RE: [regrep] RDF Data Access WG Charter

["John Gillerman" <john.gillerman@sisconet.com>]

Farrukh,

I did not mean to comment on the existing RDF Net API submission, but on
what could eventually be standardized by the RDF DA WG.  My own personal
opinion is that there might be time to help shape requirements.  In this
case, it is unclear if the eventual RDF API would fit the bill.  Do we know
that the RDF DA WG wouldn't consider the requirements for federation, event
notification, and the others?   Seems like a good API for a use case such as
a semantic data grid would include these things.

With regard to the applicability of RDF, I am no expert, but had thought
that RDF could refer to non RDF content.  Am I off base here? Couldn't an
RDF API support the uploading of non RDF based content to a server?  For
example, I believe that RDF supports referring to XSD.  I would think this
would be a good requirement for them.

With regard to the current API, has the team considered an API that is
content and state neutral.  I may be completely confused here and rehashing
old discussion, but doesn't the API have content and state specific parts in
it?  My not particularly well informed view is that an RDF based API would
only depend on the underlying RDF model and not the particulars of content
and state.  If this is so, wouldn't this be a more extensible/flexible API
going forward.

I had thought that your vision of web servers is to the web as ebXML is to
the semantic web implied that ebXML would be designed not only for intra
enterprise integration as well as inter enterprise integration.  Do people
think that the current API applies well to this more general use case (one
that scales down to connecting to local apps together).  In this case the
RIM is just an information model that each server could expose.

I am all for extending/maintaining the current RIM, but am wondering if the
current one can't be modeled using RDF (from an interface perspective only).
Could an RDF interface be used to browse and query without changing the RIM?
Would this be a too radical departure from current ebXML technology?

I agree that ebXML Registry goes beyond an RDF API since we specify content.
I don't mean to be a skeptic, but I don't believe that the ebXML API would
be a good RDF API.  I think that some believe that RQL would make a good RDF
API and it is simpler as well as being content and state neutral.

I don't mean to rant and will drop this quickly if people think I am way off
base here. I just don't want to let the ideal of the unification of the
semantic web and ebXML slip away without more discussion.

John

-----Original Message-----
From: Farrukh Najmi [mailto:Farrukh.Najmi@Sun.COM]
Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2004 12:20 PM
To: John Gillerman
Cc: regrep@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [regrep] RDF Data Access WG Charter


John Gillerman wrote:

>Farrukh,
>
>Can you elaborate more on your ideas here.  If the RDF API supports the
>ebXML submit/approve/deprecate/remove workflow and has a sufficiently
>powerful query mechanism, why wouldn't an RDF API completely meet our
>registry API needs?
>
The RDF Net API provides a small subset of functionality provided by the
ebXML Registry API. Even that functionality is specific to RDF. There is
no support for federation, event notification, ad hoc query,
classification, deprecation, approval etc....

ebXML Registry API supports a much broader functionality and for any
type of content not just RDF content. What it lacking is the ability to
manage RDF and OWL as first-class elements of its information model.
This is what the Semantic Content Management SC (SCM SC) proposes to
address in version 4.

While this is still half-baked thoughts and needs the team's validation,
I envision that in version 4 we will keep and extend our API (most of
the Registry Services spec). In the short term we will keep our existing
RIM but extend it to add native support for OWL Ontologys. Over the long
term we will evolve RIM so it will itself be natively expressed in OWL/RDF.

Several new capabilities will be enabled:

-Use of Ontologys for classification

-Inference based discovery that can take attribute values for ontology
classes as well as relationships between Ontology classes into account

-Support for more general classification scheme structures such as
Multiple Inheritence and graph

-Support for arbitrary user defined type extensibility in RIM

The important point is that we will take an evolutionary approach to
Semantic Content Management, one that leverages the strengths of our
existing capabilities. We will incrementally add OWL/RDF support as
optional features. This will allow implementors and users to keep pace
as the standard evolves.

As for the RDF Net API, it is just one possible input into the future
RDF Data Access WG. I think that ebXML Registry has the potential for
being a much better fit for the requirements once we add the SCM
capabilities.

>Would we want to find out if RDF DA WG is interested in
>supporting our use cases?
>
I do not think they want to broaden their scope to include any type of
content and all the other stuff that we do.
What I am suggesting is that ebXML Registry 4.0 API be proposed as the
basis for RDF Access API.

>It seems that the best thing would be the
>unification of the two API's.
>
The two API have very different goals, origin and futures. We should
study RDF Net API (and I am) to see what we can learn leverage but I
suspect that this would yield modest returns.

>I fully agree that submitting requirements to
>or just following the progress of the RDF DA WG is a good thing.
>
>
There is significant overlap in the charter of RDF DA and SCM SC. We
need to figure out with the Semantic Web folks at w3c how we can best
work together to avoid duplication of effort and to meet our common
objectives synergistically.

Happy new year everyone.

--
Regards,
Farrukh


>John
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Farrukh Najmi [mailto:Farrukh.Najmi@Sun.COM]
>Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2003 2:46 PM
>To: regrep@lists.oasis-open.org
>Subject: Re: [regrep] RDF Data Access WG Charter
>
>
>Chiusano Joseph wrote:
>
>
>
>>Farrukh,
>>
>>Thanks for this information. I attended an XML 2003 session [1] given by
>>Graham Moore (co-author, RDF Net API) that covered RDF Data Access, and
>>found it very interesting.
>>
>>Joe
>>
>>[1] "Semantic Web Servers - Engineering the Semantic Web":
>>http://www.xmlconference.org/xmlusa/2003/thursday.asp#35
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>I did not attend that session. Do you think that if ebXML Registry
>version 4 provides first class support for publish and discovery of RDF
>and OWL content that it would essentially be providing all the
>functionality provided by the RDF Net API? If so am I correct to assume
>that it would actually provide a super-set of functionality of RDF Net API?
>
>Also, did you get any sense of whether RDF Net API was on a standards
>track anywhere yet? Thanks.
>
>