Thoughts
Bob Morris
morris.bob at GMAIL.COM
Sat Feb 11 15:44:07 CET 2006
**
*Rethinking the semantic Web. Part I*
McCool, R.;
Internet Computing, IEEE
Volume 9, Issue 6, Nov.-Dec. 2005 Page(s):88, 86 - 87
*Abstract:*
The semantic Web is a compelling vision, in which the World Wide Web will
include a notion of meaning in data and services. Intelligent agents will
exchange information and rules for how to interact with that information,
with or without human intervention; appointments will be automatically
scheduled; and automated agents will select and invoke services. Information
will be easy to find without depending solely on keywords. In part one of
this column, the author propose several reasons that this vision hasn't yet
been adopted despite substantial research funding in the US and European
Union (EU). These reasons will provide the foundation for a new approach,
which propose in part two.
McCool is one of the architects of a number of RDF and RDF related systems.
This doesn't bear very much on LSID vs. something else, but it does argue
that RDF is burdened by its weight and hasn't achieved certain of its aims.
A question arises about whether this has implications for other applications
that have ontological overtones, including many of TDWGs.
The second columm is in the January issue of the same journal.
On 2/10/06, Sally Hinchcliffe <S.Hinchcliffe at kew.org> wrote:
>
> Hi Rod,
> Your comment facility is down or I would have added this to the blog
> ...
> I think that most of the talk re serving XML from LSIDs was by way of
> an upgrade path rather than as a final goal. As you say (rightly or
> wrongly) the community has put a lot of effort into XML schemas and
> it worried me (and others) that tying LSIDs to RDF might mean that
> the LSID baby got thrown out with the RDF bathwater as the community
> rejected it wholesale. But I was persuaded this wouldn't happen and
> now I face some scepticism here at Kew about the benefits of RDF so a
> killer app would be good...
>
> On the meeting itself, yes it was frustrating (and interesting and
> useful as well) and it struck me on my return that we might have got
> further had we had some professional (and neutral) facilitators - not
> to say that the chairs didn't do a good job getting us all to a
> decision in the end, but that we are all (me included) so parti pris
> and bound up in the subject that herding cats didn't even come close
> ... For the next meeting the decisions will be harder and more
> concrete and there will be a lot to decide. It might help having
> people who know how to facilitate useful debate and close off some of
> the blind alleys and circular pathways we have a tendency to wander
> into
> Sally
>
>
>
> > For those at the workshop, it was great to meet you and to discuss
> > GUIDs. I've posted a personal view on proceedings on one of my blogs:
> > http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2006/02/globally-unique-identifiers.html .
> > Comments are welcome.
> >
> > Regards
> >
> > Rod
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > ----------------------------------------
> > Professor Roderic D. M. Page
> > Editor, Systematic Biology
> > DEEB, IBLS
> > Graham Kerr Building
> > University of Glasgow
> > Glasgow G12 8QP
> > United Kingdom
> >
> > Phone: +44 141 330 4778
> > Fax: +44 141 330 2792
> > email: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
> > web: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html
> > reprints: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/pubs.html
> >
> > Subscribe to Systematic Biology through the Society of Systematic
> > Biologists Website: http://systematicbiology.org
> > Search for taxon names at http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/portal/
> > Find out what we know about a species at http://ispecies.org
>
> *** Sally Hinchcliffe
> *** Computer section, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
> *** tel: +44 (0)20 8332 5708
> *** S.Hinchcliffe at rbgkew.org.uk
>
------=_Part_10117_16586093.1139690647088
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: inline
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td class="bodyCopyBlackLargeSpaced" valign="top" width="3%"><strong></strong><br></td>
<td class="bodyCopyBlackLargeSpaced" width="89%"><strong>Rethinking the semantic Web. Part I</strong><br>
McCool, R.;<br>
Internet Computing, IEEE<br>
Volume 9,
Issue 6,
Nov.-Dec. 2005
Page(s):88, 86
-
87
<br><strong>Abstract:</strong><br>
<br>
The semantic Web is a compelling vision, in which the World Wide Web
will include a notion of meaning in data and services. Intelligent
agents will exchange information and rules for how to interact with
that information, with or without human intervention; appointments will
be automatically scheduled; and automated agents will select and invoke
services. Information will be easy to find without depending solely on
keywords. In part one of this column, the author propose several
reasons that this vision hasn't yet been adopted despite substantial
research funding in the US and European Union (EU). These reasons will
provide the foundation for a new approach, which propose in part two.</td></tr></tbody></table><br>McCool is one of the architects of a number of RDF and RDF related systems. This doesn't bear very much on LSID vs. something else, but it does argue that RDF is burdened by its weight and hasn't achieved certain of its aims. A question arises about whether this has implications for other applications that have ontological overtones, including many of TDWGs.
