Fwd: [Linking-open-data] Drupal 7 to be a major linked data client

Thanks Arto - forwarding to the SW Education & Outreach group, I think
many of your comments have direct relevance. Although the group is
semi-dormant right now, I'm pretty sure the individuals involved will
be happy to help out in any way they can.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Arto Bendiken <arto.bendiken@gmail.com>
Date: 5 Mar 2008 23:18
Subject: Re: [Linking-open-data] Drupal 7 to be a major linked data client
To: Linking Open Data <linking-open-data@simile.mit.edu>


On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 2:38 AM, David Peterson <david@squishyfish.com> wrote:
 >  Just wanted to draw attention to the development of Drupal 7. The head
 >  architect, Dries Buytaert, has the vision of linked data and RDF at the core
 >  of Drupal 7.


Dries's vision for Drupal 7.x is indeed a bold move - essentially, he
 wants to reinvent (and ultimately, rewrite) Drupal from the ground up
 based on RDF. If this works out, it could probably add a decade to the
 Drupal project's effective life-span, as well as put it ahead of any
 currently budding semantic CMSes - who may be ahead in technology, but
 who will take years yet to build a huge, vibrant community like Drupal
 has.

 It's important to keep in mind, however, that this announcement was
 pretty much an unexpected bombshell dropped on the Drupal community,
 most Drupal developers not being familiar with RDF or else having
 already dismissed it back in the pre-SPARQL, all-RDF/XML days. A BDFL
 [1] has only so much power - it's not necessarily a given that Drupal
 7.x will follow Dries's vision unless a significant amount of
 (re)education and awareness work takes place in the community in the
 next half a year.

 That's where I believe folks like the LDO project could be most
 helpful - by publicly spreading the word about Drupal's 7.x plans in a
 positive light, and by showing interest and reaching out to the Drupal
 community (on their preferred channels of communication, such as
 groups.drupal.org), you can help provide some much-needed external
 validation of Dries's ideas and help show the Drupal community that
 he's _not_, in fact, smoking a crack pipe ;-)


 >  I know of several different Semantic Web camps creating Drupal modules and
 >  the core looks set to embrace Linked Data and RDF at the foundational level.


For reference, here is a list of all Semweb-related Drupal modules
 that I know about at the moment:

  RDF API (Drupal 6.x, 7.x)
    http://drupal.org/project/rdf
      http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/rdf

  SPARQL (Drupal 6.x, 7.x)
    http://drupal.org/project/sparql
      http://drupal.org/node/223142

  Exhibit (Drupal 6.x)
    http://drupal.org/project/exhibit

  SIOC (Drupal 5.x, 6.x) by scor & terraces
    http://drupal.org/project/sioc

  MOAT (Drupal 5.x) by terraces
    http://drupal.org/project/moat

  Machine Tags (Drupal 5.x) by hendler
    http://drupal.org/project/machine_tags

  Semantic Search (Drupal 5.x) by hendler
    http://drupal.org/project/semantic_search

  ARC RDF Store by scor
    http://drupal.org/project/arc_rdf_store

  Calais Semantic Tagging by jscheel
    http://drupal.org/project/calais

  Relationship API (Drupal 4.7.x) by dman
    http://drupal.org/project/relationship

  FOAF (Drupal 4.6.x) by walkah
    http://drupal.org/project/foaf


 >  This looks to be an important development, one that the LOD group should
 >  look into with keen interest. Drupal is being used in 10's of thousands of
 >  installations and I believe with every release they increase their footprint
 >  by at least double.


Nobody knows exact Drupal installation numbers at the moment (though
 that will change post-6.0 - see below), but the range is actually
 believed to be well in the hundreds of thousands. Some numbers that we
 do know:

  * Google hits for "Drupal": 19M
  * Drupal.org registered user accounts: 250K
  * Drupal core downloads in aggregate: over 2M
  * Drupal 6.x core downloads: 100K/month and growing
  * Drupal 6.x installations currently pinging home: 20K
  * Drupal extension modules available: 1.8K+
  * Drupal developers contributing to core: 900+

 (Note that the "pinging home" part is a new feature in 6.x, part of
 the automated module update check, and thus doesn't include the much
 larger installed base of earlier 4.x and 5.x installations.)


 >  Does anyone here know any of the core Drupal devs or who to get in contact
 >  with them?


On IRC you can find Drupal developers hanging out at #drupal [2];
 additionally, there is a (medium-volume) core development mailing list
 [3] that you could subscribe to.

 However, for straight up Drupal-related Semantic Web talk, the right
 place at the moment is probably the Semweb interest group [4] that I
 mentioned in an earlier reply, so as to focus all these happenings
 into one place for maximum effect.

 [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictator
 [2] http://drupal.org/node/108355
 [3] http://drupal.org/mailing-lists
 [4] http://groups.drupal.org/semantic-web


 --
 Arto Bendiken | http://bendiken.net/
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Received on Friday, 7 March 2008 10:01:52 UTC