[RDFTM] Requirements for interoperability guidelines

Now that the RDFTM Survey has been published as a WG Draft, I
would like to move on to preparing the Guidelines which will
describe a semantic mapping mechanism for translating between RDF
and Topic Maps.

The first task is to define requirements and the following is a
first cut at this. Questions and comments are very welcome. Please
post them to this list using [RDFTM] in the subject line.

Steve

--
Steve Pepper <pepper@ontopia.net>
Chief Strategy Officer, Ontopia
Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3
Editor, XTM (XML Topic Maps 1.0)



Requirements for the RDF/TM Interoperability Guidelines
.......................................................


("MUST" REQUIREMENTS)

[M01]. The mapping must make it possible for data originating in
one paradigm to merge cleanly with data originating in the other.

[M02]. The mapping must permit the reuse of vocabularies across
the two paradigms.

[M03]. The mapping must be such that queries written against one
model must be usable with data translated from the other.

[M04]. Useful translations must be possible in the absence of
mapping information specifically intended to guide the
translation.

[M05]. It must be possible to provide specific mapping information
in order to achieve an optimal (guided) translation.

[M06]. Constructs that cannot be handled by the translation
mechanism (if any) must be specified in the Guidelines.

[M07]. Advice must be given to authors on how to ensure maximum
interoperability.

[M08]. The results of a translation must be deterministic.

[M09]. Guided translation must never produce erroneous results
unless the guidance is erroneous.

[M10]. The Guidelines must make it clear to what extent the
mapping mechanism requires RDF/RDFS/OWL semantics to be
implemented.


("SHOULD")

[S01]. Round-tripping should be possible with both guided and
unguided translations.

[S02]. It should be possible to implement the translation using
event-based processing.

[S03]. Properties and classes defined in RDF, RDFS, OWL, and TMDM
should be used in order to aid and guide translations.

[S04]. There should be just one vocabulary that covers both
directions and can be expressed in either RDF or Topic Maps.

[S05]. The results of a guided and an unguided translation should
be as similar as possible.

[S06]. The translation mechanism should be capable of handling
every possible construct in the source paradigm.

[S07]. The algorithm for guided translation should be as simple
and easy to implement as possible.

[S08]. The algorithm for unguided translation should be
open-ended.

Received on Friday, 6 May 2005 13:30:35 UTC