Re: RDF API convergence? was Re: ANNOUNCE: RDF.NET

Dave Beckett wrote:

> >>>Seth Russell said:
> >
> > Two RDF APIs are considered interoperable whenever:
> > 1) System A writes statements in RDF
> > 2) System B reads the statements from (1) and stores them in triples
> > 3) System B writes the resultant triples from (1) back out in RDF
> > 4) System A reads the statements from (3)
> > 5) The triples in system A remain the same.
>
> I see some requirements from this list by itself where A and B are
> separate real systems, rather than separate concepts

Yep, definitely, A and B stand for separate real systems.

> * Between 1),2) and 3),4) you need a non-lossy triple encoding that handles
>   such things as anonymous statements, aboutEach, aboutEachprefix rubbish
>
> * That requires some agreement on how serialising anonymous resources
>   is done, so that the genid:, var: things you see in the naive
>   triple dumps can be interpreted.

I wonder if we could get a couple APIs to publish relational databases of their
triples for some standard sets of RDF corpora.  I, for one, need to get closer
to the details before I understand what the problems really are.  Perhaps what
we need is a kind of inteoperability clinic.

> * What is a statement?  What happens if it is a reified statement?
>   Or both are present?  Discuss!

If a reified statement does not uniquely indicate the statement it is about,
then we have a real problem.  If that unique indication cannot be transmitted
between applications, then RDF is not interoperable when it comes to talking
about statements.  Can we see some specific examples?

> i.e. there is more work to do on the model and/or on conventions for
> serialised models before interchanging without loosing things is
> possible.

I thought RDF had already been designed for these purposes ... silly me :(

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Received on Monday, 13 November 2000 15:21:59 UTC