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@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@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@rbgkew.org.uk