Re: XML or RDF Re: The Tragedy of RSS

In a message dated 10/4/2002 11:31:35 AM US Mountain Standard Time, 
charles@w3.org writes:
> >For example, is the following XML document an example of the use of
> >RDF? (ie. it is RDF?)
> >
> ><?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> ><foo xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">
> >  <bar>lorem ipsum</bar>
> >  <dc:title>This is a title</dc:title>
> ></foo>
> >
> 
> This question ties to a few others that have come up.
> 
> My response would be this is just XML, since nothing says otherwise.
> 

I don't believe the lack of information is the defining factor - the
root element is.  The above is a document of type "foo" ... just
as <html> ... </html> is an html document.


> The caveat is that if we allow RDF to omit rdf:RDF and rely on well-known
> namespaces then we have to figure out a way to answer the question for a
> parser - i.e. is it legitimate to rewrite this as
> 
>   <rdf:RDF>
>     <rdf:Description about="">
>       <dc:title>This is a title</dc:title>
>     </rdf:Description>
> <foo id="barfoo">
>   <bar>lorem ipsum</bar>
> </foo>
>   </rdf:RDF>
> 
> or not?
> 

I don't think your example adequately conveys your point.  In your text
you state that you want to allow the omission of rdf:RDF and then
your example uses it.  Ignoring that, I think allowing the embedding of 
RDF in XML to be crucial to allow the addition of non-contextual 
modeling (RDF statements) with contextual modeling (xml documents).  

So, this would allow:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<foo xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
        xmlns:rdf="http:// ..."
        xmlns:foaf="http:// ...">
  <bar>lorem ipsum</bar>
  <dc:title>This is a title</dc:title>
   <rdf:Description about = "#foo" type="foaf:Person">
        <foaf:knows rdf:resource = "#bar">
   </rdf:Description>
</foo>

The idea above being that we are asserting that foo and bar in this document 
happen
to be people that know each other.  While that concept could be fixed at the 
time of 
document creation ... it is very powerful to allow new assertions after the 
fact.

> We could also wonder what the namespace says - does it provide an XML 
> schema,
> or an RDF schema, or something else, or both? Does it answer to a request 
> for
> something that transforms from one to the other?
> 

I like the idea of a namespace referring to a "context document" whether that 
be RDDL
or an RDF document.  That referenced document could dictate the appropriate 
validation
and interpretation.

 - Mike
----------------------------------------------------
Michael C. Daconta
Director, Web & Technology Services
www.mcbrad.com

Received on Friday, 4 October 2002 20:23:24 UTC