RE: call to arms

Copied from another thread...

>RDF's strength is that it is
> allows different groups to go about their data-creating business
> without needing heavy coordination. The downside might be related:
> things can easily end up a bit scattered. I think RDF's appeal will
> always rest with data, that we are fundamentally a community who are
> concerned with sharing, mixing and connecting data. The actual RDF
> technical stuff is as some put it sometimes a 'tax', but it is also
> the only way I know to date of doing this kind of data-mixing on a
> global scale...

Data/Information management is very much the theme of the day amongst large coorporations and enterprises. I believe Linked Data is definitely part of (if not *the*) solution and is being looked at more and more by enterprise architects. The problem is that this takes them out of their comfort zone and so, whilst generating a lot of interest, is used little in practice..  There are a lot of misconceptions/assumptions around that provide an inertia to anything labelled 'semantic'. You need to have people who can communicate the key ideas/concepts on their level and in a way that appeals to their line of thinking. I have found that when the reality dawns there really is no holding back.

FWIW we have 2 large projects that use linked data 'under the hood' that the customer doesn't even realise is there. We have a few more in the pipeline, it really is just a matter of time.

Regards,

Afraz
-------------------------------------
Afraz Jaffri / Capgemini UK / Aston 

Business Technology Consulting / Semantic Web SME

Tel(ext): 0870 904 3819 / Tel(int):700 3819 / www.capgemini.com
blog: www.capgemini.com/technology-blog

> Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:21:55 +0200
> From: danbri@danbri.org
> To: sandro@w3.org
> CC: semantic-web@w3.org
> Subject: Re: swig telecons?
> 
> On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 1:54 PM, Sandro Hawke <sandro@w3.org> wrote:
> >
> > If we started having regular Semantic Web Interest Group telecons, would
> > you attend?   What would you expect/hope to get out of it?
> 
> We did reserve the right to do this in the charter, a while back, but
> my take is that telephony isn't really the answer. What I feel is
> missing (despite the *millions*) that has been thrown at the Semantic
> Web brand, is the boring slog of getting the base tools and software
> polished. It's still too hard to get started solving practical
> problems with RDF, and for fairly uninteresting reasons. Big EU
> research grants don't easily get awarded for "help polish, package,
> test, transliterate and integrate RDF tools". Startups and corporates
> don't always find it easy to prioritise such activities either. And so
> we potter along, 13+ years into the RDF experiment, 'too big to fail'
> but (I sometimes fear) too slow to really seize the moment. Data is
> the flavour of the moment in the wider tech scene, but RDF is still
> too annoying to work with for many smart people.
> 
> What I would value, is collaboration around getting tools into a
> situation where we can say "OK, a basic RDF toolkit will give you
> SPARQL vx, RDF/XML parsing, N3, GRDDL, RDFa, such-n-so .API, such-n-so
> OWL-ish stuff, such-n-so storage options, ...", and then point to a
> set of options for C, Python, Ruby, Java, Objective-C, C#, Prolog, etc
> etc. backed up by test cases, clear license statements, ... and
> packaged for Ubuntu and all the rest. Much of this stuff is nearly
> done, some tools are better packaged than others, but there's a hell
> of a lot out there in half-finished state and it makes things tough
> for newcomers to the scene who are just trying to get a job done.
> 
> W3C's classic strengths are in defining standards rather than managing
> their deployment. On a good day 'the market' handles that. But
> sometimes markets need a helping hand. RDF's strength is that it is
> allows different groups to go about their data-creating business
> without needing heavy coordination. The downside might be related:
> things can easily end up a bit scattered. I think RDF's appeal will
> always rest with data, that we are fundamentally a community who are
> concerned with sharing, mixing and connecting data. The actual RDF
> technical stuff is as some put it sometimes a 'tax', but it is also
> the only way I know to date of doing this kind of data-mixing on a
> global scale...
> 
> I didn't write a position paper for the RDF Future W/shop (yet), but I
> think in a nutshell my opinion is: don't expect new standards to be
> the answer. This can be difficult for W3C since all the organization's
> momentum is around being a machine for generating standards. I think
> collecting wishlists and draft project plans around tooling would be a
> good next step...
> 
> cheers,
> 
> Dan
> 
 		 	   		  
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