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

SUMMARY:

There are nice things and root causes of nice things. I think that all the
nice things can be bundled into the term "*schema flexibility*", which
includes the idea of late binding, being optional etc, as well as the other
major idea which is to handle multi-schema at the same time.

  Schema flexibility derives from:

1.      schema being optional,

2.      the fact that there is one representation for both data and schema

3.      the fact that URIs make snapping data and schema from multipls
sources (as it were) as snap. FIBO Telecon 2014-03-11



DETAILS:

I arrived at this conclusion by carefully looking at all the candidate
terms, they fall into two categories:

1.      Being friendly to multi-schema

2.      Schema being optional.



1.      *Being friendly to multiple schema*: This is related to having
uniform representation for shcema and data, but not the same.  You cannot
import multiple independent DB schema into a DB, even though they are in
the same language. Similar ideas:

a.      Supports coexistence of multiple vocabularies and multiple data
models

b.      Multi-schema friendly (shorter wording)

c.       Poly schema friendly (a synonym for multi-schema friendly)

d.      Poly-schema greedy (not sure what greedy means here, there are no
forces wanting more and more schema that I know of).

e.       Supports multiple representations

f.       Supports overloaded representations

g.      Supports multiple overlapping vocabularies

h.      Supports poly-structured data

a.       Schema-diverse (or Vocabulary-diverse)

2.      *Schema is optional*, which is the root cuase of the following,
some of which are also optional:

a.       Schema free (the other viewpoint, also optional)

b.      Late binding, shema later (you can add a schema later)

c.       Pay as you go: same as late binding optional

d.      Schema flexible

e.       Schema promiscuity

f.       Model agnostic

g.      Vocabulary agnostic

h.      Schema friendly



What is not mentioned, but are profoundly important in any mention of RDF
are:

·         The fact that URIs are used to do graph node-foldign so thigns
automatically snap together.  Without this, it would not be possible for
multi-schema to live nicely together.

·         Ther is a uniform representation  for both data and schema. This
makes is easier for multi-schema to live nicely together


On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 8:20 AM, David Booth <david@dbooth.org> wrote:

> I -- and I'm sure many others -- have struggled for years trying to
> succinctly describe RDF's ability to allow multiple data models to
> peacefully coexist, interconnected, in the same data.  For data
> integration, this is a key strength of RDF that distinguishes it from other
> information representation languages such as XML.   I have tried various
> terms over the years -- most recently "schema promiscuous" -- but have not
> yet found one that I think really nails it, so I would love to get other
> people's thoughts.
>
> This google doc lists several candidate terms, some pros and cons, and
> allows you to indicate which ones you like best:
> http://goo.gl/zrXQgj
>
> Please have a look and indicate your favorite(s).  You may also add more
> ideas and comments to it.  The document can be edited by anyone with the
> URL.
>
> Thanks!
> David Booth
>
>


-- 

Michael Uschold
   Senior Ontology Consultant, Semantic Arts
   http://www.semanticarts.com
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   Skype, Twitter: UscholdM