social-ISSUE-14 (elf-pavlik): as:Link adds a lot of complexity, if we keep it we need to clarify consequences of using it instead of as:Object [Activity Streams 2.0]

social-ISSUE-14 (elf-pavlik): as:Link adds a lot of complexity, if we keep it we need to clarify consequences of using it instead of as:Object [Activity Streams 2.0]

http://www.w3.org/Social/track/issues/14

Raised by: Pavlik elf
On product: Activity Streams 2.0

This continues discussion in two github issues
* as:Link from Linked Data perspective + comparing with hydra:Link - https://github.com/jasnell/w3c-socialwg-activitystreams/issues/24

* clarify consequences of choice between as:Object and as:Link - https://github.com/jasnell/w3c-socialwg-activitystreams/issues/57

Main issues I noticed so far:

1. AS2.0 Vocabulary uses Object | Link for domain and/or range in many properties
http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-activitystreams-vocabulary-20150129/ (search for 'Object | Link' shows 43 such cases)

2. Currently some examples in latest published core spec use as:Link in JSON-LD while as:Object in RDFa (IMO it gives strong example of confusion it may cause, even author of the spec didn't use it in a consistent way!)
http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-activitystreams-core-20150129/#example-2

3. as:Link breaks JSON-LD embedding
http://www.w3.org/TR/json-ld/#embedding
and may cause issue with JSON-LD framing
http://json-ld.org/spec/latest/json-ld-framing/ (work in progress)

To stay honest, I don't see strong use cases requiring as:Link which would justify adding all this complexity and possibilities for confusion. Still if we decide to keep it, we should explain clearly when to use as:Link and when as:Object, elaborating on various consequences of making such choice.

Received on Monday, 23 February 2015 13:19:40 UTC