Re: Discrepancies between RDFa implementations [Was: Re: follow your nose, HTML widgets, GRDDL spec#issue-tx-elt, TAG issue xmlFunctions-34 [was: [RDFa] Use Case...]]

Thanks Mark,

this explains the issue around 'role'. One question, though. Based on
your description, the script should generate

<#me> xh:role foaf:Person.

right? Does it mean that there will be a fixed namespace for the 'role'
attribute, defined by the RDFa group?


Ivan

Mark Birbeck wrote:
> 
> Hi Ivan,
> 
>> Caveat: I am not sure which RDFa version was taken into account by
>> Fabien and by Elias. All these may not be 'bugs' but design, just
>> referring to different versions of RDFa....
> 
> 
> I does sound like they are looking at different versions of RDFa. In
> relation to @role and @rdf:type, I'm afraid some confusion was caused
> by the premature adoption in one document of @role as defining
> rdf:type. What @role expands to, along with whether @class can be used
> in RDFa, have both been topics of much discussion. I'll just briefly
> recount the various views, so that we have them in one place, and it
> may help other implementers.
> 
> (The other question, on XMLLiteral, is, as you say, still an open issue.)
> 
> 
> THE '@ROLE AND @RDF:TYPE' DEBATE
> 
> There was a view that @role should generate a triple that has a
> predicate of rdf:type and an object which is the same as the @role
> value. This approach was much favoured by people in the accessibility
> space, with the idea being that if a 'div' plays the _role_ of a
> toolbar, then it *is* a toolbar. In other words, if we have this:
> 
>  <div role="wai:toolbar">
>    ...
>  </div>
> 
> then to all intents and purposes we have this:
> 
>  _:x rdf:type wai:toolbar
> 
> There is certainly a need for a shorthand for rdf:type, and those who
> felt that @class shouldn't be used (see below) also favoured using
> @role.
> 
> However, just because something _plays the role of something_ does not
> mean that it _is_ that thing. This is best illustrated with a look at
> what the WAI group are doing with @role.
> 
> The WAI group are defining taxonomies to use with @role, and they are
> defining the characteristics of UI features like toolbars. In their
> taxonomy they can say that 'a toolbar' has features A, B and C. This
> would therefore mean that if we were to say that @role is equivalent
> to @rdf:type, then we would be implying that anything that any HTML
> element assigned to _play the role_ of widget would by inference have
> all of the features that an object of this type would have.
> 
> This is obviously not the case, and the aim of @role was always to
> provide metadata that would allow some process to make informed
> decisions about translations it might make to help users interacting
> with a document. For example, if we had this:
> 
>  <script role="tooltip">
>    ...
>  </script>
> 
> a server-side process could know from some RDF taxonomy that 'a
> tooltip' is only relevant on a visual system (agree with me here, for
> the sake of the argument. :) and that this script can safely be
> removed when rendering to a voice system.
> 
> Or in this situation:
> 
>  <div role="menu">
>    ...
>  </div>
> 
> a server could know from the RDF schemas that if space is at a premium
> (say, on a mobile device) then menus can be hidden or relocated. But
> note that what is inside the 'div' for the menu is irrelevant.
> 
> Anyway, we've now agreed that @role does not map to @rdf:type, and
> that the triples generated for @role would be something like this:
> 
>  <div role="wai:toolbar">
>    ...
>  </div>
> 
>  _:x xh:role wai:toolbar
> 
> If some system wanted to add a further inference that xh:role =>
> rdf:type, then that is of course up to them.
> 
> 
> @CLASS BEARING @RDF:TYPE DEBATE
> 
> However, it is certainly the case the a construct that generates
> rdf:types is extremely handy, and perhaps you could say, a necessity.
> 
> In HTML, the obvious choice for @rdf:type is @class since its
> semantics are both sufficiently vague but widely understood. But there
> was some resistance to this, since it was felt not unreasonably that
> using @class may be seen as 'hijacking' the attribute.
> 
> The resolution was that since non-namespace prefixed values of @class
> would only generate 'local' triples (i.e., triples that have no
> meaning outside of the document) then it was pretty safe to use
> @class.
> 
> For example, this:
> 
>  <div class="address">
>    ...
>  </div>
> 
> would generate:
> 
>  _:x rdf:type _:address
> 
> i.e., it would generate a 'locally scoped' notion of an 'address'.
