Re: Linked Stuff [was Re: RDF's challenge]

On 11 June 2013 19:59, David Booth <david@dbooth.org> wrote:

> On 06/11/2013 12:18 PM, Kingsley Idehen wrote:
>
>> On 6/11/13 11:56 AM, David Booth wrote:
>>
>>> On 06/11/2013 10:59 AM, Kingsley Idehen wrote:
>>>
>>>> [ . . . ]  many RDF advocates
>>>> want to conflate Linked Data and RDF. This is technically wrong, and
>>>> marketing wise -- an utter disaster.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I have not heard RDF advocates conflating Linked Data and RDF, but
>>> maybe you talk to different RDF advocates than me.
>>>
>>> AFAICT, the vast majority of RDF advocates know that Linked Data is
>>> RDF in which URIs are deferenceable to more RDF, but RDF is not
>>> necessarily Linked Data, because RDF itself does not require URIs to
>>> be dereferenceable.
>>>
>>> David
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>  RDF isn't the defining characteristic when speaking about Linked Data
>> outside the RDF community.
>>
>
> But RDF *is* one of Linked Data's defining characteristics, regardless of
> whether people outside the RDF community understand that.  (And it seems to
> me that if they don't understand that, then we should help them to
> understand that, rather than perpetuating their misunderstanding.)
>
>  It is much more palatable outside of the RDF
>> community to loosely couple Linked Data (the concept) and RDF (a
>> framework) which enables the construction of powerful Linked Data that's
>> endowed with *explicit* human and machine-comprehensible entity
>> relationships semantics.
>>
>
> We could define a new concept that decouples RDF from Linked Data.  But to
> avoid conflating Linked Data with this new notion, let's call this new
> notion "Linked Stuff":
>
>   DEFINITION: **Linked Stuff** is data that uses URIs to
>   identify things, and those URIs are dereferenceable to
>   more Linked Stuff that describes those things.
>
> There may be some good marketing benefit in adopting this simple notion of
> Linked Stuff, since it avoids any mention of RDF, but there would be a very
> important technical loss as well, in comparison with Linked Data.  To
> understand that loss, suppose a client application has some Linked Stuff
> and wants to learn more about the thing identified by one of the URIs in
> it.  The client application automatically dereferences that URI and
> receives more Linked Stuff.  But can the client application understand or
> do anything with the document that it receives?  Not necessarily, because
> that document may be in some random tab-separated-values form, that the
> client application has no idea how to interpret.
>
> Compare this with Linked Data.  In the Linked Data case, the client
> application receives RDF.  The document does not necessarily *look* like
> RDF (to an untrained eye), because RDF is syntax independent, and there are
> many different serializations of RDF.  But as long as some kind of standard
> RDF serialization was used -- even XML-based serializations that use
> GRDDL[1] -- the client application is able to interpret and make use of
> that document.
>
> This is the goal of the Semantic Web: to enable machines to usefully and
> (semi-)automatically, find, share, combine and process web data. Because
> Linked Data is RDF, Linked Data supports that goal in a very important way
> that Linked Stuff does not.
>

We already have the 5 stars of linked data.  If you use RDF you're probably
5 star.  If you dont you're probably 4 star or lower.  That said, there may
be some other linked data system one day become a 5 star standard.


>
> David
>
> 1. GRDDL: http://www.w3.org/TR/grddl-**primer/<http://www.w3.org/TR/grddl-primer/>
>
>
>> Why? Because you don't build friction with folks that are already
>> familiar with similar concepts albeit described using different
>> terminology.
>>
>> The key is to build bridges rather than impede their construction by
>> enforcing world views in the most inflexible way.
>>
>> If someone indicates to you that the letters R-D-F don't work for them,
>> for whatever reason, what's wrong with triangulation to the same
>> destination when it's the fundamental concept that matters, not the
>> labels that we slap on them at specific times in our innovation continuum?
>>
>> RDF and the Entity Relationship model [1] outlined by Peter Chen in his
>> 1976 dissertation are linked, conceptually and technically. That
>> association is very powerful and extremely useful in situations where
>> your audience suffers from R-D-F reflux.
>>
>> RDF is useful, but it (like all innovations) has genealogy. That
>> genealogy is just as important as the innovations it adds to the
>> continuum.
>>
>> Links:
>>
>> 1. http://bit.ly/YTdz3N -- The Entity-Relationship Model -- Toward a
>> Unified View of Data  (note: page 34) .
>>
>>
>>
>