Re: WebID vs. JSON (Was: Re: Think before you write Semantic Web crawlers)

On 6/22/11 4:08 PM, Dave Reynolds wrote:
> On Wed, 2011-06-22 at 15:52 +0100, Leigh Dodds wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> On 22 June 2011 15:41, William Waites<ww@styx.org>  wrote:
>>> What does WebID have to do with JSON? They're somehow representative
>>> of two competing trends.
>>>
>>> The RDF/JSON, JSON-LD, etc. work is supposed to be about making it
>>> easier to work with RDF for your average programmer, to remove the
>>> need for complex parsers, etc. and generally to lower the barriers.
>>>
>>> The WebID arrangement is about raising barriers. Not intended to be
>>> the same kind of barriers, certainly the intent isn't to make
>>> programmer's lives more difficult, rather to provide a good way to do
>>> distributed authentication without falling into the traps of PKI and
>>> such.
>>>
>>> While I like WebID, and I think it is very elegant, the fact is that I
>>> can use just about any HTTP client to retrieve a document whereas to
>>> get rdf processing clients, agents, whatever, to do it will require
>>> quite a lot of work [1]. This is one reason why, for example, 4store's
>>> arrangement of /sparql/ for read operations and /data/ and /update/
>>> for write operations is *so* much easier to work with than Virtuoso's
>>> OAuth and WebID arrangement - I can just restrict access using all of
>>> the normal tools like apache, nginx, squid, etc..
>>>
>>> So in the end we have some work being done to address the perception
>>> that RDF is difficult to work with and on the other hand a suggestion
>>> of widespread putting in place of authentication infrastructure which,
>>> whilst obviously filling a need, stands to make working with the data
>>> behind it more difficult.
>>>
>>> How do we balance these two tendencies?
>> By recognising that often we just need to use existing technologies
>> more effectively and more widely, rather than throw more technology at
>> a problem, thereby creating an even greater education and adoption
>> problem?
> +1
>
> Don't raise barriers to linked data use/publication by tying it to
> widespread adoption and support for WebID.

-1

You are misunderstanding WebID and what it delivers.

I am popping out, but I expect a response. Should Henry not put this 
misconception to REST, I'll certainly reply.

Got to go do some walking for now :-)
> Dave
>
>
>
>


-- 

Regards,

Kingsley Idehen 
President&  CEO
OpenLink Software
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Received on Wednesday, 22 June 2011 15:12:18 UTC