Re: Terminology when talking about Linked Data

Nathan wrote:
> Hugh Glaser wrote:
>   
>> Wow Nathan, that's an interesting set of reactions - we could go off and
>> discuss them, but I will give my 3 cents on the original question.
>>
>> I too have difficulty with customers on the "Open" word.
>> Open can mean a few things, and some of the posters here seem to interpret
>> it to mean open standards.
>> My interpretation has been that the data is open; as it says at the start of
>> the project page [1]:
>> "The Open Data Movement aims at making data freely available to everyone ...
>> The goal of the W3C SWEO Linking Open Data community project is to extend
>> the Web with a data commons by publishing various open data sets as RDF on
>> the Web and by setting RDF links between data items from different data
>> sources."
>> So it is Linking Open Data, not something like Open Linked Data.
>> So personally I have used Linked Data quite a lot, sometimes as Linked Data
>> Technologies.
>> I take it to mean the same thing as Linking Open Data, but where the data is
>> not necessarily open - this is important for a customer that wants to use
>> the (whole) technology stack, but does not want to make their data open.
>> "Open" can really freak people out
>> I avoid Semantic Web, as that is often received as primarily doing AI.
>> More recently I have also badged as Web of Data; don't know if Michael
>> started it, but you do see it around. Sort of a good capture of the ideas.
>> I also talk about an application using the Unbounded Web of Data, if it
>> actually goes out and fetches RDF on finding links.
>> Finally, if I am pushed to use Semantic Web (ie that is what they come
>> with), I always say I work in Semantic Web Technologies.
>> As someone who works on the software, it can be very useful to append
>> technologies to whatever phrase I use:- otherwise the assumption is that the
>> work is primarily concerned with building ontologies or transforming
>> datasets, rather than infrastructure development.
>>
>> I don't think that either Linked Data (Technologies) or Web of Data
>> addresses your problems that customers think they already have it in Web
>> Services; I usually talk about moving from point to point vocabularies
>> towards widely agreed vocabularies at that stage, and through to unbounded.
>>
>> Best
>> Hugh
>>
>> [1] 
>> http://esw.w3.org/topic/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData#
>> head-277d7f68544ce1a9e252f5c0080b6402cd983a49
>> [2] http://www.webofdata.info/
>> [3] http://webofdata.wordpress.com/
>>     
>
> Ahh ty, I can see Web of Data, and Linked Data Technologies both being
> thrown in to a conversation when discussing Linked Data in broad
> strokes. Also it had slipped my mind till now but there's always the
> Giant Global Graph reference too - Web of Data seems to set the tone and
> paint the ideal mental picture for further communications though (ie
> makes sense to me)!
>
> Regards
>
>
>   
Here are issue against "Web of Data" :

1.  most people assumed a Web of Data from the onset of the Web
2.  the fact that a document may or may not host structured data doesn't 
invalidate it as a "unit of data" albeit compound in nature (re. innards).

Thus, based on the items above, whether its a Web of Documents or a Web 
of Data, we don't end up with immediate clarity re. what the new Web 
interaction dimension is all about.

I use Web of Linked Data because its easy for juxtaposition re. Web of 
Documents or Web of Data since neither convey implicit linkage of the 
kind delivered by generic HTTP URIs :-)

-- 

Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	      
President & CEO 
OpenLink Software     
Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
Twitter/Identi.ca: kidehen

Received on Wednesday, 17 February 2010 17:20:39 UTC