Re: call to arms

Thanks Danny - you got me to spend a pleasant little time trying to select
one thing to respond.
And the jury says:
Do even more of the boring commoditising of the infrastructure, in
particular the storage.

The use case:
My organisation's support staff have decided that the Semantic Web/Linked
Data is the way ahead.
They want to replace their SQL storage with a triplestore in a seamless
fashion.
They ask me for advice, and I point them ... where?

Where is the site that tells them how to re-target their data layer from SQL
to SPARQL?
Where are the specifications of triplestore performance, so they can do the
procurement process (hardware and software)?
Where are the utilities that help get data in and out?
Where are the simple descriptions of ...

Of course some of these things may exist but I don't know about them - if so
apologies.
But remember - the people concerned are just interested in using good
technology - they really don't want to know about the Semantic Web.

Until these technologies just become simple commodities like SQL DBs, with
the expected support and utilities, they will always be a "bag on the side",
and never hit the mainstream.

Best
Hugh

On 29/03/2010 19:39, "Danny Ayers" <danny.ayers@gmail.com> wrote:

> Right now, despite the promise, things seem mired in the mud. People
> aren't seeing the things that the Web of Data has proposed.
> 
> How do we get over this?
> 
> Face to face maybe - the bits the interwebs can't provide.
> 
> I suggest the leading lights of this sturm sit down in a room
> somewhere in northern Europe, and hammer the damn thing down. It is so
> stupid for it to take so long.
> 
> The Internet, and the Web is excellent at providing miraculous stuff,
> but the humans that tie the things together seem to be disappearing
> into different worlds.
> 
> The Semantic Web should be useful by now, by anyone's predictions.
> 
> something better change
> 
> (I'm a scaredy pacifist, so don't take that to heart)

Received on Tuesday, 30 March 2010 11:36:23 UTC