Re: RDF-ISSUE-25 (Deprecate Reification): Should we deprecate (RDF 2004) reification? [Cleanup tasks]

On Thu, 2011-04-07 at 18:18 -0400, David Wood wrote:
> On Apr 7, 2011, at 18:07, RDF Working Group Issue Tracker <sysbot+tracker@w3.org> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > RDF-ISSUE-25 (Deprecate Reification): Should we deprecate (RDF 2004) reification? [Cleanup tasks]
> > 
> > http://www.w3.org/2011/rdf-wg/track/issues/25
> > 
> > Raised by: Sandro Hawke
> > On product: Cleanup tasks
> > 
> > 
> > The RDF 1999 and 2004 Recommendations include vocabulary and syntax
> > (in RDF/XML) for RDF "reification".  The vocabulary is rdf:Statement,
> > rdf:subject, rdf:predicate, and rdf:object; the syntax is rdf:ID used
> > on a property element.
> > 
> > Although this feature is sometimes used in practice, some experts
> > advise data providers to avoid it.  It has no syntactic support in
> > RDFa or Turtle.  Should the WG align with this advice and say this
> > feature is only to be use for backward compatibility?  (That is,
> > RDF/XML parsers must continue to support the syntax, and libraries
> > should allow applications to use the features to interoperate with
> > legacy RDF systems.)
> > 
> > Note that many or all of the use cases of reification are also uses
> > cases for [GRAPHS].  The decision about the fate of reificiation is
> > connected with what happens with [GRAPHS].
> 
> 
> Might reification undergo a renaissance when provenance comes back into fashion?  Couldn't we consider reification a degenerate case of a named graph?
> 
> We might want to go slowly on this one...

I think it's one of the candidate solutions for the GRAPHS use cases.
My guess is it's unlikely to survive, but who knows.  :-)

Maybe I should move it from [Cleanup tasks] to [GRAPHS] ?

  -- Sandro

Received on Thursday, 7 April 2011 22:23:24 UTC