Linked Data Platform (LDP) Working Group Charter

This group is based on the idea of combining two Web-related concepts to
help solve some of the long-standing challenges involved in building and
combining software:

   1. *RDF*, the Resource Description Framework, is a W3C
Recommended<http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-concepts/>general technique for
conveying information. It has a handful of syntaxes,
   including RDF/XML <http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar/>,
RDFa<http://www.w3.org/TR/rdfa-core/>,
   and Turtle <http://www.w3.org/TR/turtle/>, any of which can be used to
   transmit RDF statements. The items about which information is expressed in
   RDF documents are identified with URIs (eg,
   http://example.com/products/Widget-71) but the existing RDF
   specifications do not cover dereferencing them. RDF is the basis for Linked
   Data <http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html> and the Semantic
   Web <http://www.w3.org/standards/semanticweb/>.
   2. With *RESTful APIs* and *RESTful Web Services*, clients use basic HTTP
   verbs <http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec9.html#sec9>, with
   their simple and direct meaning, to obtain and alter the state of objects
   on the server. In these APIs, the remote information objects are identified
   with URIs which are dereferenced in every operation. RESTful APIs can be
   defined independent of the formats used for conveying the state of the
   objects; typically services use custom XML and/or JSON encodings of state
   information.

The combination of RDF and RESTful APIs is therefore natural, with RDF
providing a standard way to serialize information about things identified
by URIs and REST providing a way to obtain and alter the state of those
things. This approach has been proposed and explored for some time, in
academia and industry, as shown by the items listed in
References<http://www.w3.org/2012/ldp/charter#ref>.
Within W3C, the SPARQL Working Group developed a RESTful
protocol<http://www.w3.org/TR/sparql11-http-rdf-update/>for accessing
data in SPARQL data stores and discussed its wider
applicability. The participants in the Linked Enterprise Data Patterns
Workshop <http://www.w3.org/2011/09/LinkedData/Report> expressed general
support for the creation of a Working Group to define a way to use RDF with
RESTful APIs in support of application integration.

The basic technique here is to expose application data objects
("resources") on the Web, allowing authorized clients to see and modify
object state using HTTP operations (GET, PUT, etc) with an RDF data format.
This RESTful approach leverages existing Web technology, including caching,
linking, and indexing, and the use of RDF facilitates integration of data
across systems and applications. This approach dovetails with SPARQL and is
positioned for developers who want more direct access to the application
data.

The Linked Data Platform is envisioned as an enterprise-ready collection of
standard techniques and services based on using RESTful APIs and the W3C
Semantic Web stack. Simple LDP applications can be developed and deployed
using only RDF and conventional HTTP infrastructure. More extensive LDP
applications can be built using other elements of the stack, including
RDFS<http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-schema/>,
SPARQL <http://www.w3.org/TR/sparql11-query/>,
OWL<http://www.w3.org/TR/owl2-overview/>,
RIF <http://www.w3.org/TR/rif-overview/>, and the
PROV<http://www.w3.org/TR/prov-primer/>provenance vocabulary. Although
expertise in these specialized elements may
be helpful, it is not necessary for participation in this group and should
not be required for using the Linked Data Platform.

http://www.w3.org/2012/ldp/charter