Re: Assistance requested to be able to register application/rif+xml media type

> On Feb 13, 2021, at 11:20 AM, Dan Brickley <danbri@google.com> wrote:
> 
> Hey Ralph,
> 
> Always good to hear from you.
> 
> I looked at the IETF feedback and it seemed solid and sensible, if the specs being considered were proving useful. 
> 
> My impression from talking to pretty much everyone on the topic is that RIF seems to have "missed the mark" as a technology. I have never heard anyone speak of it as having found a niche. This is not a criticism of anyone involved - I have similar concerns for CSVW which I co-chaired and still see value in.

Sadly true, and I think there is still interest in the topics that CSVW addressed, if not the specific results of that WG. Generally, I think it a good idea to re-visit all relevant standards, but understanding why those that rose to the level of mandating a WG failed to take hold should be important, because the need doesn’t just go away.

Also, with regards to revisiting RIF to satisfy IETF, it doesn’t seem too useful in and of itself. But, if something were to be done, I think the person responsible for the IANA entry really needs to be W3 staff, as the responsibility for that registration shouldn’t belong to someone who does not have a long-term role in handling such responses.

> In the absence of any signs of life, I fear that revving the spec for sake of the IETF paperwork would be unrewarding busywork. Is there any suggestion that a media-type registration is blocking any significant implementation of RIF?
> 
> Would you and others have any interest in putting the time instead into a cycle of retrospective re-evaluation - i.e. a (non-judgmental, respectful, impersonal, ...) evaluation of where the idea of standard rule languages around RDF has got to in 2021? Maybe the word "postmortem" is too harsh? I really don't know. Niches can be hidden away.
> 
> I checked the https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rif-dev/ <https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rif-dev/> list archives for last 5 years or so. We have a fair amount of spam, alongside generic smart cities and other CFP posts, and some updates from the RuleML initiative. If there is an active public RIF community it is elsewhere (perhaps with RuleML?). Maybe SPARQL 1.1 CONSTRUCT or OWL or procedural code is meeting the anticipated needs of those who might have used RIF? Any thoughts?
> 
> I'm the absence of lifesigns, we should talk about how we got here and where to go next, perhaps. If somebody DOES want to help with the IETF-motivated updates that of course would be wonderful and a positive sign and I don't want to discourage that. But in parallel if anyone has appetite to have a call or two under a "who is doing what with rule languages for rdf data in 2021", I would be happy to help with that e.g. chair a Zoom thing or whatever folks are using these days.

I’d like to see that. Note that there is an active Notation-3 group, which intersects with this. There was a presentation and interest at the Berlin Data workshop on N3; the biggest outcome from that workshop was the current RDF-star work, but there was some agreement that work related rules and inference was also of interest.

Gregg

> The first RDF rule/inference language proposals were back in 1998 (https://www.w3.org/TandS/QL/QL98/pp.html <https://www.w3.org/TandS/QL/QL98/pp.html>). That's a big chunk of several of our various lives! It would be easy to continue on autopilot updating a (seemingly) unused spec. It might be harder for us to admit and evaluate a collective failure, but I feel the latter could be ultimately much more rewarding...
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Dan
> 
> On Fri, 12 Feb 2021, 21:37 Ralph Swick, <swick@w3.org <mailto:swick@w3.org>> wrote:
> Philippe Le Hegaret posted a request to public-rif-dev [1] asking for 
> someone willing to work with him to address comments from IANA on our 
> request to register the application/rif+xml media type.  We apparently 
> forgot to register this years ago before the RIF Working Group concluded.
> 
> No one has yet volunteered there so PLH asked if I'd send the request to 
> a wider list.  If you're willing to help but prefer to respond privately 
> to either PLH or me we won't reject your offer.
> 
> [[
> Sandro noted that we never registered the media type for RIF, so I
> submitted a request 2 weeks ago and received the following feedback.
> I believe the next step would be to produce a revision of the REC that
> includes the feedback. Unless I'm mistaken, we should be able to do so
> through editorial changes:
>   https://www.w3.org/2020/Process-20200915/#revised-rec-editorial <https://www.w3.org/2020/Process-20200915/#revised-rec-editorial>
> 
> I included for reference the template that I submitted at the end.
> 
> Is there anyone interested in working with me to help answer questions
> and provide a revision?
> 
> Philippe
> ]]
> 
> See [1] for the details of the IANA comments.
> 
> -Ralph
> 
> [1] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rif-dev/2021Jan/0010.html <https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rif-dev/2021Jan/0010.html>
>