Re: Using W3id for more than just persistent/permanent identifiers?

On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 3:16 PM, Haag, Jason <jason.haag.ctr@adlnet.gov> wrote:
> I know that w3id was really established to provide a persistent identifier
> mechanism for RDF resource and vocabulary IRIs. However, the fact that it is
> already configured for content negotiation provides a real opportunity for
> communities that don't have the resources (both severs & expertise).
> Technical expertise such as contentneg and having a collaborative workflow
> are often seen as a barriers to getting started with linked data.
>
> Are there any objections to also using the w3id server to host linked data
> files such as html/rdfa, turtle, json-ld? I know that is not what it is
> intended for, but thought I would ask. It could help automate my particular
> workflow where I'm working with several different organizations that are
> wanting to publish their linked data collaboratively and while also having a
> tool to generate the persistent identifiers.
>

While it would be easy to allow arbitrary data, I don't think we
should take w3id.org in that direction at this time.  The service was
designed to be a simple redirector.  If we also add in hosting user
data there are three problems I see.

1. A likely small increase in resource usage and cost.
2. The current system involves manual interaction for updates.  Part
of the choice for doing that was the assumption that link updates
would be rare but content the links point to could be updated however
the owners want without w3id.org in the loop.  Better tooling would
fix this issue.
3. If the service hosts user content, we'll have to worry about what
that content is.  I don't think we want to be in the middle of
copyright issues, other similar claims, or content policing.  With
links we mostly avoid such problems.

There are many cloud services out there that can host data and would
be easy to point w3id.org links at.  They also likely have better
interfaces for dealing with files than what w3id.org is using now.  If
it in fact is too difficult for some people, perhaps that's an
opportunity for another service?

-dave

Received on Tuesday, 17 November 2015 21:39:52 UTC