RE: peer-to-peer was Re: Distributed querying on the semantic web

Jeremy Question/Suggestion at end - 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-rdf-interest-request@w3.org
> [mailto:www-rdf-interest-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Jeremy Carroll
> Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2004 3:00 PM
> To: Jonathan Chetwynd
> Cc: Phil Dawes; www-rdf-interest@w3.org
> Subject: Re: peer-to-peer was Re: Distributed querying on the semantic
> web
> 
> 
> 
> Thus we can identify three levels of centralization in a semantic 
> architecture:
> 
> 1: fully centralized
>    terms and their meaning are defined by a single world wide 
> authority.
> See many standard internet vocabularies for doing X or Y
> 
> 2: terms decentralized, meanings per term centralized
>    anyone can make up a term, but for each term there is a 
> (potentially 
> different) central authority that defines its meanings
> 
> 3: fully decentralized
>    anyone can make up a term, anyone can make up a meaning
> 
> We know that (1) can work for some applications.
> We know that (3) works (our life as a society, both natural 
> language and 
> other modalities of meaning use this method)
> 
> There are many who argue that (2) is the right way for the SemWeb.
> [Maybe I am going to argue myself into (2), I prefer the 
> beauty of (3), 
> but the engineer in me sees the attraction of (2)]
> 
> Note that the choice of semantic architecture is orthogonal to the 
> choice of distributed system architecture - it is possible to 
> implement 
> SemArch (3) on a mainframe serving the planet; it is possible to 
> implement SemArch (1) on thousands or millions of peers 
> circling the globe.

How about a hybrid of (2) and (3). One would have the option of availing themselves of "the beauty of (3)" while referring to centralized definitions as appropriate or convenient. Isn't this what we do in technical writing? We make up our own definitions when truly neccesary but find it convenient and efficient to make use of definitions from previously published papers.

Just my two shillings.

James

Received on Friday, 23 April 2004 10:14:32 UTC