> This pretty much fits what is already happening on the web, since the
> notion of address on your web-site will be different to the notion on
> mine. But if we change our mark-up to this:
> 
>  <div class="foaf:address">
>    ...
>  </div>
> 
> we get the following, which is unambiguous:
> 
>  _:x rdf:type foaf:address
> 
> Note that regardless of whether people are for or against RDFa, there
> is enormous advantage to having globally agreed upon HTML class names.
> By using QName-class names it means that I could define my own
> personal CSS stylesheet that causes all FOAF contacts to be shown in
> blue, whilst you could choose green. Provided that sites use:
> 
>  <div class="foaf:person">
>    ...
>  </div>
> 
> then we all know what is being said.
> 
> I'd say that's pretty much the latest on these issues, and I believe
> this continues one of the goals that we have of clearly defining how
> to interpret an HTML document from the point of view of RDF.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Mark
> 
> 
> On 06/12/06, Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org> wrote:
> 
>>
>>
>> Dan Connolly wrote:
>> >
>> > but I heard from Ivan that it produces different results
>> > from Elias's parser. Did he report that problem? Hmm...
>> > I can't find it in the -tf archives.
>> >
>>
>> Actually, no, I have contacted Fabien directly. But you are right, it
>> makes sense to document it here.
>>
>> http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/ is the original page where I detected the
>> problem. Part of the page is RDFa-d, the whole page is GRDDL-able
>> including the
>>
>> http://www-sop.inria.fr/acacia/soft/RDFa2RDFXML.xsl
>>
>> and there is a pointer to Elias' RDFa service
>>
>> script.
>>
>> The relevant XHTML portion is:
>>
>> <div class id="me" role="foaf:Person" ...>
>>    <h1 property="foaf:name">Ivan Herman</h1>
>>    ...
>>    <p> .... <a rel="foaf:schoolHomepage"
>> href="http://www.elte.hu">.....</a>
>>    ....
>>    </p>
>> </div>
>>
>> The relevant portion as produced by Elias' script output is:
>>
>> <foaf:Person rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/#me">
>>    <foaf:name rdf:datatype="...XMLLiteral">Ivan Herman</foaf:name>
>>    ...
>>    <foaf:schoolHomepage rdf:resource="http://www.elte.hu"/>
>> </foaf:Person>
>>
>> The relevant portion of Fabien's script output is (Fabien uses xml:base,
>> so "#me" is o.k.:
>>
>> <rdf:Description xmlns:h="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" rdf:about="#me">
>>    <foaf:name xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/">Ivan
>> Herman</foaf:name>
>> </rdf:Description>
>> <rdf:Description xmlns:h="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" rdf:about="">
>>     <foaf:schoolHomepage xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/"
>> rdf:resource="http://www.elte.hu/"/>
>> </rdf:Description>
>>
>>
>> and I did not find anything that said
>>
>> <#me> a foaf:Person.
>>
>> In Fabien's output.
>>
>> There are several issues here.
>>
>> 1. Elias's script assigns both literal and resource objects to the
>> subject identified by 'id' (see below on that one!), whereas Fabien does
>> it for literal objects and not for URI-s.
>>
>> However, looking at the code again and having re-read the spec yesterday
>> I realised that the correct coding should have been
>>
>> <div class id="me" about="#me"...>
>>
>> having added that, both scripts assigns the same subjects.
>>
>> What this means is that:
>>
>>   - Elias' script is buggy, because it took into accound 'id' for all
>> the objects and it should not have
>>   - Fabien's script makes this mistake for part of the objects.
>>
>> 2. The 'role' attribute is not understood by Fabien's script
>>
>> 3. Elias' script assigns an XMLLiteral datatype, Fabien does not. Elias
>> follows the spec in this respect, but this has been reported elsewhere
>> and I think it is still an open issue[1] whether the spec should be kept
>> that way.
>>
>>
>> Ivan
>>
>>
>> [1] http://www.w3.org/mid/4549CAF0.8060506@w3.org
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>>
>> Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead
>> URL: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
>> PGP Key: http://www.cwi.nl/%7Eivan/AboutMe/pgpkey.html
>> FOAF: http://www.ivan-herman.net/foaf.rdf
>>
>>
>>
> 
> 

-- 

Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead
URL: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
PGP Key: http://www.cwi.nl/%7Eivan/AboutMe/pgpkey.html
FOAF: http://www.ivan-herman.net/foaf.rdf

Received on Wednesday, 6 December 2006 11:45:38 UTC