<br><br>The second columm is in the January issue of the same journal. <br><br><br><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 2/10/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Sally Hinchcliffe</b> <<a href="mailto:S.Hinchcliffe at kew.org">
S.Hinchcliffe at kew.org</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Hi Rod,<br>Your comment facility is down or I would have added this to the blog
<br>...<br>I think that most of the talk re serving XML from LSIDs was by way of<br>an upgrade path rather than as a final goal. As you say (rightly or<br>wrongly) the community has put a lot of effort into XML schemas and
<br>it worried me (and others) that tying LSIDs to RDF might mean that<br>the LSID baby got thrown out with the RDF bathwater as the community<br>rejected it wholesale. But I was persuaded this wouldn't happen and<br>now I face some scepticism here at Kew about the benefits of RDF so a
<br>killer app would be good...<br><br>On the meeting itself, yes it was frustrating (and interesting and<br>useful as well) and it struck me on my return that we might have got<br>further had we had some professional (and neutral) facilitators - not
<br>to say that the chairs didn't do a good job getting us all to a<br>decision in the end, but that we are all (me included) so parti pris<br>and bound up in the subject that herding cats didn't even come close<br>... For the next meeting the decisions will be harder and more
<br>concrete and there will be a lot to decide. It might help having<br>people who know how to facilitate useful debate and close off some of<br>the blind alleys and circular pathways we have a tendency to wander<br>into<br>
Sally<br><br><br><br>> For those at the workshop, it was great to meet you and to discuss<br>> GUIDs. I've posted a personal view on proceedings on one of my blogs:<br>> <a href="http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2006/02/globally-unique-identifiers.html">
http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2006/02/globally-unique-identifiers.html</a> .<br>> Comments are welcome.<br>><br>> Regards<br>><br>> Rod<br>><br>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
<br>> ----------------------------------------<br>> Professor Roderic D. M. Page<br>> Editor, Systematic Biology<br>> DEEB, IBLS<br>> Graham Kerr Building<br>> University of Glasgow<br>> Glasgow G12 8QP
<br>> United Kingdom<br>><br>> Phone: +44 141 330 4778<br>> Fax: +44 141 330 2792<br>> email: <a href="mailto:r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk">r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk</a><br>> web: <a href="http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html">
http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html</a><br>> reprints: <a href="http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/pubs.html">http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/pubs.html</a><br>><br>> Subscribe to Systematic Biology through the Society of Systematic
<br>> Biologists Website: <a href="http://systematicbiology.org">http://systematicbiology.org</a><br>> Search for taxon names at <a href="http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/portal/">http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/portal/
</a><br>> Find out what we know about a species at <a href="http://ispecies.org">http://ispecies.org</a><br><br>*** Sally Hinchcliffe<br>*** Computer section, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew<br>*** tel: +44 (0)20 8332 5708<br>
*** <a href="mailto:S.Hinchcliffe at rbgkew.org.uk">S.Hinchcliffe at rbgkew.org.uk</a><br></blockquote></div><br>
More information about the tdwg-tag
mailing list