- From: Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org>
- Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 10:21:25 +0200
- To: Elias Torres <elias@torrez.us>
- Cc: Mark Birbeck <mark.birbeck@formsPlayer.com>, Bruce D'Arcus <bdarcus@gmail.com>, Semantic Web <semantic-web@w3.org>, W3C RDFa task force <public-rdf-in-xhtml-tf@w3.org>
- Message-ID: <47132305.3010600@w3.org>
Elias, Mark, Bruce, & al First of all: I think Elias is right. 'Our' (if one can define this 'our', which is not always easy) first reaction should be (and believe me, is!): yey! Having _some_ syntax to store RDF metadata in ODF _is_ major and good news. In some ways, _what_ the exact serialization syntax is remains of a secondary importance as long as it is clearly defined and transformable (via GRDDL or anything else, although GRDDL comes to one's mind first) into other formats. So yes, yey!:-) As for Mark's concerns: yes, if RDFa could be used, that would be even better, because it would reduce the number of overlapping serializations and would therefore help in a quicker integration of ODF metadata into the SW world. It would be good _if_ it is possible and meets the constraints that ODF has. At this point, the obvious question and comment is: what can be done to help improve this? There are some (probably solvable) technical issues; and there are also 'social', ie, the 'how to do it?', 'where and how to comment?' part. I think Elias' and Bruce's advise on that would be really welcome. We can then try to take it from there... Sincerely Ivan Elias Torres wrote: > > > > Mark Birbeck wrote: >> Hi Bruce, >> >>> I've mentioned this here before, but more on RDF-in-OpenDocument. >>> >>> <http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/10/odf-enters-semantic-web.html> >>> >>> The OpenOffice project is now starting to looking into implementing it, >>> so people here might be interested. >> >> I note that the attributes used in ODF are 'inspired' by RDFa [1]--but >> why not just incorporate RDFa as is? > > First reason is because RDFa is still not finished, published, > recommended etc. We are currently working on a XHTML 1.1 module and that > I know of there's no work in progress for a recommendation on how to > host RDFa in other XML languages. I understand that you have > ideas/vision/plans, but just like every other standards group or task > force, you can't depend on too many working drafts/vision/plan unless > deadlines are of no concern. This is a very common practice at the W3C > as well, so I hope that's enough for you to understand why we couldn't > embed RDFa as is. > > Secondly, we are just getting to a point of good coverage of the issues > that surround adding metadata to XHTML, but unfortunately, although you > might see very little differences between XHTML and any other XML > vocabulary, there's a lot of things to both work out and build from > scratch in some XML vocabularies where something as basic as the > document location/hyperlink not being defined as it's the case for ODF. > > I think we are too critical when we make these statements especially > when I indicated many times in our calls that I was involved in this > work and I didn't hear anyone volunteering to help. For example, several > times I went as far as asking you personally for suggestions in some > aspects of the RDFa spec before it was even brought up to the RDFa task > force for sake of progress in the ODF metadata specification. > Unfortunately, the task forces were working in parallel and it just > wasn't feasible to combine both groups, learn each others requirements > and deliver a single document. I wish things were as simple as me > saying: hey guys let's use the RDFa spec from the W3C and put an > OASIS/ODF rubber stamp on it and everyone just said: great, let's do that. > >> >> It's especailly confusing for authors when this 'inpiration' seems to >> involve copying some RDFa attributes, but changing the names of >> others. For example, @about is used, but @datatype has been renamed to >> @data-type! > > I would first hope that there's no a problem with us getting > inspiration/copying the RDFa attributes. It was a long and arduous > process to get where we are today. Bruce and I put in a LOT of time and > patience until the group passed from storming to performing. > Svante/Patrick put in an amazing effort with the documents (very similar > to what you have done with the RDFa documents). We are now a > happy/loving bunch and Bruce and I are grateful to our colleagues for > putting up enough with us to the point that they now share our vision > for metadata in office applications. It really took a lot of listening > on their part for us to share everything we thought was great about the > RDFa work. The ODF Metadata group was so much more welcoming to our > perspective as opposed to other non-SW bred groups and us arguing about > 'dash' felt to me disrespectful, if not rude. > >> >> This lack of alignment is a shame, especially when the proponents of >> ODF are generally critical of the confusion that can be caused by >> companies and organisations pursuing alternate document formats. There >> is a fantastic opportunity here for creating tools and search engines >> that could leverage a 'standard' way of incorporating metadata into >> HTML, XHTML, ODF, and other mark-up languages. That opportunity now >> looks like it is going to be missed. > > I'm not as intimate with the ODF organization, but I would not confuse > this sub-committee/task force with the rest of the organization. > Besides, I think the issues surrounding OOXML and ODF are orthogonal to > what you claim is happening in this 'divergence' of formats. Of course, > I believe that there's a fantastic opportunity here for creating tools > and blah blah into HTML, XHTML, ODF, etc. But please don't blame us for > the fact that not everyone in the world wants to adhere to our > views/technology of the Semantic Web. I think that this 'standard' way > of thinking has hurt us more than helped to reach the goal. I totally > disagree that one parser will be capable to address the issues of > metadata in ODF vs HTML. I caught myself making those arguments to later > change my mind and understand that in the end it's just code that gets > written and overwritten every other day, but a consensus to work > together as individuals and put our differences aside is much harder to > develop, no pun intended. > > We were hoping to receive a warm welcome for the work we put into the > ODF Metadata for the purpose of advancing the Semantic Web, but as > always, you can't please everyone. Fortunately, I still believe ODF > Metadata + RDF/XML is making the case for extensibility, flexibility, > linked data, openness and so on, independently of whether we used the > same parser or not. We need to keep examining ourselves in the likes of > Bijan [1] so we assess what are the real problems hindering progress on > the Web by our standards and do more showing/telling and > implementation/adoption before rushing to standardizing. At least I > partially felt that way with ODF Metadata and towards the end of the > first draft, I agreed that less was better given that this was the first > introduction of RDF to the ODF world. Look at Mozilla for example and I > hope that we start small and prove the value before forcing things > without immediate benefits. > > DISCLAIMER: At the risk of sounding schizo, here it goes. Mark, you know > we are cool and I'm not at all targeting everything towards you only but > to the larger community. We are colleagues, have been working together > for a while now and share a lot in common when it comes to RDFa, but I > had been meaning to reply to Bijan's email and vent a little on some of > the issues surrounding many groups/technologies on the W3C and you had > to push me over the edge :D > > [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/semantic-web/2007Oct/0039.html > >> >> Regards, >> >> Mark >> >> [1] >> <http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/25055/Metadata_22August2007.txt> >> >> > -- Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/ PGP Key: http://www.ivan-herman.net/pgpkey.html FOAF: http://www.ivan-herman.net/foaf.rdf
Received on Monday, 15 October 2007 08:22:32 UTC