Re: Another way other than @profile, @vocab or @map

On 03/19/2010 09:47 AM, Toby Inkster wrote:
> I don't have anything against this general technique - but I don't think
> it's consistent with the HTML4/XHTML1.x definition of @profile, so a
> different attribute would need to be used.

Remember that we're changing the definition of @profile to whatever we
want it to be in HTML5 - as long as it stays backwards-compatible with
HTML4.

In fact, the reason we're changing it in the first place is because we
think that the Microformats community AND the RDFa community can re-use
the attribute. Tantek, Julian and I are writing the spec, so we should
expect it to meet both the RDFa and Microformats communities.

> A lot of the debate here has been on the syntax and model for profile
> documents. Personally I don't think we've had enough debate on whether
> profile documents are needed at all - Martin's suggestion here is not to
> define a profile (in the sense that we've been talking about them) at
> all, but to just set the default CURIE prefix. What exactly are the use
> cases that show this to be insufficient? Personally, I don't think I've
> seen any yet.

Mark's UK consultation work is one use case that demonstrates[1] that
mixing vocabularies to create RDFa Profiles/Argots are helpful. Most of
this discussion happened over the course of several months on the old
RDFa Task Force telecons, which is unfortunate, because we did cover why
just setting the default prefix isn't enough during those calls.

I've had a number of conversations with the Dublin Core folks about this
as well (which I still need to write up in another e-mail). They're
definitely pushing vocabulary mixing/re-use via their Dublin Core
Application Profiles work.

Digital Bazaar (my company) would like to mix the Music Ontology with
the Good Relations Ontology in a way that bloggers could express music
for purchase without having to invent a new vocabulary, and making it as
easy to use (correctly) as a Microformat[3].

The argument for RDFa Profiles is two fold:

- It has been demonstrated that people would like to bundle RDF
  Vocabularies.
- We would like to bundle vocabularies in a way that is easier to use
  for novice RDFa authors.

Remember - one of our goals with this new WG isn't just to give people
that already use RDFa alternative ways to use it. The people that are
convinced of the power of RDFa are already looking into using it as it
stands right now.

One of our goals is to convince a new group of less technology savvy
people to adopt RDFa. We must do this while ensuring that they are able
to do powerful things like vocabulary mixing while reducing the number
of authoring errors. The default prefix proposal, while a worthwhile
endeavor, does not allow vocabulary mixing and also has the danger of
producing errors. It's only part of the solution, IMHO.

-- manu

[1]http://webbackplane.com/mark-birbeck/blog/2009/04/23/more-rdfa-goodness-from-uk-government-web-sites
[2]http://dublincore.org/documents/profile-guidelines/
[3]http://purl.org/media/audio

-- 
Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny)
President/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: PaySwarming Goes Open Source
http://blog.digitalbazaar.com/2010/02/01/bitmunk-payswarming/

Received on Saturday, 20 March 2010 02:06:17 UTC