Re: Observations on WebID definition and specification

On 2/5/24 8:10 AM, Jacopo Scazzosi wrote:
> Hello Martynas,
>
> Speaking personally and not as the chair, I think yours is an interesting proposal worth thinking about.
>
> Practically speaking, though, I’m afraid of what it implies. If I am right, and please correct me if I am not, having no media type requirement whatsoever would imply that both servers and clients would have to be compatible with at least the top 3 - 4 serialization formats in order for any WebID spec to actually achieve widespread adoption. As of today, that would likely be RDFa, Turtle and JSON-LD (and possibly data islands), along with ConNeg (and possibly signposting).
>
> On one side, I do agree that orthogonality would be a good thing. On the other side, the implications in terms of complexity are very significant, at least at first glance. I should note that complexity, in this case, primarily refers to dependencies. I don’t think anyone would spend time crafting new parsers from scratch.
>
> However... One way to frame your proposal would be in the context of the natural tendency of a software ecosystem to converge. In that sense, if we were to drop all media type requirements I would expect the ecosystem to quickly converge towards JSON-LD + Turtle (which is practically already the case) and then progress towards JSON-LD alone. Looking at it in this way, I would agree that yours is the best way forward.
>
> As chair, I’m aware of others with perfectly legitimate implementability concerns, which is why current consensus lies with a MUST on Turtle and JSON-LD. Perhaps working on examples might manage to change a few minds.
>
> Best,
> Jacopo.
>
>

Hi Jacopo,

Who has implementation concerns regarding this direction? Ideally, they 
should identify themselves and participate in the discussion.

 From a personal standpoint, and reflecting the view of OpenLink 
Software, we regard any RDF specification that mandates a specific 
content type as fundamentally flawed—this is despite our experience 
working with such limitations in RDF-based specifications over the years.

The ability of RDF to be agnostic regarding notation and content 
serialization formats represents its most potent feature, though it 
seems to be its least understood aspect.


-- 
Regards,

Kingsley Idehen 
Founder & CEO
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Received on Monday, 5 February 2024 23:22:52 UTC