[tm-pubsubj-comment] A Common Graph Syntax?

[Murray Altheim <m.altheim@open.ac.uk>]

Eric Miller wrote:

[...]
> Sigh... From your critique as well (all of which seem sensible) it
> seems  clear that TopicMap and RDF/XML are traveling down (again) very
> similar paths wrt deployment.  I for one still think there is huge
> benifit in collaboration and increasingly frustrated by the lack of
> coordination.
> 
> That being said, i still am not sure what the best way is to proceed on
> this front. Perhaps the status quo with independently developed
> activities is all that we can manage, however to see such duplicated
> effort for similar and overlapping goals I find extremely unfortunate.
> 
> I would welcome suggestions on practical steps to help address this
> problem.


Eric,

I realize the political difficulties in attempting changes to RDF,
but I'll still make the proposal. (I also realize that to some this
message is not proposing anything new)

Given that one of the acknowledged barriers to RDF's more widespread
adoption is its syntax (and not its model), might not the RDF community
consider adopting a different graph syntax? Now, XTM would not be
suitable given that XTM embodies more than simply graph semantics, but
the Graph Exchange Language (GXL) is just coming up on version 1.1,
such that its developers are considering minor changes to polish up a
few known difficulties (such as a lack of xmlns declaration). If RDF
were expressed in GXL, it's not too far a leap to express XTM in GXL.
We'd have a common, and fairly neutral territory to collaborate within,
and the fact that GXL is rapidly gaining widespread adoption within
some rather large communities might assist both of ours.

If we can all get over our collective not-invented-here syndrome and
look seriously at GXL as a clean and simple graph language*, we might
find that our paths merge more easily.

Murray

* noting that GXL can express graph constructions that neither RDF
nor XTM can, we may need to create a proper subset. For more info
on GXL, see http://www.gupro.de/GXL/
......................................................................
Murray Altheim                  <http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/>
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK

      In the evening
      The rice leaves in the garden
      Rustle in the autumn wind
      That blows through my reed hut.  -- Minamoto no Tsunenobu