Re: A Distributed Economy -- A blog involving Linked Data

On 9/19/14 4:38 PM, Brent Shambaugh wrote:
> Manu Sporny's post titled "Building Linked Data into the Core of the Web"
> [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webpayments/2014Sep/0063.html 
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webpayments/2014Sep/0063.html>] 
> led to the question:
> is linked data and semantic web tech useful? I think so. I can only 
> speak from my own perspective and experience.

Brent,

Pasting my reply to Manu (with some editing) here, as I think its important:

Manu,

It is misleading (albeit inadvertent in regards to your post above) to 
infer that Linked Data isn't already the core of the Web. The absolute 
fact of the matter is that Linked Data has been the core of the Web 
since it was an idea [1][2].

The Web doesn't work at all if HTTP URIs aren't names for:

[1] What exists on the Web
[2] What exists, period.

We just have the misfortune of poor communications mucking up proper 
comprehension of AWWW. For example, RDF should have been presented to 
the world as an effort by the W3C to standardize an existing aspect of 
the Web i.e., the ability to leverage HTTP URIs as mechanisms for:

1. entity identification & naming
2. entity description using sentences or statements -- where (as is the 
case re., natural language) a sentence or statement is comprised of a 
subject, predicate, and object.

Instead, we ended up with an incomprehensible, indefensible, and at best 
draconian narrative that has forever tainted the letters "R-D-F" .  And 
to compount matters, "HttpRange-14" has become censorship tool (based on 
its ridiculous history), that blurs fixing this horrible state of affairs.

Links:

[1] http://bit.ly/10Y9FL1 -- Evidence that Linked Data was always at the 
core of the Web (excuse some instability on my personal data space 
instance, at this point in time, should you encounter issues looking up 
the document identified by this HTTP URI)

[2] 
http://kidehen.blogspot.com/2014/03/world-wide-web-25-years-later.html 
-- World Wide Web, 25 years later

[3] 
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/04/b4/79/04b4794ccf2b6fd14ed3c822be26382f.jpg 
-- Illustrating identification (naming) on the Web (re., things that 
exist on or off the Web medium) .

-- 

-- 
Regards,

Kingsley Idehen 
Founder & CEO
OpenLink Software
Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
Personal Weblog 1: http://kidehen.blogspot.com
Personal Weblog 2: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
Twitter Profile: https://twitter.com/kidehen
Google+ Profile: https://plus.google.com/+KingsleyIdehen/about
LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kidehen
Personal WebID: http://kingsley.idehen.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this