Re: What should we call RDF's ability to allow multiple models to peacefully coexist, interconnected?

Hi Bernadette,

I refrained from jumping into this conversation hoping it would 
gracefully peter away. But, continued pollyannish statements about the 
"ship has sailed" or "core $100 B" claims or it "isn't a philosophical 
debate, its business" is mostly la-la land.

All of the examples you cite are grants and government, not business. 
Timothy put forward real market responses to the readiness of RDF from 
his standpoint. And, he was met with a breezy hand.

He sees a publishing model ("linked data") that does not address his 
interoperability concerns. We can argue that one (though I tend to 
agree), but claiming that RDF is big business, when it is clearly not, 
is only undercutting the credibility of RDF. It also prevents coming to 
grips with the real business roles that RDF might provide. In my lights, 
that role is as a canonical data model supporting interoperability. 
Publishing RDF as linked data is merely a mostly free, secondary benefit.

I personally can not point to many instances where RDF makes a 
difference to businesses because of its adoption. Can you or anyone else 
on this list?

We can all point to some poster children (BBC, Library of Congress, 
maybe a bit of VW UK), but where are the actual businesses pushing and 
making money from this stuff? Best Buy, etc.? I think the argument comes 
into question once one looks closely.

My company, like yours, works hard to push this technology forward. I 
say these things not because I am not a believer. We are building our 
entire commercial offerings around RDF and semantic technologies.

But, until there is realism about where this stuff is really working and 
we can point to real market (that is, business) trends to support that 
advocacy, I suggest we listen more rather than push fantasies in front 
of us.

Sorry to be harsh, but I truly feel this unreality about the "core" role 
of RDF only delays acceptance by business IT decisionmakers. Semantic 
technologies and RDF are hard enough; we need to speak and address 
business concerns if we are to be successful within business.

Thanks, Mike

On 3/10/2014 9:26 PM, Bernadette Hyland wrote:
> Hi Hugh,
> I'm sure you know better than I since you're closer to the ground re:
> Horizon2020.  I spent several hours with Barend Mons at CSHALS (Boston)
> & the National Science Foundation who hosted a National Institutes of
> Health Big Data meetup (in Washington DC) last week.  Barend indicated
> that RDF was quite an important piece of the work he is championing (via
> Elixir).[1]
>
> In any event, I'm just getting more proactive & pushing back when people
> saying RDF attracts attention from a lot of smart people but it hasn't
> 'taken off'.
>
> The ship has sailed.  Major companies are using the RDF family of
> standards because it solves a real pain point.  It will no doubt &
> mature but let's stop expecting it to be the silver bullet for all
> vexing information management issues.  It is good for some things & will
> mature just like any other approach to information management but the
> fundamentals are strong.
>
> This list is probably all over this, but there are now quite a few books
> (mass market type & academic peer reviewed), commercially supported
> products, open source projects, and many big names quietly using RDF.[2]
>
> "A rising tide lifts all boats."
>
> Cheers,
> Bernadette Hyland
>
> [1]
> http://www.elixir-europe.org/events/elixir-founding-ceremony-and-launch-event
> [2] http://linkeddatadeveloper.com
>
>
> On Mar 10, 2014, at 8:02 PM, Hugh Glaser <hugh@glasers.org
> <mailto:hugh@glasers.org>> wrote:
>
>> Hi Bernadette,
>> Unless you are looking at something I haven’t found, I wouldn’t have
>> said RDF was core to Horizon 2020.
>> It would be nice if it was!
>> Best
>> Hugh
>>
>> On 10 Mar 2014, at 21:23, Bernadette Hyland <bhyland@3roundstones.com
>> <mailto:bhyland@3roundstones.com>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Tim,
>>> RDF is called many things, 'a lingua franca', a 'unicode of data
>>> models' but recognize that it is the foundation of the Web of data.
>>>  This isn't a philosophical debate, its business.
>>>
>>> Large and small organizations, and some of most ambitious innovation
>>> projects are using RDF to represent massive amounts of human
>>> knowledge.  The global research initiative Horizon 2020 is funded to
>>> the tune of €80 Billion (US$100B) -- RDF is core to this project.
>>>  Google, Facebook, IBM, Oracle and government agencies worldwide are
>>> all using RDF to get real work done.  They are doing it because it
>>> solves a real business pain -- data interoperability among other things.
>>>
>>> RDF is a mature international data exchange standard and mature data
>>> model.  It'll keep evolving and 'be an awesome platform in the
>>> future' but today, it's pretty darn useful when you want to share
>>> information with millions of people.
>>>
>>> That is good enough for many of us.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Bernadette Hyland
>>> CEO, 3 Round Stones, Inc.
>>>
>>> [1] http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/what-horizon-2020
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mar 10, 2014, at 4:43 PM, Timothy W. Cook <tim@mlhim.org
>>> <mailto:tim@mlhim.org>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 3:17 PM, Martynas Jusevičius
>>>> <martynas@graphity.org <mailto:martynas@graphity.org>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> RDF is like Unicode of data models.
>>>>
>>>> Excellent analogy; on a purely conceptual level.
>>>>
>>>> So lets focus on RDF and build it even deeper into the
>>>> software ecosystem, so we can finally produce some user-friendly yet
>>>> generic applications.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I certainly hope to see RDF mature and become more robust.  It is a
>>>> great foundation that may be an awesome platform in the future.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Tim
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
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>>>
>>
>> --
>> Hugh Glaser
>>   20 Portchester Rise
>>   Eastleigh
>>   SO50 4QS
>> Mobile: +44 75 9533 4155, Home: +44 23 8061 5652
>>
>>
>

-- 
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Michael K. Bergman
CEO  Structured Dynamics LLC
319.621.5225
skype:michaelkbergman
http://structureddynamics.com
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Received on Tuesday, 11 March 2014 03:13:23 UTC