Nokia's comments on RDF Query Charter (v1.21)

Regarding the discussion draft of an RDF Query WG Charter [1] we
would like to express our keen interest in this initiative and our
intention to participate actively in this work.

With regards to the current state of the proposed charter, and the
process of its completion, we have some specific comments and
suggestions.

1. We feel that the charter should be grounded upon well
    defined use cases, and that requirements be motivated
    directly by those use cases.

2. The use cases defined by the charter should be illustrated by
    test cases consisting of pairs of RDF graphs constituting the
    knowledge base being queried and the results of the query (it
    is also expected that additional test cases will be created during
    the course of the working group's activities to clarify particular
    details of the specification).

3. Work on specification of a query language and model theory should
    not begin until the use cases and requirements are defined and
    agreed upon.  [See below.]

4. The charter should be very clear on the deliverables, and make no
    reference to optional or possible deliverables, and the working
    group should limit its activities to the deliverables defined in
    the charter.

5. The working group should focus its attention on knowledge discovery
    (client initiated requests to RDF-aware knowledge servers) and defer
    to future work broader issues relating to knowledge management,
    submission of knowledge from client to server, distributed query 
    execution, rules, contexts, models, named graphs, trust, etc.

In working towards the completion of a charter for an RDF Query working
group, we feel the following would be a reasonable approach, and one in 
which we are interested in participating:

1. Form an "informal" interest group immediately to focus on (a) the 
    definition of key use cases and their accompanying test cases, and 
    (b) a literature search and implementation survey.

2. Hold a workshop, during which the final use cases are selected, key
    requirements are identified, and the deliverables to be produced
    by the working group are agreed upon.

3. Propose a charter based on the results of the workshop; namely a use
    case document, a requirements document, and a list of deliverables.

We hope that the above comments and suggestions will be found useful, 
and we look forward to seeing this initiative progress swiftly.

Regards,

Art Barstow
Nokia's representative to the W3C's Advisory Committee
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[1] http://www.w3.org/2003/10/RDF-Query-Charter

Received on Wednesday, 26 November 2003 12:04:49 UTC