> display it so a human can read it.)

Indeed, we can look at XHTML+RDFa as another RDF syntax.
And as such, we should look at how many issues came up in
the development of the RDF/XML spec, and how long it took
to work them out. I18N details, URI details, etc. You might
say that the abstract syntax and semantics are now nailed
down, so the syntax issues should be easier. Well, a little.
I can't imagine any WG sticking strictly to the task of
making a new syntax without adding any features while
they're at it... e.g. I'd argue to allow literals as subjects.

I'm inclined to have this first GRDDL Recommendation
mandate RDF/XML, and when other RDF syntaxes
mature, revise the GRDDL spec to accomodate them.

In fact, our charter has langauge that seems to
prescribe the answer to this issue:
   "It binds XML documents, especially XHTML documents, XHTML profiles 
and XML namespace documents, to transformations (typically in XSLT) 
that relate their syntax to RDF/XML."

So I think any other resolution of this issue would involve
checking around to see whether we need a charter change.

[...]
>  RDFa can and should be a first-class serialization
> of RDF.

In time, perhaps.

> The way I look at it is: there is no "pure RDF" syntax.

No, but there is a recommended syntax, with a zillion little
engineering details worked out, and hundreds of test cases
reviewed thru the W3C process.


-- 
Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/

Received on Friday, 15 September 2006 02:05:20 UTC