Re: URIs as value

On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Felix Sasaki <fsasaki@w3.org> wrote:
>
> Saying "we provide an RDF based format and mandate its usage in the API" is
> like an invitation to browser vendors not to implement the API. I think that
> would be a mistake. Remember that still we mostly have people from the
> academic world on board. I don't want to loose them, but want to have an
> approach which encourages more particiation from also that industry.

I don't think RDF was suggested as the only format. Just an
addition/alternative way of specifying the data. Of course, the
traditional text should continue to be available. I just like the way
in which RDF specifies a piece of data in a way that it can be
uniquely identified.

I think we should not close this door but keep it as an alternative
means of giving the data. A such, we don't even need to specify
anything but "text" in the data elements - a URI is text, too. Though
it's worth a thought to consider as data value a text-uri-combination.

BTW: RDF is coming out of the research/standards doors and is starting
to be used by real applications and industry. It's too obvious a
source of valuable data that any company will be able to pass it by. I
for one have been considering for my company to use the semantic web
in addition to website APIs to mine for information that cannot be
found in any other way.

I can understand your concerns though - we don't want this to be
*dependent* on the semantic web. But I don't think there is any harm
in keeping options open.

Regards,
Silvia.