Re: Alternatives to containers/collections (was Re: Requirements for a possible "RDF 2.0")

On 2010-01-15, Danny Ayers wrote:

> "Optional" is a very good word, about perfect for such stuff.

Very much so. It isn't a given that everybody utilizing the RDF 
framework should need containers, or reification, or...

But there is also a grave danger lurking around this sort of thought 
pattern. We do need and want standardization, after all. Especially with 
the core primitives. True, not everybody wants to implement every 
primitive, but if and when they do, we'd like them to implement them in 
a common way, so that we could share structure using common API's, 
representations and so on.

So, even if we externalize/excise something from the core RDF spec, it 
still needs to remain a standard, and the same problem we had within the 
core spec remains. It just has to be confronted at a different forum. 
When we do something like this, we don't just cast out stuff that is 
difficult to handle; instead we modularize the spec, and when we do 
that, the dissension isn't eliminated, but only moved to a different 
venue.

I for one would like to see much *more* contentious structure brought 
under a standardization effort. The relational-RDF-mapping effort going 
on under W3 is just one example (a dear one to me). There I simply 
*cannot* understand why they're trying to cater to all of the crowds at 
the same time by defining *yet* another intermediary language. Why can't 
they just define a single, canonical mapping from relational to RDF?!?

Sure, there is always political hassle, and even the occasional 
standoff; but in politics they already deviced a workable tie-breaker. 
That is to say, assassination. After seeing (just) a couple of committee 
meeting online and off, I'm seriously warming upto the idea...
-- 
Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - decoy@iki.fi, http://decoy.iki.fi/front
+358-50-5756111, 025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2

Received on Friday, 15 January 2010 19:29:26 UTC