Let's drop RDFa in the requirements !

Hi, 


in mail http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-multilingualweb-lt/2012Apr/0131.html, I wrote a possible RDFa markup to represent the fact that "a fragment of text is identified as a named entity". I stressed that there is a shift of meaning : the meaning using RDFa is: "there is a resource in the document that its:lexicalizes a named entity, and that has for its:value in english some fragment of text". 


Actually, there will always be a shift of meaning if we are to use RDFa, and this is a strong conceptualization incompatibility between ITS and RDF. In fact, in ITS one annotates fragments of text (litterals), but in RDF litterals can't be subject of a triple. As simple as that. 


So other RDF models could exist to represent the simple fact that "a fragment of text is identified as a named entity", depending on the model choosen to represent ITS 2.0 with semantic web formalisms. What is the desirable semantic web model for ITS 2.0 ? What are the pros and cons of each ? 


I think that the MLW-LT XG should not bother with RDFa at all, for three main reasons: 



1- I don't see any requirement that explicitly asks for semantic web 

2- It may be extremely confusing to have different conceptualization in the same recommendation 

3- This is typically the kind of conceptualization decision about lexical resources that the Multilingual Semantic Web Community Group will shortly have to face, and I don't think it's a really good idea to choose a semantic web model for ITS 2.0 too early as it might be incompatible with their requirements. 




So I suggest we drop RDFa in the requirements ( delete the two lines that speak about RDFa ) , and let's let the Multilingual Semantic Web Community Group deal with the semantic web, the mapping of ITS annotated XML documents into RDF, and the mapping between its-* attributes and RDFa. 


Regards, 
Maxime Lefrançois 
Ph.D. Student, INRIA - WIMMICS Team 
http://maxime-lefrancois.info 
@Max_Lefrancois