Re: RDF and applications (was: About Refactoring RDF/XML Syntax Rivision 1.43)

Hear hear!

Graham Klyne wrote:
> 
snip
> 
> But it seems that anything that makes RDF easier to deploy has to be of
> considerable value.
> 
> And I think a big part of the value of RDF is (will be) that it allows the
> information from a range of existing and emerging applications to be
> combined -- sort of doing for information and data what the Internet did
> for computing and communication.  (Think of a variant of Metcalfe's
> law:  the value of RDF will be exponentially proportional to the number of
> applications that use it.)  I think it is inevitable that there will be
> many special purpose applications on the Internet that deal only with a
> specific data format.  But if it's cheap to design these specific data
> formats to be also accessible to general purpose RDF applications, I think
> that's a big win.
> 
> If all application designers are prepared to commit to using RDF, then this
> debate is moot.  But I think there are many (and some of the W3C advisory
> committee debates about the Semantic Web activity illustrate this) who are
> still digesting and stabilizing application designs based on XML.  My goal
> is to make it as easy as possible for these folks to adopt XML formats that
> are also RDF compliant.  (I regard this as an area where the original RDF
> M&S actually did a pretty good job, even if it wasn't communicated very
> effectively.)
> 
> Thus, my position is trying to make it easy for application designers to
> take baby steps on the way to using RDF without having to chew the whole
> elephant at once.
> 
snip
> 
> #g
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Graham Klyne                    Baltimore Technologies
> Strategic Research              Content Security Group
> <Graham.Klyne@Baltimore.com>    <http://www.mimesweeper.com>
>                                  <http://www.baltimore.com>
> ------------------------------------------------------------

-- 
Frank Manola                   The MITRE Corporation
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Received on Friday, 7 September 2001 13:03:39 UTC