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

On 5 Nov 2012, at 15:44, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> 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. 

It was just very dangerously ambiguous, so I had to intervene here.

> 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.

Thanks. This is a consensus process and so everybody opinion carries weight. Not equal weight it is true:  feedback from people who implement carries more weight, and feedback from people who grow the community carries even more - as their contributions help metastabilise the protocol.  Implementing is what constitutes playing the game.

The aim is to reach what David Lewis in "Convention" terms Common Knowledge and on which he founds his definition of the term.

   http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/common-knowledge/

This means that we need to reach a stage where we all know that we all know what the convention is. This is what makes it valuable to follow the convention, since we can then depend on it to help guide our actions.


>   
>  
> 
> 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
>> 
>> 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.
>> 
>> 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>> 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
>> Twitter/Identi.ca handle: @kidehen
>> Google+ Profile: https://plus.google.com/112399767740508618350/about
>> LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kidehen
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> Social Web Architect
> http://bblfish.net/
> 
> 

Social Web Architect
http://bblfish.net/