Re: "suboptions" of Option 7

Axel Polleres wrote:
> As a lightweight version of Option 7, which reuires content negotiation
> to receive the RDF service description on the endpoint URL, there
> occurred some sub-options in the discussion today, which I try to
> summarize below:
> 
> Option 7' (RDFa): If HTML is served instead of RDF at the endpoint
> location (e.g. a query form), then allow it to have implicitly the RDF
> of the service description in the form of RDFa
> 
>  con: RDFa needs to be parsed/extracted to get RDF out
> 

I think what this means is, for most cases, another request in practice,
which makes raises the same problem as Option 7''. Indeed, for a user
the simplest way of extracting the RDF from RDFa would be to run the
HTML content through some RDFa extractor service (like RDFa Distiller[1]).

I must admit I begin to wonder whether this is indeed such a strong
issue, though. One more (cashable request)... Is it really a show-stopper?

> Option 7'' (LINK element)
> If HTML is served instead of RDF at the endpoint location (e.g. a query
> form), then allow it to have a <link> element in the HTML head pointing
> to the service description
> 
>  con: needs 2 requests (which originally was the strongest argument
> against Option 1)
> 
> Option 7''': either of Option 7'/7'' in combination with the pure Option
> 7, i.e. if content type HTML is requested, require anyways Option 7' or
> 7'', when content type RDF is requested, serve description directly.
>

I think that would require to give a more precise definition of what the
URI returns in the case of HTML, in order to make conneg acceptable in
term of HTTP usage. Ie, write down the common practice of having a
request form, and also require to write down the content of the service
description in proper English or other language (which, I believe, would
be a good practice anyway). On the other hand, this option could also
work if the client does not have the right authority (or knowledge!) to
set up conneg on the server side...

Ivan

> Axel
> 
> 
> 

[1] http://www.w3.org/2007/08/pyRdfa/


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Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead
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