Re: Point of Order - Re: What is a WebID?

On 5 November 2012 12:23, Henry Story <henry.story@bblfish.net> wrote:

> I may have to ask for this e-mail and responses to be deleted from the W3C
> archive
> as it is making false claims which are completely irrelevant to this
> discussion and
> making it personal where it need not be personal at all. This sidetracking
> of the discussion
> is really not helpful.
>

Henry, I apologize if any comment I made caused any offence, or was
inaccurate.  The idea that I wanted to get across was Tim's comment from
the F2F that you has worked on WebID for some time and that his opinion
should carry some weight.  Obviously, I will retract any comments of a
personal nature.


>
> On 4 Nov 2012, at 19:18, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 4 November 2012 19:06, Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com> wrote:
>
>> On 11/4/12 7:46 AM, Andrei Sambra wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I suggest to go back to the minutes from 30/10, and look at what
>>> arguments were presented then. http://www.w3.org/2012/10/30-**
>>> webid-minutes.html <http://www.w3.org/2012/10/30-webid-minutes.html>
>>>
>>> The main reason why we decided that WebIDs must be hashed URIs, was to
>>> differentiate between URIs referring to users/agents and URIs referring to
>>> documents (hashless URIs). For more details, take a look at httpRange-14
>>> issue: http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/**group/track/issues/14<http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/group/track/issues/14>
>>> .
>>>
>>> The reason why we decided to make turtle mandatory was to try to align
>>> ourselves to the LDP spec, since it's in both our interests to do so. The
>>> main argument here (raised by TimBL) was that we should focus on moving
>>> forward towards a WG, and trying to support as many formats as possible (at
>>> this point) will hold us back.
>>>
>>> I know it's difficult for some of you to understand why these changes
>>> are happening, but please everyone, just go and reread the minutes. It's
>>> all in there.
>>>
>>> Andrei
>>>
>>
>> Reading the minutes doesn't change anything at all.
>>
>> The definition is utterly broken. This is a total disservice to this
>> endeavor.
>>
>> There were 16 +1's for this broken definition. Nathan asked the 16 +1'ers
>> to defend their positions. Thus, far nobody has made a cogent case for
>> compromising the essence of AWWW and Linked Data.
>>
>> If you believe in something, make a logical case for it. Thus far, there
>> is no logical case for compromising the essence of AWWW and Linked Data en
>> route to Web-scale verifiable identity.
>>
>>
>> Those of us that oppose this broken definition are ready to defend our
>> positions.
>>
>
> Note: in the minutes I was the *only* person not to +1 this, but after
> some thought I changed my mind and here's my analysis
>
> The technology we use has not changed.  We still have complete, universal,
> tolerant structures using URIs that obey the law of independent invention.
> Our solutions are interoperable.  Universal does not mean unique!
>
> On branding it's changed before and it can change again.  Is not a huge
> deal to me personally.
>
> Henry has worked on WebID for some time at his own expense (and has even
> been to prison for it!).  He should certainly be able to suggest branding
> that he feels he feels comfortable with, and that will be effective in
> meeting his goals and expectations for the project.
>
>
> This is completely irrelevant. The pressure for changing the naming of a
> WebID at the W3C session was not mine at all. It was more one pressed by an
> external community that was present at TPAC and which we may want to
> accommodate to be able to move on to the next stage.
>
> As to prison: I never went to prison - at least not on US understanding of
> the word "prison" which entails being found guilty for some deed. I was
> arrested at the US border when going to a Social Web meetup I had organised
> in California a couple of years ago and sent to jail while waiting for a
> judge to review a case.  I was not allowed to post bail, because not having
> been allowed into the US (since I was stopped at the border) I did not have
> a visa to walk around freely in the US. As a result I was not able to spend
> energy helping the Silicon Valley crowd understand what WebID and the
> Social Web was about, which explains a lot of the misunderstandings we
> still have over in the US as to what we are doing. When I finally saw a
> judge  and when the prosecution finally managed to find what their own
> problem with me was, the case was dismissed in a few minutes.
>  The details are here:
> https://blogs.oracle.com/bblfish/entry/7_days_in_sf_jail
>
> So it's an interesting story of mangling of information in the US
> databases, of border paranoia, but it does not advance the argument here at
> all.
>
>
> One of the pros was that it was felt this narrow definition would
> expediate getting to REC status, either with a WG or by LDP using this as
> the definition for identity.  Another pro is that it simplifies test
> suites.  Another is that WebID has a beach head in facebook, making it
> potentially one of the largest identity systems on the Web, though Henry
> didnt want to play that aspect up until there is a deeper linked data
> integration.
>
> I personally like general definitions for things such as the URIs, AWWW,
> design issues etc. but I think the feeling was that sometimes to get things
> done you need to focus.  We still have all the goodness of AWWW we just
> will need to alter what we call things slightly.
>
>
>>
>> Kingsley
>>
>>
>>> On 11/04/2012 07:29 AM, Melvin Carvalho wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 4 November 2012 12:47, Jürgen Jakobitsch
>>>> <j.jakobitsch@semantic-web.at <mailto:j.jakobitsch@semantic-**web.at<j.jakobitsch@semantic-web.at>>>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>     hi melvin,
>>>>
>>>>     for me the problem is that we now have a political dimension of
>>>> personal
>>>>     preferences which cut my personal freedom of choice.
>>>>
>>>>     if we award other linked data groups the same behaviour (express
>>>>     preferences of uri or serialization) the argument about the
>>>> advantages
>>>>     of having one kind of uri and one kind of serialization become void.
>>>>
>>>>     linked data works with any kind of dereferenceable uri and any kind
>>>> of
>>>>     serialization.
>>>>     if webID only works with hash-http-uris and turtle it is just
>>>> another
>>>>     application in the spirit of web2.0 in the special disguise of using
>>>>     linked data techniques.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I really do sympathize with the points you made and I was initially
>>>> taken aback by this.  But having thought about it, I've warmed to the
>>>> idea.  LDP is on a REC track and is possibly the group most relevant to
>>>> our work.  If we can avoid duplication of effort that would be a plus,
>>>> imho.
>>>>
>>>> I really dont think anything has changed.  Give yourself a
>>>> dereferencable URI and you're "on the web".
>>>>
>>>> WebID itself is just a name, and it will hopefully have a URI soon of
>>>> the form urn:rfc pointing to a spec.
>>>>
>>>> So the spec started mandating FOAF then it mandated an Agent, now it
>>>> mandates turtle.  Things change, and may change again before 2014 when
>>>> LDP becomes a REC.
>>>>
>>>> Is there really a problem with hash URIs?  Redirects are a pain to
>>>> program.  Ontowiki did object to this but after some thought worked out
>>>> their architecture may even be better without the redirects.
>>>>
>>>> In what way do you think this is in the spirit of web 2.0?  It is using
>>>> a complete generalized and universal platform to solve a specific case
>>>> in a way that will be interoperable and follow standards.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Kingsley Idehen
>> Founder & CEO
>> OpenLink Software
>> Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
>> Personal Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/**blog/~kidehen<http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> Social Web Architect
> http://bblfish.net/
>
>