Mintues: XDI TC Telecon Thursday 1-2PM PT 2009-01-08

["Drummond Reed" <drummond.reed@cordance.net>]

Following are the minutes of the unofficial telecon of the XDI TC at:

Date:  Thursday, 08 January 2009 USA
Time:  1:00PM - 2:00PM Pacific Time (21:00-22:00 UTC)

ATTENDING

Markus Sabadello 
Bill Barnhill 
Drummond Reed 
Giovanni Bartolomeo 
John Bradley
Tatsuki Sakushima


AGENDA

1) PROPOSED CONTENT FOR XDI 1.0 RDF GRAPH MODEL SPEC

We reviewed the new wiki page containing content for the first XDI 1.0 spec:

	http://wiki.oasis-open.org/xdi/XdiOne/RdfGraphModel

Drummond explained the work he and new XDI TC member Nick Nicholas had done
to review the metagraph model in depth, and how Nick's questions and
feedback was a major driver for completing this first portion of the
proposed spec. Drummond plans to convert it into official OASIS spec format
after the proposed XRI and XDI TC editor's call with Mary McRae next week
(see below).

Bill began by raising three questions:

a) What is the $$ metagraph predicate - is it new? Drummond explained that
yes, it was put in as a placeholder for a new proposal to use $$ instead of
$context as the predicate for XDI context discovery. This is because $ by
itself is the self-context (the context self-descriptor) and so $$ by itself
is the "context of contexts", which also serves as our proposed XRI for
variables. Bill said this is consistent because $, when used as an XDI
subject, represents the equivalent of an RDF blank node. (He pointed out
that if you print out the string value of a RDF blank node, it is _: . For
XDI, $ is essentially the equivalent.)

# DRUMMOND to write up more about this proposal for next week's telecon.

b) Are $$ cross references support, e.g, is $$(foo) still a legal variable?
Yes, there hasn't been any change in the variables proposal since last
spring.

# BILL to set up a separate wiki page regarding "$ statements" and metagraph
questions.

c) Is the spec far enough decomposed now? We looked over
http://wiki.oasis-open.org/xdi/XdiOneSpecs and agreed that the scope looks
correct. Drummond explained that this first spec is really about XDI
addressing as much as it is about the RDF graph model because the two
subjects are so intertwined.

Bill raised the question about where we should: a) explain the relationship
between XDI RDF and standard RDF in more depth, and b) explicitly define a
transformation between the the two models. As an example of the former, he
suggested showing the RDF statements and graph for saying that a ball has
the color red, and then doing the same in XDI RDF.

There was agreement that such a comparison clearly belongs in this spec.
There was further discussion about where a formal transform between the two
models should be defined -- in this spec or in the Serialization spec. Bill
pointed out that if we define it in this spec, then we don't need to define
any serialization, because we can just defer to the RDF specs for
serialization, which would be very attractive.

# DRUMMOND to think this over and suggest where it could placed in this
spec.


2) STEPS TO CLOSURE ON XRI 3.0 SYNTAX

Drummond reported that with this posted, the XRI TC should be able to
finally take action on closure of the two proposals for XRI 3.0 Syntax
motivated by XDI RDF requirements. A special XRI TC telecon will be held on
this next Tuesday at 2PM PT.


3) EDITORS TELECON WITH TC ADMINISTRATOR MARY MCRAE 

The XRI and XDI TCs are jointly organizing a telecon between all editors and
Mary McRae to take advantage of her knowledge about the spec templates and
best practices. This will be held next Monday at 2PM PT. Details will be
sent to both the XRI and XDI TC lists. Anyone on either TC who wants to
understand OASIS spec production mechanics better is invited to attend; XDI
TC spec editors are strongly encouraged to attend.


4) NEXT CALL

The next call is next Thursday at the regular time, 1-2PM PT (21:00-22:00
UTC).