Introduction: Andy Seaborne / HP

I did my PhD at Cambridge, UK then joined HPLabs where I have worked on a
number of different projects, most notably in distributed object systems,
work on the use of infra-red with early involvement in the IrDA, on
fail-forward fault tolerant software systems for telecoms systems, and print
brokering using web services for commercial printing.  I am now a member of
the semantic web research group in HPLabs [1].

I am one of the developers of the Jena [2] semantic web framework for Java,
which is open source. Within Jena, I am responsible for the RDQL [3]
subsystem, the N3 reader and writers and the RDF Server, Joseki [4].  RDQL
is based on earlier work by others on Squish and rdfDB; Joseki arose from
joint work [5] and has continued to evolve based on experience and user
feedback.

My interest in this working group comes from wanting access to information -
there is a lot of information in things that look like databases (from large
to small) but today I find it can take a lot of mundane work to find get it,
even when I know where it is.  A machine should be able to help.  A part of
the Semantic Web becoming widespread is access to this information, without
restrictions such as needing to adapt to a particular toolkit or particular
protocol.  So the idea of "access" as a common language and common mechanism
is an important step on the way.

Generally, email is a good way of contacting me.  I'm based in HPlabs in
Bristol so I'm on UK time.  I do hang out a bit on #rdfig [6] but I'm not a
regular - if you want to chat that way, you may need to drop me an email to
remind to be online (and to make sure the window isn't buried under
Eclipse).

I hope this working group will rapidly produce a rec. that is useful to
toolkit developers and application writers.  That helps people who want to
publish RDF because they can reach a wider audience.  Timeliness is as
important than trying to produce something for all cases - a successful
outcome would be people and systems using it, so much so that there is a
demand for a second version because the first has been an enabler.  In other
words, we aren't trying to get it completely right first time - a successful
rec. would create new requirements we can't anticipate now.

This is my first working group and I'm looking forward to hearing from you
all, to understanding your experiences with RDF and OWL and your useful
applications.  I also look forward to meeting up at the face-to-face
meetings.

    Andy

[1] http://www.hpl.hp.com/semweb/
[2] http://jena.sourceforge.net
[3] http://www.w3.org/Submission/2004/SUBM-RDQL-20040109/
[4] http://www.joseki.org/
[5] http://www.w3.org/Submission/2003/SUBM-rdf-netapi-20031002/
[6] irc://irc.freenode.net:6667/rdfig

-----------------------------------------------------------------

@prefix dc:        <http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/> .
@prefix rdfs:      <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix rdf:       <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> .
@prefix foaf:      <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> .
@prefix contact:   <http://www.w3.org/2000/10/swap/pim/contact#> .
@prefix apt:       <http://www.megginson.com/exp/ns/airports#> .
@prefix vcard:     <http://www.w3.org/2001/vcard-rdf/3.0#> .

[]  rdf:type                foaf:Person ;
    foaf:name               "Andy Seaborne" ;
    foaf:firstName          "Andy" ;
    foaf:surname            "Seaborne" ;
    foaf:nick               "AndyS", "afs" ;
    foaf:webPage            <http://www-uk.hpl.hp.com/people/afs/> ;
    foaf:mbox_sha1sum       "d84b2e439ae33d719820f02e60a47ed39ad98e67" ;

    foaf:workInfoHomepage   <http://www-uk.hpl.hp.com/people/afs/> ;
    foaf:workplaceHomepage  <http://www.hpl.hp.com/semweb/> ;

    foaf:interest           <http://www.joseki.org/> ;
    foaf:interest           <http://jena.sourceforge.net/> ;
    foaf:interest           <http://senseis.xmp.net/> ;
  
    contact:nearestAirport  <http://www.megginson.com/exp/id/airports/EGGD>
;

    vcard:FN                "Andy Seaborne" ;
    vcard:N                 [ vcard:familyName "Seaborne" ; vcard:givenName
"Andrew" ] ;
    .

<http://www.megginson.com/exp/id/airports/EGGD>
    a apt:Airport ;
    apt:icao "EGGD" ;
    apt:iata "BRS" ;
    rdfs:seeAlso
    # Warning long URL alert.  It's a query into a database.
 
<http://jena.hpl.hp.com:2020/airports?lang=fetch&r=http://www.megginson.com/
exp/id/airports/EGGD>
    .

<http://www.joseki.org/>
    dc:title            "Joseki - The Jena RDF Server" ;
    dc:creator          "Andy Seaborne" ;
    .

Received on Wednesday, 10 March 2004 06:32:35 UTC