Re: WebID-ISSUE-55 (schema-openess): explore WebID schema agnosticims

On 19 Apr 2011, at 21:44, Kingsley Idehen wrote:

> On 4/19/11 2:40 PM, Henry Story wrote:
>> Kinglsey wrote in a different thread that was way too long but can be found here
>> http://www.w3.org/mid/4DADCED3.70709@openlinksw.com
>>> Henry,
>>> 
>>> ftp: scheme is done re. ODS. It was done the day http: scheme was done since our architecture is based on the URI abstraction and its application to data access by reference. That lies at the core of our platform.
>> Great. But is it in the spec? And do we have tests for it? The point of W3C is to make sure things are documented, non patented, free and tested.
>> 
>>> ftp: scheme doesn't solve the intuitiveness problem. Again "deceptively simple" is better than "simply simple". Who is the target audience for the beyond http: scheme meme? There very folks WebID needs the most, the ones that already have applications that need a security tweak. Not the ones looking for a new programming adventure.
>> Can you explain the intuitiveness problem? I have no idea what you are on about.
> 
> Henry,
> 
> Video: http://vimeo.com/14830050, you were in the audience :-)
> 
> Email Addresses are more intuitive Identifiers than HTTP URIs. Personally, I am very concerned that this is even a subject of debate between us. I am not feeling objectivity here at all.

But the point has been made again and again that in WebID the Id is hidden, so that there is no intuitiveness problem. After all I can have <a href="mailto:henry.story@bblfish.net">mail Me</a> in html just as I can have http URIs. There is no intuitivity difference there.

> [snip]
>>>> I don't really see the use case for this, since anyone who has an ftp server can get an http server.
>>> Exactly! As per my opening comments.
>> You opening comment Kingsley is that ODS has implemented FTP.
>>  Is that compatible with the spec as it is written now?
> I don't know. I thought WebID was scheme agnostic. If I recall ftp: is a scheme.

Well if you believe the spec is agnostic then what was all this debate about? If there is something that needs to be changed then please let us know. 

> 
>> http://webid.info/spec/ Or do we need to change something. If it is ok, then what was all that talk about WebID not being schema agnostic enough.
>> 
>>>>  FTP was really important when the web came to be because then the difficulty of acquiring http was a lot greater comparatively. On the other hand the amount of work to do ftp should be pretty minimal.
>>>> 
>>>> If people are for that please +1 and I'll add it as an issue.
>>> -1000 . Solve nothing.
>> Not even making your ODS server implementation standard? Why did ODS implement the FTP protocol?
> 
> No comment. I think you know the answer to that question bearing in mind your own comment about ftp:

Look at one step you say "-1000 solves nothing" just before there is a proposal to make sure ftp is correctly integrated in the spec, with test suites etc...

Perhaps indeed this solves nothing because the debate was without foundations?

> 
>>>>  When done we can have a vote to open it too, the idea being to look at the spec and see how it needs to be rewritten for ftp (and hence made generic enough for other existing or yet to be URI schemes)
>>> Why don't you simply define what it takes to have an implementation instead.
>>> 
>>> mailto:, acct: schemes already exist in ODS. Why doesn't it count?
>> Never said it does not count. What needs to change in the spec? I think starting with FTP is good because we can all implement that in an hour I am pretty sure.
> 
> When does something count for the spec of an scheme agnostic protocol?
> 
>>> I am a horrible speculator (don't have the patience for it), but I think I have a pretty good track record re. implementation. We (OpenLink) implemented this stuff a long time ago, and the new set of WebID tools are telling us: your stuff is invalid when we do interop tests.
>> That is great. I just think we should also build tests for what we implement.
> 
> Meaning what?

Meaning we should build tests to test that we implement things correctly re the spec. And those tests should test all implementations. I was not referring to the tests you have made for your own suite of course. I am just suggesting that since this is a protocol - ie a communication protocol - we should try to see how well we all implement the spec, so that we can uncover issues we have, as we just did in the thread "self-signed" I mention below.

> 
>>  It makes it much easier to test that our spec is good and our implementations are good. It saves us a lot of time trying this out on a case by case basis. Remeber the whole thread "self-signed" started because our test suites permitted
>> Joerg Anders to find a problem on one server, that he did not find on another.
>> 
>> http://www.w3.org/mid/alpine.LFD.2.02.1104130908460.2525@wicht.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de
>> Once that thread is finished we can build a new test to make sure we understand when this happens next time.
> 
> My interest is now rock bottom re. subjective comments from you. I will not longer respond to them, sorry.

I have not idea what subjective comment you are referring to. 
My guess is that you think I am picking on you for a test suite. But of course no more on you than on me, than on anyone else. This is just what test oriented development is about. Here are some examples of other w3c specifications that did this using no less than EARL

GRDDL: http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/grddl-wg/td/test_results
SPARQL: http://xml.coverpages.org/ni2008-01-16-a.html#implementationReports
        http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/DataAccess/impl-report-ql

Henry

> 
> 
> Speak objectively, and we can resume dialog. Henceforth, no more comments from me when you speak in this new found subjective tone.
> 
> 
> Kingsley
>> 
>> 
>>> Then when I flag the dangerous trend, you respond (subjectively) with comments like: "You shouted at XYZ..." .
>>> 
>>> I could be more aggravated than Peter right now, but I sorta very used to a lot of this re. standards implementation :-)
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Kingsley
>> Social Web Architect
>> http://bblfish.net/
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Kingsley Idehen	
> President&  CEO
> OpenLink Software
> Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
> Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
> Twitter/Identi.ca: kidehen
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

Social Web Architect
http://bblfish.net/

Received on Tuesday, 19 April 2011 20:09:14 UTC