Re: Wiki-based vocabulary website idea

Manu Sporny wrote:
> 
 > http://rdfa.info/wiki/wiki-based-vocabulary-website#State_of_the_Art
 >
> Looking for more feedback...

[[ CCing Mike Lang Jr, who might have a thought to add here ]]

The entry on Knoodl states:

"""
Proprietary mechanisms should not be used to support core web 
infrastructure.
"""

I wonder if this is a widely held view / consensus in the RDFa community?

I often talk to people relatively unfamiliar with the Semantic Web 
landscape and praise what I consider a fairly healthy mix of commercial, 
free-but-proprietary, and open-source solutions. I'm (personally) a bit 
dismayed that free-but-proprietary (or even, for that matter, 
commercial) solutions would be written off a priori by core advocates of 
the advancement of a Semantic Web vision. I worry also that an a priori 
refusal to consider commercial or free-but-proprietary for community 
efforts will encourage somewhat of a (wider?) schism in the overall 
direction of Semantic Web vendors and (for lack of a better term) 
Semantic Web community projects, and I don't really think that benefits 
anyone.

I'd much prefer that commercial or proprietary systems be considered 
along with free or open systems on their merits. Of course, cost may be 
a con to some commercial approaches (but consider inherent costs 
involved with even open approaches to hosting domains, e.g.), as may 
restrictive terms of service or reliability of service -- but it's a far 
different thing to write off something with the potential of Knoodl for 
such grand reasons as the one quoted above.

Lee

Received on Tuesday, 19 May 2009 03:02:24 UTC