The Future of RDF

At the end of June, immediately after SemTech, I'll be attending the W3C RDF Next Step Workshop. This workshop has been set up with the goal of gathering feedback from the Semantic Web community to determine if (and how) RDF should evolve in the future. I'll be presenting two papers with David Wood which I hope will generate good discussions...(To review the papers or for more information on the workshop, go to NextStepWorkshop.)

The first paper I'm presenting will show a new RESTful RDF Store API supporting named queries and change isolation. (I blogged about this earlier this year.) This proposed API would combine basic CRUD operations over RDF constructs (graphs, services and queries) and mandate RDF descriptions of services. With the ability to modify an RDF store's state in SPARQL 1.1 comes the challenge of managing store versions and the need to manage them (and their differences) over HTTP.

The other paper is a proposed alternative handling of rdf:List in SPARQL. The way we currently deal with ordered collections in RDF, whether through tools or in SPARQL, is so difficult that it limits adoption of RDF. So much of data retrieval, which is currently dominated on the Web by XML, includes the notion of ordered collections - RDF must align the RDF representation with the conceptual notion of ordered collections if it has a chance of making inroads into already established networks.

Where do you think RDF needs to go in the future? Does it need to change if it is going to stay viable?

Panel: Linked Open Data

The SemTech 2009 Videos have been posted, including the Linked Open Data Panel.

The "data commons" is a cornerstone of the semantic web vision. The Linked and Open Data movements are progressing beyond the early adopter phase and preparing to cross the chasm. Enough experience now exists to reflect on how this data set is being used, how useful it is, and where we can take it from here. Beyond the basics, the panel will discuss issues such as quality of service, stability, and longevity. They'll also explore the evolution of the semantic web with a particular emphasis on modes of data use, reuse and aggregation.

Paul Miller, The Cloud of Data
Jamie Taylor, Metaweb Technologies, Inc.
Leigh Dodds, Talis
James Leigh, James Leigh Services, Inc.
Kingsley Idehen, OpenLink Software, Inc.

http://www.semanticuniverse.com/semtech-panel-linked-open-data.html

What is the Semantic Web?

I get this question a lot and below is what the semantic web means to me. What do you view as the semantic web?

Software is built around models: logical representations of a system of entities. Models are an important part of software development, as the user's experience is often a reflection of the underlying model. Any flaws in the model will cascade up all the way to the user's interaction with the system.

Today's software programs have many different users with many different perspectives. Attempting to satisfy everyone with a single model leads to complexity that make the model difficult to understand and use.

The semantic web provides standards to express interconnected models by capturing and contextualizing the knowledge about them. Semantic web technologies allows one to access the larger conceptual data model and from more abstract points of view. This enables both people *and* software to navigate between both high level and detailed views so information can easily be examined and modified from different perspectives.