Re: API for RDF: locutor

Stefan Decker wrote :

> Hi,
>
> this point was already discussed on the list.
> Have a look http://www-db.Stanford.EDU/~stefan/updates.html
> The first section:  "Tracing RDF statements" provides a summary of the
> mailings and links to them (but contrarily to the consensus found on the list
> i'am still convinced "locutors" are fundamental and should go into the
> RDF-datamodel,
> and thus into the API.)

So I looked at Stephan Decker's page:
http://www-db.Stanford.EDU/~stefan/updates.html about "Proposed Updates of RDF", a
definitely interesting page which should be updated and completed regularly.

The first section:  "Tracing RDF statements" provides a summary of the mailings
and links to this subjet.
It was  proposed that the model origin could be stored with the triples

     The model origin (model) could be stored
     >with the triples, but for the application appear as a bag of triples
     >in a read-only state. And you can then say whatever you like about the
     >whole bag, or any of the triples inside.

     Agreed. But then it is a requirement for the software implementing the
     Query API to do this (gets complicated - forget about simple mappings to
     databases....)

Not necessarily, only the triples will become a "quatuor", i.e. each triple will
be completed with its "model origin"=locutor .

It is interesting to note that this "model origin" will generally be a URL or
in-memory object, because if you have a triple in your database, you have obtained
it from some real place, not from an URI. It will only be a URI if the application
has a built-in collection of triples as a configuration or default. For an
in-memory object, it is the case of data just entered by the user, whose name and
hostname are generally known, and can make a URI.

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