RE: Proposal for Schema.org extension mechanism

Hi Martin,

:) Yep - I'm well aware that Schema.org has a <schema:duns> and that GR has '#hasDUNS', and I (personally) couldn't agree more that D&B having an LOD-style interface would be great. In fact, on *literally* my very first day at D&B (over 4 years ago), I suggested that the company needed to 'URI-ize the DUNS number'. But for many of the reasons you mentioned in your first response to me on this (which I'll reply to separately), the company is cautious about making such a move. But rest assured, I'm actively trying to progress in that direction (although I suspect I'm going to need all the help I can get :) )!

Cheers,

Pat.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: martin.hepp@ebusiness-unibw.org [mailto:martin.hepp@ebusiness-
> unibw.org]
> Sent: 26 March 2015 17:41
> To: McBennett, Pat
> Cc: W3C Web Schemas Task Force
> Subject: Re: Proposal for Schema.org extension mechanism
> 
> By the way, we are doing the same for DUNS already ;-)
> 
>    http://schema.org/duns
>    http://purl.org/goodrelations/v1#hasDUNS
> 
> Of course it will be great if DNB came up with an LOD-style interface for all
> availanle DUNS. We could then change the range to Text OR URL or Text OR
> Thing, or encourage sameAs-based markup patterns.
> 
> Martin
> 
> 
> On 26 Mar 2015, at 18:34, martin.hepp@ebusiness-unibw.org wrote:
> 
> > Dear Pat:
> >
> > I have tried for almost a decade to get permission from the United Nations (*)
> to publish a thoroughly constructed RDF conversion of the UNSPSC, so I can feel
> your pain.
> > The problem you describe is at the core of many attempts of re-using existing
> standards for the Web of Data: Most standards are subject to copyright
> protection in one way or the other, so to be on the safe side, you need their
> creators' permission. Also, the standards are evolving, thus you need to keep
> your variant in sync with the official standard.
> >
> > The permission is hard to get, because the relevant bodies typically do not sign
> off liberal copyright licenses easily, and they do not have the budget or do not
> see the benefit in paying a lawyer to evaluate the feasibility (note that they must
> also check whether they have sufficient rights themselves, so they cannot easily
> grant a CC license).
> >
> > Often branding and trademark protection, and existing business models, are a
> problem, too.
> >
> > In a nutshell, this is why I suggest to use string literals in lieu of URLs for
> existing standards. Referring to a string precisely defined in an external standard
> is as reliable as using a URI, and while it is not "Linked Open Data"-style and you
> cannot easily get a description by HTTP, you eliminate all the legal and technical
> hassles of republishing a standard as Linked Open Data.
> >
> > Also, I think that a badly implemented Linked Open Data variant of a standard
> is worse than the authoritative string from the original standard.
> >
> > With badly implemented I mean e.g. that the LOD version is not in sync with
> the latest version of the standard, or that the owner of the domain looses
> interest or goes bankrupt, with the consequence that the shiny URIs start rotting
> in the sunlight and are difficult to eliminate from data and applications.
> >
> > Martin
> >
> > (*) Actually I gave up after five years ;-)
> > (**) Instead we publish a tool to regenerate the RDF transcripts
> > locally in a canonical form, see
> > http://wiki.goodrelations-vocabulary.org/Tools/PCS2OWL
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------
> > martin hepp
> > e-business & web science research group universitaet der bundeswehr
> > muenchen
> >
> > e-mail:  martin.hepp@unibw.de
> > phone:   +49-(0)89-6004-4217
> > fax:     +49-(0)89-6004-4620
> > www:     http://www.unibw.de/ebusiness/ (group)
> >         http://www.heppnetz.de/ (personal)
> > skype:   mfhepp
> > twitter: mfhepp
> >
> > Check out GoodRelations for E-Commerce on the Web of Linked Data!
> >
> =================================================================
> > * Project Main Page: http://purl.org/goodrelations/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 26 Mar 2015, at 18:04, McBennett, Pat <McBennettP@DNB.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I totally agree with Martin Hepp's comments. I've recently begun exactly the
> process Martin describes (i.e. defining 'Web ontologies / shared schemas'), and
> already I'm finding all 3 of his points are spot-on.
> >>
> >> But I'd like to ask Martin - what form of mechanism does he think could work
> for '.tapping into the potential of the many, many interesting schemas and
> standards out there [.] without the need to channel those through the social
> and technical process of getting into schema.org core'?
> >>
> >> As a very simple example - I'm currently trying to find an existing RDF schema
> or standard for International Country Codes, but one which is 'authoritative'.
> ISO was an obvious place to start, so I asked them if they could provide these
> codes as RDF (I can that they currently provide them as CSV, XML or XLS [1]).
> Their response:
> >>
> >> Dear Pat,
> >>
> >> We do not product any RDF formats, I am sorry.
> >>
> >> Regards
> >>
> >> So that means although there are ISO country codes in the public
> >> domain (e.g. IRL, or FRA, or USA), and of course I can use those
> >> codes freely, there are no 'official' URI's out there for those codes
> >> (that I'm aware of) - i.e. there is no
> >> 'http://www.iso.org/country/alpha-3/IRL' for Ireland. So unless I can
> >> presuade the ISO to mint these URI's for 'their' country codes (which
> >> I would see as ideal, since they are a recognised authority, but it
> >> seems unlikely in the sort term), what mechanism do I have to use
> >> standardised, authoritative (i.e. as opposed to crowdsourced
> >> Wikipedia (or DBPedia) URI identifiers for countries in my internal
> >> datasets? I could mint my own URI's for these country codes under my
> >> companies domain name, but that's hardly appropriate as we've no
> >> interest in being an authority on country code identifiers (and we'd
> >> have the maintanance overhead of trying to keep them in-sync with the
> >> 'real' ISO codes).
> >>
> >> Which is why I would have thought an extension to Schema.org might offer a
> good opportunity for this (since Schema.org has already become the de facto
> authority for lots of things!). But am I just being naïve somehow.?
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >>
> >> Pat.
> >>
> >>
> >> [1] - http://www.iso.org/iso/country_codes.htm
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> <image001.png>
> >>
> >> Pat McBennett
> >> Architect
> >> The Chase Building, 5th Floor
> >> Carmanhall Road, Sandyford,
> >> Dublin 18, Ireland
> >> Direct +353 1
> >> Mobile +353 8
> >>
> >> http://www.dnb.co.uk/
> >>
> >> <image002.png><image003.png><image004.png><image005.png>
> >> <image006.png>
> >>
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Received on Friday, 27 March 2015 11:04:03 UTC