Re: parsers that don't need rdf:RDF?

On Fri, 27 Sep 2002, Nikita Ogievetsky wrote:

> Indeed, this "rdf:RDF" requirement makes otherwise compact RDF annotations
> somewhat bulky.
> I would propose that processors may derive RDF-ness of the metadata
> by resolving namespace URI to see if it is an RDF schema.
> Otherwise it may just ignores the metadata.
>
> Currently most RDF processors require "resolvability" of  schema URI-s.
> With this proposal they will only assume that they are parsing an RDF
> fragment
> if the namespace resolves to an RDF schema.
>
> --Nikita.

One of the design constraints on RDF was that the content (as
graph) of these documents should be self standing, ie. not need you to go
retrieve, parse, interpret further documents on the Web before you can
figure out what its content amounts to. This concern also explains RDF's
apparent verbosity: it makes everything (sometimes painfully) explicit,
instead of relying on possibly remote external documents.

That said, a lot of people are interested in exploring the use of XML
Schema annotations to map from more colloquial XML into RDF graphs.  IMHO
there's a major role for this approach too, so long as we have at least
one syntax for RDF that takes the self-standing view...

cheers,

Dan


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Received on Friday, 27 September 2002 10:50:52 UTC