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On 2002-02-14 14:58, "ext Eric van der Vlist" <vdv@dyomedea.com> wrote:
> Patrick Stickler wrote:
>
> <snip/>
>
>> What we need is a global metadata registry (or registries)
>> that provides access to knowledge by arbitrary URI, which
>> is expressed in standardized ontologies with consistent
>> semantics -- ideally expressed in RDF.
>
> <snip/>
>
>> You know, something like a Semantic Web... ;-)
>
> Yes, we badly need it.
>
> In the meantime, I have customers who need to publish "namespaces" or
> more precisely resources describing namespaces, you know, those nasty
> things such as text descriptions and documentations, XML Schemas (W3C or
> not), stylesheets and this king of stuff.
>
> I can ask them to wait for the Semantic Web, but they will probably be
> right to turn to my competitors and it's probably wise to publish their
> documents in as many schema repositories as we can find in the meantime
> (just like it's wise to submit your web pages to search engines and
> repositories untill the Semantic Web can groke them)...
Sure. Hey, I'm a very practical kinda guy. I have no problems
appreciating folks needing to get stuff done *today* and get
stuff working *now*. I have the same needs.
I'm not asking anyone to wait until some glorious solution is ready.
What I do take issue with is the apparent eagerness of some to adopt
short term "hacks" as long term solutoins and part of the overall
web architecture.
> What harm does it do if they also use the namespace URI to host a RDDL
> description?
Little to none, so long as it is accepted that it is a short-term,
non-optimal, and likely (eventually) a throw-away solution.
> It's not a matter of religion but a simple pragmatic thing to do right
> now to increase the chances that someone who receive a document using a
> namespace can find some information about the namespace.
Sure. And some very important lessons have been learned from the RDDL
effort (and others) -- namely that there is a gonzo big problem with
treating namespace URIs as anything but punctuation ;-)
> And when the Semantic Web will be ready, a simple XSLT transformation
> will be enough to extract the RDF statements out of the RDDL document!
Absolutely.
> Really, I don't see where the problem is. I don't see RDDL as a
> competitor to the Semantic Web but rather as a pragmatic step toward it...
I fully agree -- so long as folks are taking those steps with
their eyes open and with the intent of moving towards a more
optimal SW based solution, even if it is some ways away.
Any long journey is made with many small steps, but if you are only
looking at your feet, you run the risk of wandering a good bit and
possibly falling into a few holes ;-)
Cheers,
Patrick
--
Patrick Stickler Phone: +358 50 483 9453
Senior Research Scientist Fax: +358 7180 35409
Nokia Research Center Email: patrick.stickler@nokia.com
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